Spider-Man: No Way Home

A review by Forrest Humphrey

In the wake of Mysterio revealing his secret identity to the world and framing him for murder, life has become quite harrowing for Peter Parker, his family and his friends. Hoping to at least pull the people close to him out of the mess, Peter turns to a friend from the Avengers, Doctor Strange, to help him. The plan? Cast a spell to make the whole world forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Unfortunately, things go awry when Peter panics upon realizing “Everyone” includes MJ, Ned and Aunt May. He tampers with the spell and things get even worse from the attempt. Not only does everyone still remember, but the spell pulls in some uninvited guests who also know about Peter Parker's life as Spider-man. Now Peter has to stop these multiverse visitors from making his own world worse.

That's the basic premise from the trailers and I wont go further than that. This film had a great deal to live up to, considering everything its trying to follow up on. Not just the MCU films, as this film positioned itself as a celebration of Spider-Man's 60^th birthday, the 20^th anniversary of Sam Raimi's trilogy of films AND the 10^th anniversary of Mark Webb's more controversial duology. As the trailers showed, Tom Holland's Peter Parker would be squaring off against beloved villains from Spider-Man's cinematic past. Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus and Sandman, once again played by Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina and Thomas Hayden Church; as well as Lizard and Electro with Rhys Ifans and Jaime Foxx reprising their roles as well.

With so much cinematic weight on its shoulders, does the film live up to the hype? For my money, the answer is a firm “yes”. The core cast of Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Marisa Tomei and Jon Favreau remains as entertaining to watch as always, with J.K. Simmons and Benedict Cumberbatch giving great supporting performances as well. And of course, every returning actor from the prior films brings their best as well. Willem Dafoe in particular is an absolute treat to see as Green Goblin again all these years later.

The action sequences are as good as one would expect from the MCU at this point, but the emotional character moments are the real standouts here. Several points in the film brought me to tears, and even characters whom I didn't expect to get strong moments surprised me. While not every single joke lands, the chemistry of the cast, new and old, is delightful.

I'll need to do some thinking before I commit, but as of right now, I'm very tempted to say this is my favorite live-action Spider-Man film, and it may be in my top 5 MCU films period. Nearly everything about the film clicks, and its record breaking box-office smash is well deserved.

Rating: 5/5

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