I wasn’t interested enough to make the trek to my local multiplex to see the latest Spiderman movie; home streaming is the route forward for the apathetic viewer. But even comic book naysayers will appreciate that Jon Watts’ third instalment in the third sequence of Spiderman’s antics cleaned up at the box office, even with a pandemic raging; supporting your friendly neighbourhood web-slinger strikes a chord that’s more important than trivial things like life and death.
If we count this year’s Spiderverse two-parter, I make that at least thirteen movies featuring Spiderman in the last two decades, an exhausting level of exposure for casual viewers. I’m only aware of one good one to date; Sam Raimi’s 2002 blockbuster for Sony which set the tone for the MCU’s world domination with bright primary colours and zesty special effects. Oddly, this latest venture harks back directly to that film, an origin story that got the serio-comic tones just right. Raimi’s sequels were all-over–the-shop and easy to forget, and I was fully checked-out before the reportedly less-than-amazing Andrew Garfield versions. And yet with no signs of wearing out public enthusiasm, No Way Home doubles down on looking backwards and allows us to get all nostalgic for a series of films that struggled from the get-go; let’s cheer the return of recent incarnations of the character and laud the painted-face villains that weren’t much cop in the first place.
So an elaborate, inexplicable narrative is constructed; Spiderman wishes to be forgotten, and asks Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch and a lot of hair-dye) to cast a spell to sort it out; unfortunately, he creates some kind of loop-hole through which other versions of Spiderman and his foes creep into his hokey-ass ‘wizard’s dungeon’; Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn, Alfred Molina as Dr Octopus, Rhys Ifans as The Lizard, Jamie Foxx as Electro and possibly more, I lost count. Notably, we don’t see returns for Sally Field, Rosemary Harris, Kristen Dunst or Emma Stone; this is a boy’s toy-box we’re sharing, and women don’t count for anything much. Three brave Spidermen (Tom Holland, Garfield and Tobey Maguire) join forces, vintage Dr Who style, to save the day and rescue a social-media addicted New York populace who barely seem worth saving…
What works big time here are the call-backs; as with the MCU movies, the best bits are the notes in the margins as the characters squabble like chickens in a coop, and it would be churlish not to admit that these exchanges aren’t consistently fresh and funny. But there’s not much else to pity or praise about No Way Home; it’s the usual melange of gaudy action that evaporates instantly from the memory. Nostalgia for good times that never existed is a difficult trick, but Spiderman: No Way Home pulls it off in a way that’ll easily satisfy those who know more about the MCU family than their own. For the rest of us, it’s a polished piece of fan service accurately reflects the way pop-culture is eating itself right now. In short, the new Spiderman movie is nothing much to write Home about.
Enjoyed it and I liked the bickering between the various Spidermen. I always think they’re at something of a loose end when they bring back previous villains. Not so much a sequel as a presequel or seprequel. I did like that he had to sacrifice the present to save the world. Holland seemed more the right age for the role. At some point MCU will collapse and there will be nothing to fill the gap.
Can you give me an exact date for when this will happen? Please? I’m not sure how much metaverse I can take…
March 26th 2024. Of course, the multiverse could just spin it backwards.
I suppose I’ll watch it at some point but I’m not really bothered. I like the Toby MaGuire ones best.
I think the first one nailed it, and the rest not so much. Now that I’m an Andrew Garfield fan, maybe I should take the plunge and watch his, but like you, I’m really not fussed…
I thought I might watch it as it pertains to Dr Strange and the multiverse which I was going to watch, but I think I can’t be bothered with that now either.
I’m fed up with Dr Strange’s multiverse, he can ram it as far as I’m concerned. It’s just an excuse for ‘anything can happen’ and what it means is that nothing ever does happen. This endless striving for importance in these movies is wearing me down.
I feel the same. Thank god Series 3 of The Boys is back on Amazon- if you haven’t seen it, it’s a must for superhero wearied watchers.
If everything that happens can’t immediately be undone on a whim, it would probably be a relief.
I think I’ve seen enough Spiderman for my lifetime….
I felt like that in 2002, imagine how I feel now…
Yes, I don’t envy you on this one …..
And the action goes for nothing because I couldn’t tell one Spiderman from another. I get that people like the funny bits, but couldn’t they make an actual comedy film instead?
It was decent for the Spider-Man fans, but it’s simply about a person making a lot of wrong decisions, with catastrophic consequences!
Agreed. Quite a flimsy pretext for a movie, IMHO!
Even a worn out movie superhero guy like myself can sense that this wasn’t your favorite movie. I wonder how much longer before the behemoth that is the MCU will collapse under its own weight?
I’ve watched the previous 2 spiderman movies with Holland so I know at some point I will watch this, but there is no rush and if I actually never get around to it, well, I won’t feel bad. Disney set a bad precedent by shoving so much content down our throats in the last years. At some point we will just walk away from it.
I walked away some time ago, but the Spiderman story continued without me. There’s some plus points here, and this’ll be a fresh review on RT, but checked-out critics like me are hardly the target audience here. What I do find remarkable is people getting dewey-eyed about returning characters from films that few seemed to like. Why can’t we have a new story?
Still haven’t seen any of the Tom Holland movies so I guess I’ll have to put some time in working up to this. Or perhaps not bother. The reboots and sequels are coming so fast that I’m now supposed to be nostalgic for stuff I haven’t got to yet.
Also: important than
Or nostalgic for films you can’t be bothered watching. The funny bits are funny, and it’s just about worth the trek for them. But the rest is quite unmemorable…thanks for the typo as always!