Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) - A Nostalgic Mess That Will Keep You Glued To The Screen
- Zebediah Oke
- Dec 15, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Dec 21, 2021
Spider-Man: No Way Home follows on immediately from the events of Spider-Man: Far from Home as Peter Parker (Tom Holland) faces the repercussions of being exposed by Mysterio. His worst nightmare realised, his unmasking (exacerbated by the infuriatingly obsessed J. Jonah Jameson, who’s JK Simmons reprises the role from Sam Raimi’s Spiderman) sees him hounded by the general public, law enforcement and his own schoolmates alike. Peter’s Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), girlfriend MJ (Zendaya), and best friend, Ned (Jacob Batalon) all find themselves dealing with the consequences of being affiliated with Spider-man and so, desperate to regain some semblance of normality for himself and the loved ones he cares for, Peter asks for the help of Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to make the world forget the revelation of Mysterio’s Hail Mary. What follows is an erratic, spectacular and heart-wrenching series of events that will change the trajectory of Peter Parker’s life forever.
Flows
Giddy Nostalgia
Spider-Man: No Way Home is cinematically engineered to send your heart and mind back to a simpler time. For a lot of us who were just kids when Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man swung onto our screens for the first time, this film will elicit a Ratatouille-food-critic type cerebral response–as we chew on the film’s familiarity and we’re sent back to a warm and dreamy time where we were in fresh-faced awe.
The heart of Peter Parker
As past villains Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina) and Dr. Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe) find their way into Marvel Cinematic Universe, a big chunk of the plot is about how Peter Parker will navigate his moral compass. In a universe which deals with death on macro and micro scales with much nonchalance–one where a punishment of death or eradication is deemed necessary if the big bad is bad enough, it’s quite interesting to watch Peter Parker act in a way so antithetical to the Hollywood trope of “tying up loose ends” when it comes to the villain. As the friendly neighbourhood Spiderman, Peter Parker’s urge to understand and help these characters and give them a second chance gives this film a great sense of heart.
Doctor Strange clash
Since the release of Doctor Strange, the visual lushness of his sorcery–particularly what he can conjure in the mirrorverse–has been cinematographically impressive. As Spider-Man and Doctor Strange barrel through the mirrorverse, the choreography of their fight scene and the usage of the CGI create a truly spectacular clash.
Holland
As perhaps the heaviest burden yet, Peter Parker rushes to under his worst nightmare playing out before his very eyes. The confliction that he fills is palpable in Tom Holland’s performance. When watching Spider-Man: Homecoming, I was most impressed by the scene where Vulture (Micheal Keaton) drops the building on Peter Parker. In the debris, Parker pleads for help and despite his super strength, combat cockiness and endearing optimism, in that moment he captures something very human–and we remember that he’s just a kid. There’s a lot of times when superheroes fight we mistake their super-humanity for a lack of it–but that isn’t the case with Peter Parker and Holland’s portrayal of him. We feel the weight of his mistakes. He doesn’t wrap them in quips or blind fury. He gets angry because he’s hurting. He’s hurting because he’s lost so much. And Holland does a great job of taking us with him on that journey.
Ebbs
Nostalgia
In a film that draws and hinges on so much nostalgia, there can only be so much familiarity-driven surprise until the law of diminishing returns begins to take hold and after the rosy haze of giddy nostalgia lifts, you start to realise bits and pieces about the film that could’ve done with a little tune up.
Script
The writing often suffers under the magnificent weight of the film’s storyline–with some of the comedic banter not punching quite hard enough and some of the more emotional notes not quite caressing the heartstrings touchingly enough. This is especially felt with Doctor Strange, whose typical razor-wit is missing as he’s saddled with lines like “this is why I never had kids.”
Fight scenes
I’ve been fairly unsatisfied with the climactic scenes of the MCU’s Spider-man trilogy. And as high as the stakes are, Spider-Man: No Way Home struggles to stick the landing when it comes to conceptualising a compelling end-of-the-movie brawl. The fight descends into a CGI whirlwind of digital dust and electricity, whilst there seems to be a reluctance (or inability) to lean into the insectile acrobatics that Spider-Man is known to perform.
Hinting at a Black Spiderman
There’s something iffy about Electro (Jamie Foxx) hinting that Spider-Man should be Black because he’s poor and from Queens (especially when the resounding success of Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse centering Miles Morales was probably a driving factor in making this live-action multiverse happen). My eyes would’ve rolled back harder if they weren’t so glued to the screen.
Conclusion
By 2022, Spider-Man: No Way Home will likely be the first film in 3 years to pass a billion dollars. In retail sales alone, Spider-Man is a billion dollar enterprise and is by far the most popular and recognisable superhero on the face of the planet. By drawing from over 50 years of comic book creativity and 20 years of cinematic history, Spider-Man: No Way Home is a momentous accumulation of Spider-Man’s impressive evolution–as a globally recognisable figure of goodness and as a formidable force on the silver screen. But the bigger they are, the harder they fall, and this vastness doesn’t always stick the landing. Some jokes fall short, some stray lines could’ve been tightened up, some of the fight scenes could’ve relied less on CGI and more on balletic, arachnic choreography. This is a film that, on occasion, stumbles over the weight of its own ambition (and I wonder how much of these faux pas are brought about by the less-than-ideal Sony/Disney corporate partnership that Spider-Man has been dragged through) but it picks itself up, as Spider-Man has pledged to do for himself over and over again, to create an exhilarating yet heartwrenching end of a trilogy–one that will leave us aching to know what’s in store for the world’s favourite web slinger now.
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