Joel Swagman (Reviews / TESOL): Spider-Man: No Way Home

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Spider-Man: No Way Home

(Movie Review--Marvel Cinematic Universe)

***SPOILERS***

So, we all heard the rumors, right? Despite Marvel's best efforts at keeping this secret, we all heard that Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield were seen on the set of this movie. And that Marvel was doing some sort of multiverse thing.

As a big comic book geek in my youth, I knew that the multiverse has always been a big part of comic book stories. So in one sense, it seemed totally natural to do. And, I think if I were 10 years old again, this would be the absolute coolest thing for a movie to do. (I used to dream of these kind of cross-franchise team ups when I was a kid.)

But now that I'm older, I view these kinds of stunts with a bit more skepticism. I mean, sure, in one sense, it's really cool. But in another sense, it seemed a bit...desperate. Like it seemed like the kind of stunt that fanboys would always dream of, but that a serious franchise would never dream of doing until they were flat out of ideas.

And yet, here we are.

I don't think a major studio would ever have considered doing a film like this when I was young. This is the kind of thing that would be viewed as appealing only to the geeks, but not the mainstream audience. But, as has been noted many times before, somewhere around the turn of the century, geek culture became mainstream, and now a cross-over stunt like this can have major appeal to a mainstream audience.

So, does it work?

The answer is, yeah, mostly. It's basically like a lot of Marvel movies--by which I mean it's well directed, the actors are all incredibly charismatic and likeable, and it's edited together in a very fast paced way with lots of quick cuts and snappy music. The movie hums along nicely at a fast pace. There's plenty of action, plenty of laughs, and the movie cuts so quickly from scene to scene that you really don't have time to get hung up on any one plot point.

There were a lot of things in the movie that I don't think entirely made sense. And there were some character moments that didn't entirely make sense. But the movie moves along at such a fast pace that you don't really have time to think about any one thing too much. You're just along for the ride.

And what a ride it was! These Spider-Man movies have always done a good job of capturing the kinetic energy of swinging through the air in and out of danger, and this one is no exception. In fact, this one may be the best one yet. The action scenes in this movie are really fast paced and intense and brilliant. And also those scenes with Spider-Man fighting Doctor Strange in the mirror universe were not only wonderfully bizarre, but again had so much kinetic energy throughout (swinging around, riding on speeding trains, etc.)

Once Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield show up, the pace slows down a little bit. There's a lot of fan service in this movie. Which is to be expected. (I mean, if you're going to do a movie like this, you pretty much have to do the fan service.) But the problem with fan service is that it slows the story down. Character moments with Toby Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland all bonding are great, but these are also moments in which the story isn't going anywhere. The movie was on the verge of over-doing these character moments, but I think it gets away with it because it had earned some down-time. The movie had been so fast paced up until this point that it had earned some slower scenes that don't go anywhere.

(Or... now that I think about, maybe the opposite is true. Maybe the reason that these character moments felt so slow is because they felt out of place in a movie that had been so fast paced up until these moments. I don't know, what did you guys think?)

Rating:

8 out of 10 Stars. Look, as far as entertaining goes, this film is about as entertaining as you could ask for. It loses one point for some plot and character moments that don't entirely make sense. And it loses another point for some fan service that slowed down the plot. (I'm all for fan service, but you've got to integrate it into the plot better.) But it's a solid 8 out of 10.

Links

I'm in agreement with the reviewer from Uproxx: ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Really Shouldn’t Work, But It Does And Is Loads Of Fun

Marvel Cinematic Universe Links