After being publicly outed as Spider-Man, Peter Parker tries to put things right by enlisting the help of Doctor Strange to cast a spell to make the world forget who he is. Of course, things go the way you would expect and, not only does the spell go wrong, but it starts attracting visitors from the multiverse that we, as an audience, have met before.
Quite frankly, this is the Spider-Man movie we’ve been waiting on for years. I’m not going to spoil anything here for the three people who haven’t seen this movie yet, but let’s just say… pretty much everything you hope is going to happen, happens. Everything you didn’t know you were hoping to happen, happens. No Way Home is not only an experience, it is the best phase four Marvel project and one of the top Spider-Man movies of all time.
What I am most satisfied about is that the movie never loses track of the fact that this is Tom Holland’s movie. This is the quintessential chapter of Peter Parker’s life in the MCU, and it allows this chapter to unfold without much distraction distraction. The bells and whistles that this movie gives to us as a form of fan service, our secondary. Just as they should be.
Again, I’m trying not to spoil things. Let’s just say that this is the movie that turns a spider boy into a spider man.
The bells and whistles that I speak of? They are fan servicey, but they are good fan service. Sometimes you get nostalgia in a movie, and it’s nice to see, it makes you feel good, but there’s always an air of artificiality to it, making it feel, at best, forced, and at worst, fake. The nostalgia that is presented in Spider-Man: No Way Home, is the type of nostalgia that is not only comforting, but is also essential to not only the narrative, but the nostalgia itself… one serves the other. Injustices, both in the fictional world and real world, are righted.
Beyond that, it’s just a good movie with high stakes. A story of morality vs ease… the ultimate tale of power and responsibility.
Needless to say, I loved it. I’ve always liked Tom Holland’s Peter Parker because he is a learner… he is just a kid, but when No Way Home concludes, it’s incredibly obvious that kid is no more. He is Spider-Man. The origin trilogy has been completed.
Jason Gaston 