Spider-Man: No Way Home

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)

There are very few movies I wouldn’t mind arriving late to so I could actually appreciate them. Spider-Man: No Way Home is really great, unfortunately it's only great after an hour, when everything starts to come together, kicks into high gear, and Jon Watts delivers not only fanservice and very solid action, but also very effective emotions. Everyone on the screen is enjoying it and they can rightly pat themselves on the back for making fantastic popcorn entertainment without getting lost in grand ambitions. But then there's that first hour, for which the screenwriters, the director, Tom Holland, and maybe everyone who could have prevented it from looking the way it does, deserve a good slap. Peter Parker in Holland's portrayal is still a kid, or rather a teenager. That's what the series is built on, I get it and actually enjoy it, but he was never an idiot. Here he is. Parker behaves like an irresponsible jerk, but it's no longer funny, playful, or entertaining. His incompetence and stupidity far exceed everything I'm willing to tolerate in an action blockbuster, and I set the bar really high. And actually, it ruined the whole movie for me to a large extent, because in all the following scenes I was thinking that it looks great, but I would actually be pleased if Parker got buried under a skyscraper, because I don't know if I want to cheer and root for such a dumb moron and a happy ending. Two hours after the end of the screening, I can honestly say that I belong to the satisfied ones. However, if I ever watch it again, I will definitely start from the halfway point. (12/15/2021)

I didn't expect that the emotional wringer Avengers: Endgame gave me would be repeated – let alone that it would happen just two years later and out of the blue. This is not just a journey back home, but also a way to repay long-standing debts to loyal fans, whether it hurts or warms them the most. The first act is still a classic attraction of the pure MCU formula, a hyperactive arcade that some love and some hate. But once it gets serious and Doctor Strange enters the story, everything gets better, purer, and more epic. At a certain point, I became an emotional bundle of joy, thinking constantly the same thing in musical or dialog reminiscences. It's such a great feeling to be a part of this right now. A Christmas gift, the finale of a trilogy, a crossroads of the spider fandom, confirmation of Tom Holland's growing talent, and last but not least, a blockbuster that somehow manages to stand on its own. (12/20/2021)

I enjoyed the new Spider-Man movie at the cinema. I enjoyed the return of old friends, and I was equally happy that some characters, for whom I had practically expected no more than a cameo, were surprisingly given quite a lot of screen time. However, this movie beautifully mirrored Martin Scorsese's words about how the MCU really IS the equivalent of an amusement park. That is because this movie, for all its flashiness, has no more depth than an empty amusement park ride, with well-known characters popping up to get the viewers to react emotionally. While I am willing to go along for the unpretentious fan-service ride to a certain extent, I am not going to condone the trigger for the whole plot is that the two main "superheroes" act like the biggest idiots in the galaxy. This is something that no one gives a second thought to for the rest of the movie, and both characters barely show any self-reproach. Yes, I understand that the movie needed some sort of storyline; however, the whole thing (including the denouement) hinges on one screenwriting crutch after another. Plus, there is the lame prepubescent humor again, ha... ha... Again, I enjoyed it at the cinema, but "the nineteenth best movie of all time"? C'mon. (12/23/2021)

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)