Welcome back you everyone. It is I, Doc Comeau and I am back with another movie review. This week I am reviewing the new Marvel Movie Event, Spider-Man: No Way Home. Afterlife stars Tom Holland, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alfred Molina and many others. This movie is a tribute to Spider-Man Lore and may even rival MArvel's Endgame as greatest MCU Film Of All Time.
Authored by Doc Comeau on Tuesday, December 21th, 2021 at 5:07 PM EST
Spider-Man No Way Home is the third film in Marvel's Cinematic Universe created under parent company Disney and the latest in a series of video endeavors that go back to the late seventies. In this version Spider-Man and his allies try to fix the consequences of the previous film and this causes the multiverse inhabitants surrounding his character to all collide in the MCU universe. A consequence that sees him fight several villains from previous attempts at Spider-Man movies in order to save the multiverse and his friends and family.
Spider-Man: No Way Home was Directed by Jon Watts, the Director behind such projects as Spider-Man: Homecoming, Cop Car and the Onion News Network. According to IMDb the man was brought into this world in in "Colorado in June 1981." Not much else is available on IMDb on the man, but we are sure glad he brought us the last three Spider-Man Films and glorious satire in the Onion News. Going to have to pay attention to projects from the man moving forward.
Tom Holland returns as the MCU's version of Spider-Man. This time around Tom plays a Spider-Man whose identity is known by the entire world and is desperate to escape the fame and return to a life where he didn't have to fight to save the world. As always Holland knocks it out of the park and is the physical embodiment of Peter Parker while on screen.
Dr. Strange appears alongside Spider-man in this new film and is once again portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch. Just as with all the MCU casts aside from maybe the original Captain Marvel actress Cumberbatch brings the character to life as he does each and every time. I don't think there is a single performance I have seen him in where it was not nearly perfect.
Alfred Molina reprised his role as Doctor Octavis. Molina is essentially the same character she played in Sony's second Spider-Man film. It is of no surprise he does just as good as he did in his previous appearance and is only one of several villains revealed to be a part of the film. He was a perfect choice to play him then and continues to be the right choice today.
Rotten Tomatoes had no Audience Consnsus but the current "Audience Score" is sitting at a 99%. Almost rated as a perfect movie by the current audience that provided a review. You can read the Critics Consensus in the excerpt below, but their current score on the Tomatometer is "94%." Giving us another rare occasion where the audience and critics almost unanimously agree the film is a masterpiece.
CRITICS CONSENSUS: A bigger, bolder Spider-Man sequel, No Way Home expands the franchise's scope and stakes without losing sight of its humor and heart.
So those of you that want to avoid spoilers can do so easily I will give you my overall rating now. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being good awful and 10 being a masterpiece, this film gets a 9.7 out of 10. It had enough to be a fantastic film but it failed to out do Avengers: Endgame and left you wanting a bit more.
On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being good awful and 10 being a masterpiece, this film gets a 9.7 out of 10. It had enough to be a fantastic film but it failed to out do Avengers: Endgame and left you wanting a bit more. - Doc Comeau
Borrowing from the title of one of Marvel's upcoming films, the story of Spider-Man: No Way Home is a complicated mess of multiverse madness. It opens up with a more detailed version of the end of the previous film. So from this point out if you wish to avoid spoilers you may want to choose to close this review and go see the film before returning to finish reading it.
The film opens with the villain Mysterio from the previous movie revealing to the world that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. However, this film elaborates further with Mysterio blaming his actions from the last film on Parker/Spider-Man and cause legal and life troubles for not only himself but his friends and family as well. This causes Peter to track down Dr. Strange and seek a magical solution for his dilemma.
This part of the film also saw the first Easter Egg for the greater MCU. Charlie Cox returns as Matt Murdock aka Daredevil in a cameo as a lawyer for Peter and company. Officially bringing in at least the same actor for the fan loved Netflix series into the MCU proper. A good companion reveals to Disney+'s reveal of the Kingpin on its Hawkeye series.
