Spider-Man: No Way Home is finally swinging into cinemas

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THIS MOVIE, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Spider-man: No Way Home is possibly one of the most anticipated movies of 2021, and a great way to end the year.

Not unlike previous reviews, my thoughts are still all over the place after seeing this movie, so I'm going to try and organise my points as best I can.

Into

Spider-Man: No Way Home immediately takes places after the previous movie, Spider-Man: Far from Home. Peter’s identity has been revealed to the world and he must now face the consequences that not only affect him but everyone he loves.

Spider-Man: No Way Home involves elements of the multiverse and all the madness that it involves. It’s Marvel’s 27th movie to be released and no doubt to great success.

Now let’s dive a little deeper into why I think that, starting with the...

Story

The movie starts off with the whole of New York rooting for or against Spider-Man, it’s the celebrity lifestyle to the extreme. Ned, MJ, May and Happy are all affected by the reveal, Peter’s home life and school life comes under fire and even results in the main trio not getting accepted into their dream university.

We get the reveal of Matt Murdoc as Peter’s lawyer, with a tease of his powers when he catches a brick thrown through a window. When asked how he did that, he only responds: “I’m a really good lawyer.”

After spotting a Doctor Strange-eques Halloween decoration, Peter visits the Sanctum Sanctorum. He comes across Strange and Wong, Strange agrees to help Peter with a spell that doesn’t go to plan. After adding too many rules to said spell, it results in the multiverse splitting open and spitting out anyone that “Knows Peter Parker is Spider-Man".

Skipping ahead a bit, we get to see all the members of the Sinister...five? Not quite the Sinister Six but close enough, especially when Venom gets teased in both the second Venom movie and this. We see a lot of this in the trailers, but Spider-Man must round up the villains and return them to their own worlds.

Once each villain recognises one and another, chaos ensues, and Peter has a change of heart. Now knowing that each villain died fighting Spider-Man, Peter wants to change that and after a mind-melding fight with Doctor Strange, Peter steals the villains to his secret lair.

AKA, Happy’s apartment.

Some betrayal occurs, a Parker dies, and Peter is out for revenge. We get taken to a scene with Ned and MJ who are discussing what to do now that they have no contact with Peter. After some jokes, Ned creates a portal using Doctor Stranger’s sling-ring and we finally see the man who deserves the biggest apology by the internet: Andrew Garfield.

When I say the cinema roared with his appearance, it was insane, my heart was beating so fast. Soon after, we get another grand reveal: Toby Maguire.

Do you hear that? That’s the sound of Andrew Garfield sighing a breath of relief after no longer having to hide the fact that he’s in this movie.

With this out the way, all the Peter’s join to have a heartfelt scene about those they lost and plan how to trap the runaway villains. The end was spectacular and amazing, the fights were insane, and the comedy was on point.

Seeing three Spider-Men pose beside each other will be an image I never get out of my head. The Andrew Garfield redemption arc for losing Gwen was a solid moment and, again, the cinema cheered when he caught MJ.

The ending was bittersweet, Peter saved the world, the universe even, but at what cost? Everyone who knew he was Spider-Man have forgotten who he is, no one knows who Peter Parker is anymore; not MJ, not Ned, not even Doctor Strange.

With no one left for him to turn to, fans finally get to see Tom Holland’s Spider-Man live on his own, use his own tech.

And the reveal of a new suit, a homemade new suit was icing on the cake. The bright blues and reds were so close to the comics and is definitely my favourite Spider-Man suit to come out of this MCU franchise.

Characters

Tom Holland’s Spider-Man really doesn’t get a break. He loses Tony, he loses Aunt May, he loses Happy, he loses MJ and Ned and everyone he could ever confide in about the superhero world.

The guy has it rough and I feel like we see that breakdown during this movie. After Aunt May is killed by the Green Goblin, we see a new side of Peter; a dark side to him that we’ve seen with previous Spider-Men.

I think one of the main complaints about the MCU Spider-Man is that he’s too reliant on other people and he doesn’t really get dark. And let me tell you, this movie answers those calls. We see a darker Peter Parker who’s torn between right and wrong, his morals are gone after May is killed.

He has no one to rely on anymore, only having himself.

