NOTE: There are exactly ZERO spoilers in this review. The only plot details I mention have already been revealed in the film's various trailers.
As a comic book fan, you come to understand pretty quickly your favorite heroes are always at the mercy of a given creative team: You get the right artist and writer combo, and they bring out the very best of what's possible with the character; but, conversely, the wrong team, who doesn't seem to get the nuances, can become nightmarish -- like watching John McClane as portrayed by Wally Shawn.
The Marvel Comics Universe version of Spider-Man, first appearing in "Captain America: Civil War," seemed almost effortlessly spot-on. With great respect to previous iterations (especially Andrew Garfield, who did yeoman work with inferior materials), Tom Holland's portrayal -- nervous, twitchy, and endearing -- and the world the subsequent solo films crafted for him, seemed vastly more in keeping with the true gestalt of the character. For this film, presumably the last of the series, it would seem as if the current creative team has lost the thread a bit.
"Spider-Man: No Way Home," the third installment of the Sony/Disney Spider-Man collaboration (brought about because Marvel sold the film rights to their most popular character back in the '90s, when they were staving off bankruptcy), has an enormous amount of expectation behind it, and the weight of the entire MCU, which needs a good shot of adrenaline after a somewhat lackluster year (of the three previous releases in 2021, only "Shang-Chi" felt remotely revelatory). Speculation about the film, and its various plot points and shocking surprises, has become a cottage industry on endless YouTube channels, with various super-fans breathlessly broadcasting "breaking news" stories about their own conjecture and opinions. The second full trailer, released last month, garnered a staggering 355+ million views in 24 hours.
THE PLOT
What is already widely known about the film's plot comes from the pair of existing official trailers, and spins off the conclusion of the last movie. At the end of the second installment, the secret identity of Spider-Man, Peter Parker (Tom Holland), was revealed by the conniving Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal), who also made it appear as if Spider-Man himself had wreaked havoc in London, killing him in the process.
This film begins immediately after the previous one ends, with Peter, and his girlfriend, MJ (Zendaya), suddenly trapped in Times Square, with an enraged crowd gathering around them. Escaping back home to Queens proves fruitless, as news copters hover around the building, and angry crowds (slogan: "We believe Mysterio") form in front of the entranceway to his building. As Peter holes up with Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), and Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), Tony Stark's former right-hand man, media mogul J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) keeps feeding the negative spin (at one point, he calls him a "web-headed war criminal"), leading Peter to become one of the most notorious people on the planet.
What's worse for him, though, is the way his newfound infamy also manages to negatively affect MJ, and his best friend, Ned (Jacob Batalon), as the three of them try to move on with their lives and get accepted into college. In desperation, Peter heads to the West Village, and the inner sanctum of Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), pleading with the former Sorcerer Supreme to do something to help him. The two hatch a plan to cast a spell that will make everyone forget who he is, but Peter keeps interrupting the casting, to the point where things go haywire, and the multiverse is suddenly opened up, enabling villains from other versions of Earth (and from the previous iterations of the franchise) to suddenly show up on this planet, looking for revenge against Spider-Man.
From this interdimensional crew, there's Doc Ock (Alfred Molina), of course, the Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), and the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), from the series' first trilogy (directed by Sam Raimi); but also Electro (Jamie Foxx), and the Lizard (Rhys Ifans) from the second iteration (directed by Marc Webb), all conjured up from elsewhere, and tearing up the place. To go much further would reveal too much, but suffice it to say, it's up to Peter and his friends to round up this sinister crew (Spidey fans will know what I did there), and send them all back from whence they came.
'THRILLS AND SPILLS'
For the most part, the film delivers a suitable amount of thrills and spills. There are a multitude of fan-service shout-outs and cameos (one of which, I must admit, was particularly thrilling), and plenty of moments of levity amid the carnage of (fair to middling) CGI effects, and flying bodies. Jon Watts, who helmed the first two of these films, working from a script by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, certainly gives the film his all, filling the screen with every manner of contrivance -- a fun shot of Peter and MJ swinging through the city from a web POV; in-jokes, asides, and silly set-tos that try to give the film a loose vibe -- but the strain of so many things having to get accomplished, even with its extended running time, still gives it a sort of manufactured quality.
It might be unfair to say, it's impossible to know how much influence one studio had over the other in this production, but, especially by the tumultuous third act, it does have more of a Sony vibe to it -- for that definition, see the recent "Venom: Carnage" -- wherein plot exposition takes precedence over everything else, and characters act in ways that seem counter to their previously established identities, often making egregious mistakes of judgment that truly don't make sense, other than to fortify the story with twists and turns. For all the bits in the film where characters are allowed to just hang out with each other and riff (some of which work quite well), there's still a strong feeling of the expositional tail wagging the narrative dog, which drains the film of much needed juice.
Whenever you see well-established characters acting in nonsensical ways to further a plotline, it costs precious credibility -- which, obviously, is a relative thing when you're considering a teenager who can cling to walls and swing on webs -- an axiom to which the MCU has historically been pretty good at avoiding. Unfortunately, here, far too often, the screenplay calls for our heroes to make shockingly poor errors of judgment for no other reason than to make something else happen.
To be sure, the film's not dull, and there are enough inventive moments to carry you through mostly unscathed, but it doesn't generate much forward-leaning energy, the sense of things to come (the two post-film bonus scenes serve to push each studio's next agenda forward without much surprise or excitement), as much as it sort of stumbles to the finish line. Lots of things happen, some of them huge, but the emotional cost of these revelations for the most part feels less organic than forced, including an ending that could otherwise have been deeply moving in the Hollywood tradition of romantic self-sacrifice.
The MCU, at its best, is able to combine an action-movie ethos with well-defined and detailed character work, generally making the various franchises feel more interesting than exploited, a neat trick that has historically left many critics enthralled, even as the films' staggering popularity rewrote box office record books. Alas, such appears to be no longer the case, at least as far as this particular franchise is concerned: With respect to Spidey's multitude of comics titles, each with their own defining adjective, behold, true-believers, the concluding flick in this series: the spectacle Spider-Man.
‘Spider-Man:
No Way Home’
86 Cast: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, Marisa Tomei, Willem Dafoe, Jamie Foxx, Alfred Molina, Benedict Wong, Martin Starr, J.K. Simmons, J.B. Smoove, Thomas Haden Church, Rhys Ifans
Director: Jon Watts
Rating: PG-13, for some language, sequences of action/violence, and brief suggestive comments
Running time: 2 hours 28 minutes
Playing theatrically
After eight movies and multiple TV series and other projects across the multi-verse, Spider-Man (Tom Holland, in this iteration) is still hanging in there. The latest effort is Jon Watts’ “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”