Spider-Man: No Way Home — Review Thread

Coming to Spider-Man: No Way Home for the first time in early February is quite the experience. I did my best to avoid spoilers, but after about a week people generally stopped caring about trying to be coy. By the time I found my way in a theater, I knew Andrew and Tobey would play a major role, knew Aunt May was gonna be killed by Green Goblin, and even knew the movie was gonna end with MJ and Ned (and the rest of the world) having their memory of Peter erased. That's a bit disappointing, but maybe it's also beneficial. I'm not reacting to the reveals themselves, but the storytelling, aided still by the fact that I'm seeing it in a theater of three total people not packed by fanboys screaming at every cameo and reference. I don't have to watch it as an event, but just as a movie. And as a movie, I thought this was pretty lousy and easily the worst of the MCU Spider-Man entries.

It would be absurd to complain about fan-service in No Way Home. The whole movie's raison d'être is to deliver fan-service. But it does bug me how flimsy the pretenses are. Put bluntly, it's incredibly weak that the catalyst for the story is an ill-advised spell immediately botched because the characters don't think to talk about brainwashing the entire world through magic before just jumping into it. This feels especially out of character for Dr. Strange who placed so much emphasis on preserving the integrity of the magical world in Infinity War. The middle act of the film is all setup, essentially just gathering the pieces - Spider-Men and Spider-Villains - to eventually deliver the big explosive crossover event the film is built on. And when it finally comes it's one fairly middling action scene at the Statue of Liberty. There aren't any memorable or interesting uses of powers nor much in the way of emotional stakes until The Goblin shows up. It's also pretty disappointing that we don't actually see The Sinister Six - or, I guess The Sinister Five - actually work as a complete unit fighting against the Spider-Man. Instead they enter the final battle in small pairs instead of all at once for no discernible reason.

In general the villains here are a major disappointment. It's kind of fun to see The Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus back again and Willem Dafoe definitely brought his working boots, but there's only so much to actually work with. The group on the whole has no real motivation (individual members actually want contradictory things) and just wait around until they're needed for the next action or story beat. The second act of the film is spent largely just hanging around in a condo while Peter and Norman do the important things. There is also an astounding lack of visual imagination in bringing these rouges together for the first time on-screen. Jon Watts doesn't even try to capture a sense of iconography or grandeur in their presentation, in fact I'm not sure there are any shots which show all five villains in the same frame, outside of in the background of Strange's visually indistinct dungeon. Who needs ensemble framing with dynamic lighting and expressive camera angles when flat medium shots will do just fine?

Then there's the fact that the resolution of the conflict depends on the heroes curing the villains of their superpowers who then immediately turn good. Which I hate. It is insulting to these characters to suggest that their motivations and personality are rooted entirely in external factors which can easily be switched on or off. And what does that say philosophically about superheroes and villains? That goodness or evil are all about power and ability, not the convictions of one's character? I do not accept that. It isn't robotic arms or electricity powers that make the villains evil anymore than it's web-swinging which makes Spider-Man a hero. It all comes down to the choices the characters made. Not the abilities, but what they did with them. This is a fundamental cornerstone of superheroes and for No Way Home to reduce that for a simplistic cure to fuel their fan-service plot is a gross missing of the point.

None of this is to say I was totally immune to No Way Home's charms. The core cast remain a likable enough bunch and a handful of action scenes like the Goblin's apartment rampage or the battle in the Mirrorverse do deliver the escapist thrills we've come to want from Marvel. But these moments are fleeting. Taken as a whole, Spider-Man: No Way Home is a disappointment, a film eager to deliver a nostalgic dopamine hit but lacking the imagination to give that crossover texture. And even when viewed purely as a spectacle, the results are middling. Move past the excitement of the novelty and what does No Way Home really offer? Not a lot, and I suspect time will tell as much. The further away we get from packed theaters screaming at every cameo and big reveal, the more the film will need to rely on its own filmmaking strengths, and the more glaringly obvious its failings will become.

C