Major Spoilers Ahead for Spider-Man: No Way Home
The much-awaited final instalment of the Spider-Man: Homecoming trilogy has finally hit the screens, and it most certainly lives up to the hype that it was meant to be, and a little more.
If you are a millennial who has grown up watching Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man trilogy, then made your way to MCU’s Spider-Man played by Tom Holland, before going through Andrew Garfield’s The Amazing Spider-Man series, then this movie is your dream come true.
Now, marvel movie fans would argue that the third movie in a Spider-Man trilogy has always been a little ‘cursed’, with the 2007 Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3 not doing so well in the box office, which eventually led to him moving away from the series. The third installment of the Amazing Spider-Man never happened. This one successfully manages to break that curse.
The movie manages to keep you at the edge of your seat through its two-and-a-half hours run-time with something exciting happening at every turn.
However, before we move on, be warned that major spoilers are on the way.
A Grand Reunion
The third movie picks up from right where the second movie ended. Jake Gyllenhal’s Mysterio reveals Spider-Man's identity as Peter Parker to the entire world. J Jonah Jameson played by JK Simmons tells everyone about the reckless killer that the ‘spidey menace’ is, thus leading to the lives of Peter Parker and those around him having a severe impact.
When things start to go out of hand, Parker requests Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to cast a spell that would make everyone forget Spider-Man's identity. The spell goes awry and results in villains from across the ‘multiverse’ coming to this world in search of Parker.
YES! After teasing and name-dropping the multiverse on previous occasions, we finally get to see the multiverse come into play.
You therefore have big names like Williem Dafoe, Alfred Molina and Jamie Foxx reprise their roles as the Green Goblin, Doc Oc and Electro. The rest of the movie mostly revolves around Parker and Strange trying to undo the mess that they have created.
The Ultimate Throwbacks
When you think of Spider-Man, there’s just one line that comes to mind: "With great power, comes great responsibility." If this movie were to be summed up in one line, it is this. And you would have the audience jump out of their seats screaming when you hear Spider-Man say the words from his mouth for the first time!
While the movie is at it, it also puts some famous rumors to rest.
Besides that, several scenes and nuances from the previous franchises have been re-created, mostly as a treat to long-term Spider-Man fans. If you are one for easter eggs, then you would find yourself in a spidey-dreamland.
While a lot of these throwbacks don’t necessarily serve the plot, they do make the movie seem like a continuation of where the previous movies left off. As IGN would have it, it seems more like Spider-Man 6 than anything else.
However, what this movie does best is take you on an emotional roller-coaster. Not compromising intense action scenes, the movie pays keen attention to the emotions that are portrayed by every character. Every action that the main characters make is driven by emotion and the movie makes sure you understand and relate to the emotion as we go along.
It also brings along the best that the character of Peter Parker has to offer. The kid from Queens who is just trying to help everyone, the innocence that he so dearly holds on to, and his selflessness.
Also expect to be fully blown away by the Charlie Cox / Daredevil cameo.
And that brings us to the villains, some of whom have been given a decent character arc despite a scattered plot. While you would be excited to see Molina coming back as Doc Oc and Foxx as Electro, it is Defoe who takes the cake.
Dafoe is like fine wine, whose acting skills seem to just get better with age. His Green Goblin gets a lot more depth in the movie than he got in Raimi’s edition, and Defore does a brilliant job of bringing it to perfection.
And when he recreates Goblin’s iconic sadistic laughter, you will forget for a hot minute that he is doing the role after almost 20 years.
Other villains like Lizard and Sandman act more as a supporting cast, giving us full ‘Sinister Six’ feels, but they don’t contribute any more than that.
A Plot All Over the Place
Even though you will leave the movie hall with a grin across your face, the movie is not without its flaws. Trying to tackle such a complicated plot, especially exploring the concept of the multiverse and tying it back to the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a mammoth task.
This shows quite evidently in some places, as the overall plot feels a little scattered. You don’t necessarily lose the plot at any point, but it could have been tighter and crisper.
One of the most disappointing aspects of the movie is that it falls right into the tried and tested superhero trope which audiences are, frankly, tired of watching. A lonely superhero, who makes a mistake and then suffers the repercussions of the mistake and spends the rest of the movie trying to correct it. From a franchise that brought you an epic saga like Avengers: Endgame, you would expect slightly better.
The movie, also gives way to some horrible one-liners to keep the whole cartoon feel alive, which could’ve easily been avoided.
Paving The Way for Marvel’s Phase Four
The ‘divine purpose’ that the movie is meant for is to set up Marvel’s much awaited Phase 4 which has a lot to do with the multiverse. With the characters already having tampered with the multiverse in this movie, one can only expect its role to become more and more integral in the upcoming movies. Cough Cough! Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness (do wait till the end credits scene for an exclusive trailer of the movie).
The movie also acts as a goodbye to the Homecoming trilogy with everyone forgetting who Peter Parker is by the end of the movie. While this is not the end of Holland’s Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it would be interesting to see how they would bring him back. The hard reset of sorts has left several avenues open for our friendly neighbourhood hero, Spider-Man's epic return.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)