Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

 9/10

 Starring

Tom Holland

Zendaya

Benedict Cumberbatch

Jacob Batalon

 

Directed by Jon Watts

 

There were numerous leaks about the cast of this movie and the script’s plot. Well, I’ve finally seen it, and to avoid dropping any spoilers, I’ll just suggest you go watch it yourself to find out if those leaks were true.

No Way Home is one of the best Marvel productions out there and a bright light in the dark tunnel of the recent lack of truly solid blockbusters. This is the third Sony/Marvel Spider-Man movie in the MCU and the 27th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

This movie thrives on the chemistry of its cast, the emotional weight it carries (which had me crying at one point), and its fantastic writing. The action and the way they blended all the different characters will leave you weak in the knees. The movie doesn’t waste time overloading you with theories. Instead, we just see Doctor Strange and Spider-Man mess up big time. The multiverse comes into play, bringing characters from previous Spider-Man movies into this universe—and we learn a lot.

Contains Spoilers

Each of Sony’s Spider-Man iterations has its own backstory, and that’s acknowledged here, with their villains breaking into this Spider-Man’s world. What’s cool is that the Avengers only exist in Tom Holland’s Spider-Man universe.

The villains and characters who show up in this movie include Dr. Octopus, Electro, Sandman, Green Goblin, Lizard, Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), and Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield). However, it felt like there was a numbers game at play, as Electro (Jamie Foxx) was essentially wasted, while even Lizard had more of an impact on the overall story.

When these villains enter this universe, they realize it’s different and are willing to do whatever it takes to stay here instead of going back to their own worlds. Why? Because they were all dragged into this universe moments before they died.

So, how did this great mess occur? At the end of Far From Home (2019), the world learns that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Peter’s (Tom Holland) life spirals into chaos, affecting his friends and Aunt May. Desperate, he goes to Doctor Strange for help, asking him to cast a spell to make everyone forget he’s Spider-Man. As you can imagine, things don’t go as planned.

The more exceptions Peter tries to add to the spell, the more unstable it becomes for Strange to control. Eventually, everything collapses, and the spell pulls characters from the first two Spider-Man franchises (Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man Trilogy by Sam Raimi and Andrew Garfield’s The Amazing Spider-Man by Marc Webb) into this universe.

Strange tasks Peter with rounding up the characters, as each of them is actively searching for him. Strange gives him a device to capture them so they can be sent back to their respective universes.

However, when Peter learns the fates of these villains in their original timelines, he devises a plan with Aunt May’s help to save them. Predictably, it’s one of those overly idealistic, do-gooder plans that everyone warns will fail—but he goes through with it anyway. The consequences of this decision irrevocably change Peter’s life in the MCU and have a huge impact on the MCU as a whole.

Sony and Marvel are already working on a follow-up movie, and I’m excited to see it. The ending of No Way Home directly sets up events that will carry over into the upcoming MCU Doctor Strange sequel.