Spider-Man: No Way Home

In the context of the comic-book movies made so far, Spider-Man: No Way Home is a miraculous phenomenon. Unlike other superhero movies, it doesn’t conform to the dad ethos of aging fanboys, but instead exclusively targets millennials and younger viewers. What’s more, it even adopts their values and, on top of that, confronts them with the essentially evil and instructively corrosive black-and-white duality of older films. Like today’s (or any) younger generation, the Spider-Man of No Way Home is rashly hyperactive, naïve and idealistic. Besides its hypermedia nature and the motif of friendship, a more fundamental shift is manifested in the transformation of Spider-Man’s values and message. Though there is the inevitable facetiously adult proclamation “with great power comes great responsibility”, Holland’s Spider-Man does not have to give up his youthful view of the world within the coming-of-age story arc. Rather, his view permeates the whole film and underscores the central motif of its narrative, which is the effort not to fight the bad guys, but to find ways to help them. (01/08/2022)

A solid popcorn flick and a decent Spiderman movie about Peter's transformation from a teenage boy to a man, but it fails completely in two aspects. Paradoxically, in those on which it should build and stand: the use of old friends and in the fan service. At a time when the spider-universe has offered such gems as Into the Spiderverse (this is how you work with the possibilities of "many worlds"), Life Story (this is what real fan-service looks like), and the Insomniac reimagination (this is how you work with serious themes in Spidey's rendition), to come up with something that brilliantly scatters all the available LEGO bricks on the floor, but doesn't assemble them into anything other than exactly what you'd expect, is a bummer. There is plenty of time and space, but there is not even a hint of an attempt at anything more than "XY takes off his mask, his musical motif plays, his catchphrase comes on, the audience freaks out"; no idea, no playfulness, nothing beyond a few seconds of nostalgia. That's not fan service worthy of as many aces up your sleeve as there are. And there are plenty! They could (and should) have got out so much out of it. Well, they did, but it didn’t work. And as a result, it’s nothing but a solid pop-corn flick and a decent Spiderman movie. (12/16/2021)

Objectively, I should probably say that No Way Home is the weakest of the new Spider-Man movies, but subjectively, there are so many great moments that I rate it as I do without even blinking. Spider-fans will be in seventh heaven at times, Jon Watts and Tom Holland have simply done it and concluded the trilogy with the promise of great things to come. Of the non-spoilers, I have to single out Michael Giacchino's music and literally every scene in which Spidey meets Doctor Strange. (12/16/2021)

Hectic, whiny, Spider Man soap opera. Or when you don't know what to do with the story, make a hodgepodge with time planes and multiverses, everything goes better afterwards because it can basically be about anything – and you have unlimited space for action set-pieces. I don't understand the enthusiastic reactions because it's a grueling 150 minutes. A fine return of friends and some tried and true bad guys, but in real time there's absolutely nothing going on. (03/27/2022)

Loser Parker heads for happiness and for the good of everybody else. A grand finale with all the trimmings. Bringing magic into Spider-Man means lots of impressive scenes with villains we know and love, but the high point is jumping around in the mirror dimension. Arrivals from older series pump nostalgia into your veins, making fans’ dreams come true, and they all seem much better than in their original appearances. Demonic Dafoe’s acting is on a higher level even than first time round and his Goblin as Parker’s trainer is the biggest trump card. No Way Home is full-on to bursting (it really features almost everybody you can think of) and sometimes it seems a shame that the movie isn’t any longer, despite the fact that in some places it drags on rather slowly. This lure to watch the sequel to Dr. Strange, who screwed up badly last time, heightens expectations to the limits of our universe and maybe even beyond. (12/17/2021)