Dr. Strange agrees to help Peter using magic despite Wong's disapproval and they begin crafting a magic spell to make people forget he is Spider-Man and therefore fix the lives of his friends and family destroyed by his actions as your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. During the casting of the spell Peter is his usual rambling self trying to alter the parameters of the spell to exclude his friends and family and it results in the spell going haywire. Instead of erasing people's memories of his identity, it started transporting people across the multiverse that know Peter Parker is Spider-Man.
This is when we get our first real villain fight. Peter tracks down an admissions administrator of MIT, in order to try and fix his friends being denied for his actions as Spider-Man. He finds the woman in a car on the way to the airport on one of New York's iconic bridges. During his plea for his friends, they are attacked by Doc Oct and Peter must subdue him and save the people trapped on the bridge. A fight that ends with Green Goblin bombing the bridge from off camera.
After subduing Doc Oct, Dr. Strange tells Peter what is going on with the spell they cast and that other villains that know his identity are showing up all around the city by showing Peter he already caught the Lizard from The Amazing Spider-Man film starring Andrew Garfield. He explains to Peter they have to capture everyone that slipped through the spell's containment and send them back to their own world's or the multiverse can implode. To accomplish this Dr. Strange contains the spell inside a magical box with a referral button.
So Peter and his friends leave to go track down the Green Goblin from the Bridge fight
and end up running into another villain near a bunch of power lines. This is where Peter discovers Electro from another on the previous films who absorbs the power and retakes corporeal form. After failing to capture Electro immediately Peter is forced to fight him.
A fight that Peter is only able to win with the help of our third villain the Sandman who is yet again from one of Sony's previous films. After the two of them subdues Electro Peter, he is secured in Dr. Strange's basement with the other two villains and leaves to track down the Green Goblin. Someone who he finds easily due to his Aunt May finding him while Osborn is in control of his mind.
Aunt May convinces Peter to help the villains return to normal instead of sending them back to the timelines of their perspective films to die in the envents of those films. This results in Peter fighting Dr. Strange for control of the kill box in the mirror dimension. One of the films best fight scenes that ends with Peter winning, taking the box and temporarily stranding Dr. Strange by taking his margical ring.
Peter then takes them all back to where he was living in order to attempt to cure them and send them all back to not be killed and live a full a normal life. However, he is only able to help Doctor Octavis before the Green Goblin takes control over Osborn's mind again and they escape with the help of the other four villains. A fight that results in the death of Aunt May where Holland's Spider-Man finally gets the with Great Power comes Great Responsibility speech normally given to him by his Uncle Ben.
This causes Peter to vanish into the night to process his very deep loss. In order to find him and give their emotional support Ned and MJ attempt to use Strange's stolen ring to open a portal to find their friend. After two failed attempts the two of them along with Toby Mcquire's and Andrew Garfield's Spider-Men find Peter and lift his spirits a bit. They then make a plan to finish what Aunt May started and save the remaining villains.
In the end they are able to take down the other villains and cure them with the help of Doc Oct who Holland cured prior. However, this is not before he sacrifices his remaining friends by directing Dr. Strange to use his identity to reverse the film as Green Goblin destroyed the box and there is no other way. The film then ends with Spider-Man swinging into New York wearing his original comic suit. With the credit scene being Tom Hardy's Venom being returned to their universe, but not before leaving behind a piece of Venom.
The story and screenplay of this film was fantastic. You do not need to see all the other films to enjoy this film, but if you do, you are rewarded with everything you wanted to see respected and answered. On my scale of 1 to 10, I have to give this film the score it deserves. I rate this section of the movie as a 10 out of 10. It was a monument to Spider-Man.
I rate this section of the movie as a 10 out of 10. It was a monument to Spider-Man. - Doc Comeau
There were too many good performances and Dialogue to go over every single one. I had no choice but to choose the best pieces to use here. As a monument to Spider-Man its not surprising every actor and actress truly showed up for these performances.
