Spider-man: No Way Home: A Short Spoiler Review

The most anticipated movie of the year finally hit theatres at the end of 2021, but was it worth the wait?

We pick up exactly where we left off, as Parker struggles to navigate both his real-life and hero-life, mixing those close to him with the chaos and dangers of his Spidey job. The college entry drama is, perhaps, almost a B-plot to the action, and that’s okay. It serves sufficiently and embraces the limitations of its stakes whilst also narratively developing the characters through the consequences that follow. We can see he wants to do good, but the world has turned against him following the events of Far From Home. After a wonderful, albeit unnecessary, cameo from Daredevil, the death of Peter’s Aunt May is where Holland truly becomes his own. A fantastic masterclass in emotional acting, this scene is both beautiful and the framework for the future of this character, clearly. The subversion from Uncle Ben (of previous film iterations) to Aunt May (who we meet in Holland’s first outing) is almost poetic and will shatter the hearts of all watching as Parker comforts her in a bed of rubble from the dangers he brought with him.

But the film moves on! And fast! Until it doesn’t. The film decides to take a long pause, almost pantomime-like, for one of the biggest highlights of the century and to combat the anticipated, audience cheers for Maguire and Garfield’s arrivals on-screen. Whilst this is appreciated for the viewers calming down after hyperventilating over their reveals, this gap will age poorly on subsequent viewings after the excitement of their Spider-man appearances has died down and consumers and the characters on-screen endure the awkward, real-time silences. The film’s biggest flaw, however, lies in its refusal to divulge into arguably the greatest interaction that could have been – a conversation between Dafoe’s Green Goblin and Maguire’s Spider-man. We saw Holland interacting with characters and villains from the recent MCU-driven cinematics and Garfield with his, but the villain who – arguably – shaped the fundamental nature of Maguire’s Parker is left absent from exchanging with him. Of course we do receive a sweet, nostalgic road trip with Octavius and Parker in the final act, and such communications do actually exist as deleted scenes, but their absence is most certainly noted in the final movie.

The movie’s final scenes transform the film from a great movie to a fantastic one, however. All three Spider-men interacting together, the emotional sacrifice of Peter Parker and the world forgetting who he is, and the choice to abandon his two best friends to save their lives in arguably the most Spider-man move of the entire plot. The last shots, swinging through NYC in his brand-new suit, serve to remind us of the wonders and trials of being the friendly neighbourhood Spider-man. Free of all connections and ties, this is Parker reduced to his most fundamental – and that is more than welcome after what felt like a full-on finale to an eight-movie, live-action franchise as we understand it. Here comes part two.

Despite some misfires, the film is a fantastic ride, web-slinging through every era of Spider-man for all ages and audiences to relish in. Of course, Mary-Jane and Gwen Stacey from the Maguire and Garfield-era movies would have been appreciated in the after-credits of this multiverse-of-madness medley, but the film works well with what is manages, subtly balancing these vintage characters, for the most part, in a way that does not ruin their legacies or the movie as either over-stuffed or underutilized where easily they might have been. Holland delivers his best performance, and despite aging, it feels as though Garfield and Maguire, as older brothers to our newest Spider-man, have never left our cinema screens.

★★★★★