A film franchise hopes and dreams to have a film in their catalogue that transcends what a normal film is, to become something more, to be an event in cinema that has collective praise, and shock for what is witnessed on the screen. Marvel now has three under their belt, each as mind blowing and cinematically shocking as the last. Under the watchful eye of Fiege, Marvel just isn’t missing. Proving time and time again that they are masterful storytellers.
On his press tour Tom Holland reiterated multiple times that this is the culmination of three generations of cinema, and what’s mad is that this film isn’t just that, it’s a faithful and successful story that ties together twenty years of cinema. As a Spider-Man fan, and moreover, a fan of Watts films in particular, this film delivered on all fronts, giving me all I wanted and more.
Part of my fear going into this film was that it would be so overfilled with storylines, new characters, and new concepts that it wouldn’t be able to deliver on a thematically resonant and concise story for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, yet my fears were misplaced. The story that’s told in No Way Home is a quintessential modern Spider-Man story that fully allows Peter to come into his own by the end of it AND it manages to tie together the themes and ideas of the first two films as well perfectly.
Many complain that Tom’s Spider-Man isn’t good because he was handed everything to him from Tony Stark, or that the plots of the previous films aren’t faithful to the comics, or that he hasn’t suffered enough like other Spider-Men. And while I completely disagreed with this while watching the first two Watts films, as I believe they’re just good examples of world building and unique stories that just happen to feature Spider-Man, this film wraps up the narrative of the trilogy in such a special way that I would find it hard for anyone to make these complains now.
If the first film is viewed as Peter discovering what Spider-Man means to him, without all the gadgets or suits, trying to get to the core of what makes Spider-Man, Spider-Man. And the second film is viewed as Peter overcoming the shadow of Tony Stark and learning to deal with the responsibility of being a hero. Then this third film can be viewed as the perfect end cap: a story where Spider-Man learns the consequences of his actions and has to take responsibility for it but also as a hero learning that it’s his responsibility to see good when others don’t. In this way the ending to this film mirrors Tony’s decision in Endgame, with Peter making what is an ultimate sacrifice, thus allowing the trilogy to come full circle with Peter being the “new Tony Stark”. As Happy said in FFH, even Tony couldn’t live up to the idea of Iron Man and that’s exactly what happens here, Peter makes this decision for the greater good cause it’s what he must do as a hero not because he’s trying to be heroic.
This touching sentiment is brought home in this film many times but in particular by Aunt May, in what is one of the most heartbreaking moments in the MCU to date. Subverting the prototypical Spider-Man story and having Aunt May deliver the iconic “With great power comes great responsibility” was an ingenious decision, as the weight this scene held was far heavier than any other previous iteration of this scene. Having Aunt May be a well-rounded character that audiences have spent time with makes this sacrifice hurt so much more. May has always seen the good in people, even if we’ve only seen this in the background of previous films, but in this film her compassion and belief in kindness comes through tenfold and through Marisa Tomei’s exquisite performance, this is easily the best iteration of this character to exist.
Speaking of best iterations of iconic characters, I think it’s undeniable that Tom Holland is the best Spider-Man. I’ve always found Holland’s performances to be emotionally charged, elevating what can often be very goofy dialogue, yet the performance he showcases in No Way Home is nothing short of brilliant. While maintaining the character of Peter we’ve all become so used to, and love, he’s also able to deliver deep sadness and rage that doesn’t ever feel out of place but is always so guttural that you believe Peter at every step.
Tonally this film switches around a lot, yet it never feels disjointed, it does manage to flow consistently and that in part can be attributed to the performances on offer in the film. Not a single actor missteps in this film, the main trio in this film allow it to still remain, in part, a high school comedy. Zendaya and Jacob Batalon are standouts, in a film where there’s a lot of other big players, I was worried that these two would be neglected, but they have some of their best moments in the MCU. Ned continues to be a comedic delight and the hints to him with magic were completely unexpected but completely welcome. Zendaya expectedly is outstanding, she’s just a great supporting character, in all meanings of the word. She is her own character, but she also brings out the best in everyone she’s acting opposite. The moment where she is saved and the little “Are you ok?” she says is acting at its finest.
Let’s talk about another outstanding performance though. Willem. Dafoe. My god. Willem said he would only do this film if he did all his own stunts and I’m so glad he did cause he was completely unhinged in this film. This film takes the Green Goblin from Raimi’s trilogy to inconceivable heights, resulting in one of the greatest CMB villains of all time. Dafoe’s performance is something out of a full-on horror film, he’s enticingly creepy and utterly frightening. Anytime the Goblin came out there was genuine fear as to what would happy as he felt like a threat. His softer side being allowed to shine through as well I though was a nice touch as it added some much-needed weight to the villains.
The other villains on offer here range from fantastic to passable. Now the MCU has obviously taken some creative liberties in how they decided to characterise the villains, but never did it feel completely unreasonable or out of place. Molina both before and after his chip was replaced was incredible and continued his brilliant performance as a good man who was corrupted by something outside of his control. His dynamic with Holland’s Peter was really fun too and the two has great back and forth dialogue. The rest of the villains weren’t particularly impactful, some of the dialogue they had wasn’t great and some weren’t even given that much to do. However, this never felt like a problem as the way they were utilised in the final act was great.
The biggest complaint I’ve seen of this film is that’s it’s just fan service. Now while I don’t disagree that this film is saturated with fan service, it’s full of meaningful fan service that in turn services the plot. Everything comes together in a way that both excites fans and drives the plot forward. Tobey and Andrew’s inclusion was delightful and completely unexpected in the way they were introduced, I loved that MJ and Ned were the first to interact with them, and that scene was such a fun place setter to show how they’re still the same characters but have grown up since we last seen them.
Everything with Tobey and Andrew was fantastic, the quips between the three of them, the shared trauma they all have and the way in which they stopped Holland’s Spider-Man going down a path that they knew would lead to darkness, it was all handled so carefully. Also, this film cements the fact that Andrew Garfield is the best working actor at the moment, that small moment with MJ is heart-breaking.
The film’s ending is genuinely shocking to me and proof that Watts and his team done a great job as I was genuinely upset where it left off in a good way. This film is unrelenting on Peter, and it doesn’t do the classic happy ending found in so many CBMs, it doubles down on the tragic ending and the film is all the better for it.
This film isn’t perfect, it’s far sloppier than a perfect film should be, but this film achieves far more than it misses, it’s still hard to comprehend how tight this film is considering the heavy lifting it had to do. Failure is a concept which Marvel knows frighteningly little about, and this is another example of the creative geniuses that are behind the MCU. It has brought to life some of the best Spider-Man moments to exist in cinema, told a thematically powerful story that is the perfect end to the trilogy and had fun doing it. One only needs to look not that far over to the Star Wars universe to see how disastrous the conclusion to generations of films can be. I mean this film manages to use Palpatine in a more meaningful way than The Rise of Skywalker. Also, Matt Murdock, I was screaming
★★★★1/2