Andrew Garfield and Toby Maguire’s Spider-Men were excellent, they really seemed to get back into the character and continue from where they left off. They’re both incredibly funny and all three work well together, Toby definitely gives me some Peter.B.Parker vibes.

I love the banter between them, especially when the topic of Toby’s webs comes up.

As I said before, Andrew gets a redemption arc for not saving Gwen in his universe, he’s also treated with so much respect and I wish this character was just written so well in his own movie because Andrew is such a good Spider-Man.

The villains are average, the Lizard still doesn’t have a good character design, even though all the others get a sort of ‘upgrade’, the lizard is the exact same. Having all the others look somewhat comic accurate and then this flat-faced scale boy just doesn’t fit well, also him speaking perfect English is very jarring.

Otto and Goblin are the stand outs for the villains, Sandman was a little weird. He went from being good to immediately being bad the next second because he doesn’t trust Spider-Man even though they just worked together?

It seems clear to me that the writers just needed a reason for Sandman to be a bad guy, but the sudden turn doesn’t quite fit the representation of that character that we got in the Rami movies.

MJ and Ned possibly have the biggest reason to be in this movie compared to the previous. Most movies keep the sidekick and the girlfriend on the sidelines or as comic relief, and though they do this at times, it’s clear the plot is specifically based around them.

The whole reason Peter wants the spell in the first place is so MJ and Ned get into university and then at the end, it’s at their expense and not Peter's.

Doctor Strange, though not in for most of the movie, still serves his purpose and was great. He’s painted as the villain at the beginning of the movie even though he’s right and it’s his spell that puts everything in place at the end.

Backgrounds/camera shots

There were some beautiful shots in this movie, it will be pretty hard for me to show you as I’m writing this on the day of release, so not many great pictures are available. However, that doesn’t stop me from poorly describing them.

There are two shots from this movie that are burned into my head. The first one is fairly early in the movie, when Peter is fighting Electro and Sandman in the forest. Peter is swinging across the screen, a beautiful sunset behind him and power-lines framing the edge of the screen, it’s beautiful.

The next is towards the end of the movie, all three Spider-Men are together and have finally come up with a plan to stop the villains. They all swing into the air, pose against the moon and land on the statue of liberty. They’re all crouched down, legs kicked out and in the classic Spider-Man position.

A lot of scenes at the beginning of the movie were filmed like a documentary, with shaky cameras and close ups. I specifically like whenever Peter gets a tingle, the camera zooms in uncomfortably close to his face but it really shows the anxiety in Tom’s face.

Music

This will be brief, but the score really elevated certain scenes. The fast-paced drums when Peter’s being hunted by the media, the sorrow that comes through when Aunt May dies and the heroic tunes during the final fight.

I really can’t wait for this score to be released on vinyl.

Mid and end credits

Now the mid-credits were a little confusing to me, I know what Sony wants to set up and I have no doubt that it’ll happen in the years to come.

Spoilers for Venom: Let there be Carnage!

The end credits for the second Venom movie were pretty big. We see Eddie and Venom flash into the MCU at some holiday resort, on the news is the reveal of Peter Parker as Spider-Man.

During this movie we see a bartender explaining to Eddie the events of Infinity War and Endgame. Eddie doesn’t really get them, and Venom is a good symbiote. He then disappears at the same time all the multiverse people go, thanks to Doctor Stranger’s spell.

However, we get a glimpse of a small part of Venom trapped in the MCU. Sony really wants to have Venom and Spider-Man fight and the fans want that too, this is just a way for each to finally meet.

The End credits was a trailer for Doctor Strange: The Multiverse of Madness, however I won’t be discussing it here until the trailer comes out and I’ll be doing a trailer breakdown and theories post.

But I will say I’m very excited about this movie and can’t wait to see my girl, Wanda.

Ending

Now that’s it for my review for Spider-Man: No Way Home. It was an amazing movie and will definitely be in my top five Marvel movies ever made. It has amazing humour, nonstop action and the punches feel very heavy.

This movie is made for the fans and loves getting absurd, this is only the start of the madness of the multiverse, and I can’t wait for this phase to hit full swing.

Spider-Man: No Way Home gets 5 out of 5 web-heads from me.

Spider-Man: No Way Home is currently available in cinemas as of December 15th for the UK and December 16th worldwide.