SPOILER DISCUSSION
1.With Jon Watt’s previous two Spider-Man films, I did not go into this expecting a distinct visual design, but especially with how lackluster the Statue of Liberty set-piece, I do wish there was more an effort made to make the action feel more visceral. On top of the CGI for the statue looking obvious, the action choreography feels underwhelming given the presence of not 1 but 3 Spider-Men flying around. It’s not that the final battle is bad as much as it feels visually flat given the possibilities.
2.If there’s a saving grace, it’s the final battle between Peter and Norman/the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe). The rage and desire by Peter to kill the man responsible for May’s (Marissa Tomei) death is intense and visceral. While we know he has intense power, sometimes we forget how much he holds back when punching, something touched on by Garfield’s Peter as well. When Holland’s Peter is brutalizing Goblin, this fact comes to the fore. It becomes apparent just how damaging Spider-Man can be.
When he takes the glider and gets ready to impale Goblin, it’s a voluntary recreation of the Goblin’s first death. In Spider-Man by Sam Raimi, the Goblin finds himself accidentally impaled by his glider after a sneak attack on Tobey Maguire Spider-Man goes wrong. In this movie, Holland’s Spider-Man is so overcome by his blood-lust that he’s about to take the accidental part of the death out of the equation. This is why Tobey’s intervention in the affair means so much. The eldest Spider-Man understands that this action will only wreak havoc in the youngest Spider-Man’s psyche and rights the wrongs of his own past so to speak by preventing his younger incarnation from suffering in the same manner.
3, Garfield’s Spider-Man also gets to right a past wrong by saving MJ. The way Garfield emotes after the rescue makes it apparent his character has been obsessed with the failed Gwen rescue attempt and that his quick reaction is due to probably playing out that moment over and over again. Finally, he’s conquered his demon.
4.Unfortunately, Tobey’s intervention (Point 2) loses some of its emotional heft by the fake-out stabbing death scare. The score even changes as if it to suggest that Tobey’s Spider-Man is now dead. If the film committed to this decision, maybe it could have been an interesting pivot to go in a really dark direction, but the obvious nature of the bait-and-switch makes the moment all the more annoying. It’s emotional enough given its set-up. There’s no need to add to the drama by having a fake-out death along with it.
5. The one-shot at the start of the movie when Peter flies MJ into his apartment is comedic gold and I wish there was more motivated camera movement like this. Watching him pace from room-to-room trying to keep Happy (Jon Favreau) and May distracted is hilarious because of how impossible his situation seems – a fact which is revealed in grand fashion as he reveals that helicopters are outside of the flat.
6.Aunt May’s death did very little for me and it feels like a huge miss for the film. May’s “kindness” which the film tries to use to jettison Peter’s mission is never established in the previous installments of Watt’s trilogy. It seemingly comes out of nowhere, but we’re supposed to believe that the drive is so profound that May is willing to die for it. It makes her “responsibility” speech feel like a cheap emulation.
It doesn’t help that Marissa Tomei gives an uncharacteristically poor performance and makes it difficult to believe that her character is dying. If not for Holland’s fantastic performance and emoting, the sting of the death would have very little impact if at all. With his performance, it at least becomes coherent within the framework of the narrative but feels lacking given its importance.
7.However, what makes May’s death less resonant is what happens after she’s gone. The film cuts to MJ and Ned trying to summon Peter. First they summon Garfield’s Peter and the film devolves into a set of comedic interactions. Then Macguire’s Peter is introduced and much of the same happens again. While some of the jokes are funny, one involving Ned translating his grandmother’s questions seriously slows the pace of the story. This is a problem because we’re supposed to be devastated over May, but instead we’re laughing it up and having a great time with the other Peters.
But then the film cuts to the other Peters having a heart to heart with Holland’s Peter and the emotional intensity of the moment is definitely lessened because we have to “reset” ourselves back to an despondent state from a jubilant one. Better planning would have let the emotional current of the story naturally flow so that the sadness would build before abating instead of building abating and building again in haphazard fashion.
8.On top of the aural demonstration of the Holland’s spider-sense activating, the astral showdown he has with Dr. Strange is one of the neatest moments in the film. Even though his ego has left the body, the body is still imbued with an instinctive drive that makes it somehow even more effective than Strange than with Peter in it. It’s a neat extension on how his power gives him an animality that his rationality can’t fully tap into ergo the heightened agility in spite of the lack of consciousness.
9.Narratively, it’s puzzling just how quickly Peter and co. are able to side-step Mysterio’s revelation. Peter goes from being accosted by law enforcement and being detained to not getting accepted into college. While the latter sucks, the former is worlds worse and its a strange choice for the movie to use solely the latter as Peter’s motivation to hit the magic redo button. The motivations would play off much better and more cogently is there was a bit of severity in the decision.
