Gillipedia Official Rating: Fan service, but like, actually good
Let’s lay the ground rules. Everyone
already knows that Alfred Molina, Willem Dafoe, and Jamie Foxx are reprising
their respective roles as Doc Ock, Green Goblin, and Electro across the
previous 2 franchises. This of course marks the seemingly unlikely pairing
between Marvel and Sony, and it also raised countless questions as to who else
could possibly show up. I won’t even hint at anything in this first portion of
the review of what else to possibly expect, so read on worry-free. But if you
are worried about spoilers, you should also probably avoid lots of social media
since memes and companies are always trying to be the first to grab attention
with these sorts of things.
I’d like to start this off just with
some gratefulness. I have always been a huge Spider-Man fan, particularly from
the 90s cartoon that to this day still has the best iteration of how Spider-Man
behaves. We started this trilogy with Homecoming with Iron Man playing a
large role in one of my favorite MCU films, and we followed it up with not
quite as good but still fun Far From Home with an excellent performance
from Jake Gylenhaal as Mysterio. We’re spoiled in how much Benedict Cumberbatch
plays a role in this latest film as Dr. Strange, and that’s not at all the big
news anybody is talking about. The crossovers are commonplace now and have
shown how they usually work pretty well even when stuffing films full of
characters like the Avengers films. I believe it’s been a well-crafted
plan from MCU, and those executives deserve a bunch of credit because
everything has fallen into place so well. When you have a large quantity of
films dedicated to your heroes, that allows them to also set up the later films
where they team up because now you don’t have to lay as much groundwork on who
these characters are. I’m someone that enjoys Spider-Man 3 more than the
average person, but I can still recognize how it was overly ambitious in needing to dedicate so much time to exposition for all its different villains. And No
Way Home has even more villains plus Dr. Strange; however, everyone already
knows these villains and the actors that played them, so you don’t have to go
back through their origins.
Let’s recall what we know story wise
from the trailer. The end of Far From Home shook things up by revealing
Peter Parker’s identity to the world. Now as he scrambles to adjust to a life
of fame and how that affects himself and his loved ones, Parker turns to Dr.
Strange to find a spell that will make the world forget who he is. In a kind of
silly sequence, Strange takes little convincing to begin the spell, but Parker
starts realizing that he still wants his loved ones to remember who he is and
pesters Strange to tamper with the spell. Things go awry, and instead of the
spell working, a dimensional shift of sorts occurs that starts bringing the
villains from the multiverse into theirs.
This of course is where the villains
from the past franchises comes into play. I’m going to stop talking about the
story from this point, but just know that things from here actually play well.
This film could’ve easily failed, but the integration of the other franchises
works thematically, fits the story, and is honestly loads of fun. This has
always been one of the more light-hearted franchises with the 80s high school
feel from the first two films and now here the main characters trying to get
into college, but this film also works in some more serious stuff and allows a
nice change-of-pace—especially since I have been feeling a lot of fatigue from
the Marvel formula.
Okay, time for the small gripes. The
film has its quips at the beginning of the film, but they feel like the generic
humor that Marvel has relied on too much, and it’s not particularly funny.
Also, I have recently gone back in the last couple of months and have watched
films from the 3 Mexican directors that have revolutionized cinema: Guillermo
del Toro, Alejandro Innaritu, and Alfonso Cuaron. And after you watch someone
like Emmanuel Lubezki with his cinematography and use of natural light and real
settings, it’s hard not to notice the harsh artificial light incorporated into
pretty simple scenes that still feel the need to use a green screen background.
Also, one thing The Amazing Spider-Man films did so well was Spidey
web-slinging around. Or even take web-slinging from the videogames, the newest
PlayStation games in particular. Those feel so dynamic and fluid, and there
sadly are definitely moments in this film that have that rubber feel—animations
where you don’t feel the weight of something.
I saw this film in IMAX, and the Dr.
Strange sequences are enough alone for the price of admission. And despite
feeling like Jacob Batalon gave zero effort in that new car commercial, his
character Ned is fun again in this film. Tom Holland has always been a great
Spider-Man, and he feels a bit too clueless about his surroundings at times,
but he and Zendaya and Marisa Tomei are all great fun to watch. And to round
out this part of the review, it’s fun to see Molina back in form, and it
definitely feels like they basically asked Jamie Foxx what he would like to
different this time around, and then did exactly that. And having not gone back
to the previous franchises in awhile, I was pleasantly surprised by how
powerful an actor Willem Dafoe still is; he is old and needed a bit of aid from
CGI, but he is back in form as Green Goblin.