Among these standouts are the exchanges between Peter and Strange. When Peter shows up, he is nervous and calling Strange, Sir, which he tells Peter to be more formal as they have a history together. This is the proper form of respect that happens when people save the universe together. This respect is eroded when Peter breaks the spell and Strange tells him to call him Sir again. An exchange paid off perfectly when Strange tells him to call him Stephen after he sacrifices the memory of himself in others in order to protect and restore the multiverse.
Another stellar performance was William Dafoe's reprisal of the Green Goblin. He doesn't simply enter this film as the Green Goblin, he maintained the schizophrenic personality, he had in his original film. Struggling between the insane and psychotic Green Goblin and the scared, intelligent and remorseful Harry Osborn. He has truly risen to the role and carries the team of villains. Especially the scene at the end where he is telling Holland that even though he killed May, Peter was the one that got her killed trying to goad him into killing him and becoming a monster.
The best performances and dialogue in this film comes from the team dynamic of all three Spider-Men. They had lots of awesome scenes where they were discussing their experiences. Andrew's Peter being jealous the other two got to fight aliens and Toby's Peter telling him not to feel that way because he was Amazing given a subtle nod to the title of Garfield's first film. Andrew is helping Toby with his back problems. The three of them asking Toby about his organic web shooting. Even them stumbling into a formidable team. It is by far the highlight of the film.
I want to make sure you understand none of the other performances were bad either. Every character had character development to add to what they received in their origin films and were legitimate supporting characters. Not a single spoken role was background filler. Every performance and scene served the overall narrative. I was forced to give this movie a 9 out of 10. It was almost perfect. I wanted more team dynamic between the villains and heroes.
Every performance and scene served the overall narrative. I was forced to give this movie a 9 out of 10. It was almost perfect. I wanted more team dynamic between the villains and heroes. - Doc Comeau
This section of the film was perhaps the worst of the film. Now I am not trying to say the Cinematography in Spider: No Way Home was bad by any means. All I am trying to say is that there was nothing in this film that was revolutionary or outshines the previous films. It was the same Tripple A quality known across the MCU films.
For this reason I have nothing really big to talk about in this section aside from some of the sequences I thought were a but creative. There was this scene where Peter was web slinging MJ around the city to avoid the mob bombarding them with questions and there were pieces of that sequence where the camera was a face shot of MJ's reactions to it. These sequences were good.
The CGI electricity on Electro was also another great sequence. It helps complete the iconic star helmet he had in the comics, though, is lightning rather than a physical piece of the costume. The choice to power him with Stark Arc Reactor was a perfect choice to help explain the slight differences in visuals between the two movies.
However, nothing stood as as revolutionary in regards to Marvel Studios films. Still the film's crew did an excellent job and I wrote this section of the film 10 out of 10. My only complaint is I wanted more of what I got.
Still the film's crew did an excellent job and I wrote this section of the film 10 out of 10. My only complaint is I wanted more of what I got. - Doc Comeau
Spider-Man: No Way Home was truly a moment to Spider-Man and the characters longtime fans. It pays homage to every Spider-Man film across both the MCU and SONY films. It finishes character development and doesn't relegate a single character to an unimportant background character. I would recommend this movie for the whole family. It has been the first sold-out film since the Pandemic. Truly worth the trip to the theater.
1) IMDb.com. (2021, December 17). Spider-man: No way home. IMDb. Retrieved December 19, 2021, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10872600/
Archived At; https://archive.ph/sm9no
2 ) Rotten Tomatoes. (2021, December 19). Spider-man: No way home. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved December 19, 2021, from https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/spider_man_no_way_home
Archived At; https://archive.ph/oI7zb
3) McKenna, C., Sommers, E., & Lee, S. (n.d.). Spider-Man No Way Home. Marvel.
4) IMDb.com. (2012, July 3). The amazing spider-man. IMDb. Retrieved December 21, 2021, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0948470/
Archived At; https://archive.ph/jlPya
5) IMDb.com. (2007, May 4). Spider-man 3. IMDb. Retrieved December 21, 2021, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0413300/
Archived At; https://archive.ph/o0X9
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