Granted, having Peter rely on magic for such a minor problem is pointed out as proof of him being a child. Strange comments that Peter’s immediate jump to magic instead of calling colleges to plead his case is indicative of his immature thinking. But I feel as though Peter’s coming-of-age journey is already captured by the divide he feels as trying to be a kid as himself and trying to be an adult as Spider-Man, so accentuating that division with such low stakes feels like a slight miss.
10.The film is hard to evaluate given its status as an send-off to both Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man and the Amazing Spider-Man franchises and the conclusion of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man origin story. In this sense, No Way Home warrants a comparison with Avengers: Endgame with just how much it tries to take on. It’s not just tackling one franchise; it’s tackling multiple simultaneously and trying to do justice to all of them.
This is ambitious and the scriptwriters along with director Jon Watts deserve praise for getting so many of the moving pieces right even if they stumble in certain places. Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) and Norman/Goblin are given places to go that feel like natural extensions of where we left off with them back during Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man respectively. Ock turns to the good side, ends up helping Peter, and finally has an adult moment with Maguire’s Peter. This is well earned. Likewise, Norman’s split personality is handled perfectly ; both sides of him feel genuine and, as mentioned above, the resolution to his character is even more poignant given its connection to both Maguire and Holland’s Peter Parker storylines.
To a certain level, I can afford a similar praise with Garfield’s relationship with Electro/Maxwell (Jamie Foxx). Electro isn’t given nearly as much to do, so the effect of this resolution feels far less meaningful. However, I’d be lying if I said that Garfield’s Peter encouraging Electro and reassuring him didn’t make me smile.
Unfortunately, these developed relationships make the undeveloped ones stick out like a sore thumb. Both Sandman/Flint (Thomas Haden Church) and Lizard/Dr.Connors (Rhys Ifans) have very little to do and their role in the final battle and the plot in general is disappointing. They just feel like they’re in the movie to pad the run-time and get fans hyped about a potential Sinister Six, but that use feels like a waste when the other villains are utilized in such effective manner.
However, in the context of Tom Holland’s origin story, having the other Spider-Men show up and give context to the mythos of Spider-Man is a pretty great idea. Each incarnation offers Holland a different lesson; Macguire is the seasoned veteran who’s learned to handle the pressures of his identity over time while Garfield is the hurting, despondent veteran who’s still figuring out a way to process his grief. Both Peters offer Holland’s Peter an opportunity to assess himself and give a meaning to his suffering. Where he ends up at the end of the narrative, is where the other Peters have been before. He’s living in a dainty apartment with no close connections to help him, going so far as to stitch a new costume, but yet he persists. It’s a poetic handing of the torch ; as Garfield and Toby get a nice moment to reflect and touch on their past mistakes, Holland is made to go forward through the trials and tribulations that are to come.
Given this, it almost seems like the movie would have benefited from focusing on just 3 villains and building up their emotional moments with the Peters’ in more cohesive manner. The lack of focus is what makes certain sequences less compelling than others which is what makes the third act uneven.
11.This instantiation of Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin is the greatest Spider-Man villain yet put on the big screen. Dafoe proves his versatility by taking the campy and dangerous persona from the Raimi movie and adding just enough menace to really sell his character’s sick proclivities and aspirations. There are moments where he’s downright frightening. In particular, the final battle is a stand-out. As Holland’s Peter is just brutalizing Goblin’s face in, the latter just laughs. Dafoe manages to hit the sweet-spot between hysterical and terrifying and reinforces just how out of depth Peter is with the Goblin.
12.Normally, I don’t complain about inconsistencies in the soft-magic system in the MCU because they tend to be nit-picky, but Ned’s ability to casually use sling-rings is absurd. In Doctor Strange, we see the titular character, a character whose power is predicted to be incredibly high, struggle to master the sling-ring power. He’s someone who has great aptitude for it but still has to learn how to use his hidden potential.
Meanwhile Ned, a character who jokes about having magic in his bloodline, can casually open multiple portals. He opens up the initial portals to Andrew and Toby’s Peters, and those portals magically close themselves. But later on, it turns out Ned’s ability is a crucial part of the battle plan. He’s supposed to teleport Strange’s box away so that the villains are trapped fighting the Spider-Men. He manages to open the portal but then finds himself unable to close it all – a problem that conveniently didn’t show up before. It’s not that any of these issues are annoying by themselves, but taken together, they certainly make bits of the story feel more contrived than they should.
That being said, the discussion of the best-friend becoming evil did have me wondering if an evil magic Ned was going to happen. Maybe in the future. I just hope the magic done here wasn’t a bit and gets touched upon in future installments of the MCU.
13.Speaking of future installments, having the second post-credits scene be a truncated Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness trailer feels like such a lazy decision. The sequels are already being teased enough in the movies themselves; having them also pushed out in more blatant fashion after the movie is a bit too much.