If you’re a fan of the Marvel films,
then this is a must-watch. It’s still too fresh on my mind to give a rating of
where this stacks up in the MCU, but I really enjoyed watching the film and highly
recommend it. Okay, from this point on, now we get into spoiler territory.
**Spoilers
beyond this point**
I’m going to assume people reading
this portion have either already seen this film or have no desire to see the
film and don’t mind me giving everything away. Because they start quick with
putting Daredevil in the film. And honestly, as soon as I saw that, I basically
knew for a fact that we were getting Tobey and Andrew.
I think the premise of Parker’s
mistake and now needing to round up all the villains works as a premise. But it
works for one particular reason. And that is the fact that his mistake came out
of a true case of selflessness. He didn’t want people to forget who he was
because he was caving under the pressure of the fame Tony Stark relished in;
no, his girlfriend and best friend couldn’t get into college as a direct result
of their association to him. It’s this guilt that he feels that also drives the
point home of listening to Aunt May about doing the right thing and actually trying
to help the villains instead of letting them simply return to their doomed
fates.
And the triumphant return of the Emperor
Palpatine lego works well too because of the comparisons you can make to Star
Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. That film sucks. It’s fan service in the name
of fan service, and none of it works. Whereas, if you described No Way Home
to someone, you could mistake it for sounding like fanfiction. But as
previously mentioned, it’s integrated in the best way. They gave Tobey and
Andrew significant screentime. I think the start of the film suffers slightly
from lackluster writing, and there’s only the brief Daredevil appearance to wet
the whistles of the diehards until the real action begins. But when the
Spider-Men do come in, I love it. They even do the meme of them pointing at
each other and pay clever homage to their respective franchises.
Tobey is in his 40s and has been doing
way more producing than he has been acting. And the Spidey suit is a bit tight,
but he plays the fatherly figure well. And I even loved that he gave one line
of him and MJ making it work; we don’t need extensive detail, but it’s enough to
even make up for cancelling Spider-Man 4. Now the real bright light here
is with Andrew. The dude is almost 40 at this point, so first off credit to him
for looking -ahem- amazing. But he pulls off the banter with the others well
and even gets to play off the fact that his version as well as his films are
the least well regarded. And the face he makes when he saves Zendaya at the end
is enough to melt any heart, it’s an honestly touching moment.
Other small gripes. The Lizard looks
terrible. It doesn’t look realistic, but it also doesn’t look cartoony. It’s the
kind of look that would’ve happened and then been made fun of in The Suicide
Squad. And Rhys Ifans doesn't look great either. The final fight uses the 3 Spideys well despite no regard for
destruction, but it’s also close to impossible to differentiate which one is
doing what at points. Holland is also basically invincible. The amount of concrete slabs he's smacked through would make the NFL concussion protocol shutter. He literally dedicates a line to thinking aloud how he broke some ribs, and that's the last that is ever mentioned.
But like I said, the film plays strengths
really well. Electro is cooler and more imposing (I need to rewatch his film
though because I think he gets a bad rap), Molina has a nice redemption arc,
Green Goblin is still imposing in the same way as before, they make a joke
about the terrible Rhino from the Amazing franchise (sorry Giamitti),
and Sandman is rightfully motivated by just wanting to return to his daughter.
This is a complete film that breaks Marvel
molds enough with actions like killing Aunt May, and having the 2 older Spideys
mentor Holland works because he is genuinely the youngest and hasn’t been
exposed to the world as much as they have (despite his true remarks of fighting
aliens in space). It also performs its role of setting up more of the MCU with
some multiverse madness for Strange to handle; the trailer at the very end
looked a lot like the What if…? episode, and I am curious as to what to
expect. I’m also confused by the mid credits scene. It feels cheap to tease Tom
Hardy entering the MCU from the Let There Be Carnage mid credits
scene, only to suggest that he will continue his own universe while allowing it
to set up Venom in the MCU.
I think Marvel has been clever with
what they have revealed, and without any knowledge of what happens in comics,
it also feels like they’re making sure they don’t follow exacts from those so
as to keep everyone on their toes. You can be upset with the likes of Scorcese
saying these films aren’t real cinema, and I agree with him to the extent that
I’m fatigued by their formula and with the CGI action. I even also enjoy DC
films more than others, and think they’re back in a better direction with a
darker alternative to what Marvel does. But I’ve also still grown up with these
superheroes and thoroughly enjoy watching the films and seeing where they will
end up next. They’re on an interesting trajectory to move forward from Thanos,
and their miniseries on Disney+ have been mostly successful as well. I’m still
a little shocked that they were able to pull this film off, and this has easily
been one of the more enjoyable experiences at the theaters this year.
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