Spidey is back, and so are his greatest foes – incy wincy spoilers may follow...
Director: Jon Watts
Starring: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch
Running time: 148 minutes
Despite the character’s comic book origins, Spider-Man has garnered quite the cinematic heritage over the years, arguably eclipsing King Kong as the silver screen’s most iconic skyscraper scaler. Spin-offs and guest appearances aside, Jon Watts’s No Way Home marks the eighth live-action Spidey outing of the century, and serves as the web that ties its predecessors together.
Picking up immediately after the cliffhanger ending of 2019’s Far From Home, the third Tom Holland-starring Spider-Man film begins with a set-up that’s contrived even by Marvel’s standards. Spider-Man’s true identity has been revealed to the world as a final trump card by the late villain Mysterio, and so the unmasked Peter Parker turns to his Avengers colleague Doctor Stephen Strange for assistance. The inexplicably amenable Strange offers to cast a spell to erase all memory that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, but Peter – who really could have just told his friends his secret a second time – interrupts and subsequently corrupts the enchantment when he becomes worried that it will interfere with his relationships.
Of course, you’ll know from the posters that this magical plot device is mainly a ploy to crack open the multiverse and pit Spidey against an ensemble cast of antagonists from across the franchise’s history. The marketing around the film promises nothing less than a fanservice feast, and it certainly delivers on that front. The likes of Alfred Molina, Jamie Foxx and best of all, Willem Dafoe are clearly having the time of their lives as a group of snarling, cackling supervillains. While an inelegant screenplay makes it often feel more like a compilation of video game cutscenes than a truly solid narrative, there’s abundant joy to be had in seeing nearly two decades of Spider-Man movies culminate into something that so closely resembles what we’ve only come to expect from comics and animation until now.
Director Jon Watts turns a potential mess of a movie into the best of his three Spider-Man films
No Way Home mines the fertile ground of the post-Endgame MCU much in the same way as this year’s equally entertaining Shang-Chi (and then some), dropping references and cameos like nobody’s business. It’s wish fulfilment cinema to the max, but the film doesn’t forget to ground its twists and turns with emotional weight – several of the callbacks to previous storylines offer more than just nostalgia and are genuinely quite affecting. By having an almost limitless sandbox to play in and an understanding of when to lean into the melodrama and when to play for laughs, director Jon Watts turns a potential mess of a movie into the best of his three Spider-Man films.
Does this make it a great movie as far as movies go? Not really – it knows its demographic and isn’t trying to turn any heads from the other side of the fence. This is an MCU film through and through. However, if you’re one of the many fans who’ve been counting down the days until Spidey’s return to the big screen, you can rest assured that you’re almost guaranteed to walk out of this one feeling well and truly satisfied with the web-slinging, multiverse-saving thrills that transpire.
Did you know? Several of the film’s stars had yet to sign on as the first day of filming approached, meaning the story nearly took a drastically different route. “Some people were trying to figure out whether they wanted to do it, and we needed all of them or none,” Tom Holland told GQ. The script continued to go through numerous changes even after filming began.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is in cinemas now
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