Along came a spider tonight. And Spider-Man is my favorite superhero franchise...so yep. Here I am.
So, I wasn't a huge fan of the MCU Spider-Man movies. Homecoming is cute and funny, while Far from Home is a pulseless movie that springs to life in the third act. The more I saw from this movie the more I anticipated it though. First was the team up of Spidey with Doctor Strange, which is always fun. I've always loved their casual friendship in the comics, how Peter could just crawl in the window of the Sanctum Sactorum to see what magic crap is going on and Strange would just be cool with it. Then Jamie Foxx is cast as Electro again...then Alfred Molina as Doc Ock...so...what's going on?
So I saw that ending to Far from Home where Spidey is framed and unmasked to the entire world and the first thing to pop in my head is that they were probably setting up Kraven the Hunter and doing him as some sort of bounty hunter to track Peter down. I still think that would have been a cool movie, but this was shaping up to be something interesting.
To an extent, Spider-Verse wasn't a concept that excited me all that much, after all it's an uphill battle to top Into the Spider-Verse, even if we're doing it with the various Spider-Man franchises. Plus it's not exactly a new concept for superhero media, because DC had been toying with turning their film and TV franchises into a multiverse with the Arrowverse, finally going all out with that ambitiously goofy Crisis on Infinite Earths five parter (and will also be screwed around with in the upcoming Flash movie next year). Then the trailer drops and it looks like it was taking the idea of Spider-Verse and mixing it with One More Day, which is ballsy to say the least, since just about every comic fan ever hates One More Day. I personally haven't read it, since the negative reaction made me avoid it like the plague, but every Spidey fan has felt the ripple of that story's backlash.
No Way Home was going to be
interesting, to say the least.
Now it's here with all the rumors and speculation about just how far it went with the Spider-Verse concept, as the only thing we knew for a fact based on trailers was that at least one villain from each out-of-MCU Spider-Man movie (barring Into the Spider-Verse) was going to be in this movie, as well as maybe Tom Hardy's Venom based on the end credits scene to Let There Be Carnage. Is it an interdimensional Sinister Six with Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Sandman, Lizard, Electro, and Venom? Not exactly. Despite the tease, Venom doesn't really have to do with anything in the movie (but put a pin in his name, we might talk about him in spoilers maybe), so there are really just five villains, not six. And the villains who are here never really act as a unit, but rather as dogs off the leash.
But the big question most are asking is...Tobey and Andrew? Click that spoiler button down below to find out! But I'll start with the non-spoiler review real quick.
To get it out of the way, barring Civil War and Infinity War, this was my favorite of the MCU Spider-Man flicks. The premise was a bit weightier than the other two. While there has been a bit of a backlash to "Why does Spider-Man have to be so damn miserable all the time?", part of why Spider-Man is such a reliable character is not necessarily his "misery" per say, but rather that he makes huge decisions that only have murky grey answers that sometimes have repercussions that he has to live with even though he's just "a kid from Queens." Quippy, lighthearted Spidey is fun but it can't be all that he is. Homecoming used one of Spider-Man's iconic images of him lifting up a huge weight of rubble to free himself but kept the context too narrow for it to mean half as much as it did in the comics. Far from Home did bring repercussions but saved it for the end credit scene, which I always felt was a mistake. No Way Home features Peter trying to fix a mess and in trying to fix it he in some ways makes it worse. And when he finally reaches the final solution, he has to sacrifice something that's very important for him and finds that maybe it's something that needed to happen. This movie feels like a major point in Peter's life, which the last two did not.
Part of what makes the movie special is its big heart, though that's also a double edge sword. Without spoiling too much, lets discuss the premise as it was laid out in the trailers, which shows Doctor Strange willing to send all the villains back to their own universe to meet whatever fate their Spider-Man delt them, but upon discovering that several of the villains are killed in their universes, Peter is unwilling to send them back to certain doom. It's admirable to have a superhero movie that decides its villains' lives are worth something, however the premise gets entirely enveloped in this idea halfway through the movie and it kind of stops the movie dead. This also spirals into a big problem I feel that sucker-punches the movie, but I can't get into too much detail without talking about deep, deep spoilers, so I'll talk about those below. But in a nutshell, the movie is just way too much fun and I learned to let it go.
Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Benedict Cumberbatch are all wonderful, as they've always been. The returning villains are great, with some juicy new scenes for Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina. Jamie Foxx is a bit more generic, but I think he's glad to show his face a lot more in this one and he does have Electro's "This power is delicious" attitude down pat, so no complaints. It's not made clear from the advertisements, but I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to confirm that Thomas Hayden Church and Rhys Ifans are back as Sandman and the Lizard, they just are mostly voice-over for CGI creations so it makes sense that they wouldn't advertise with them. The action between Spidey and the villains is a lot of speedy vertigo, especially in the climax. Spidey's fight with Strange is undoubtedly the highlight, while his bout with Ock on the bridge is a lot of fun too.
Anyway, really good movie. This might be my favorite comic movie of the year, though Suicide Squad was tough competition. I'm definitely seeing it again next week, hopefully away from a large crowd with Omicron floating around.
And
Mod City, I know you're a huge Doctor Strange fan. Definitely stay to the very end of the credits for a treat that I'm sure you're going to love.
Anyway for those who want the nitty gritty right now, here are some juicy spoilers. Starting with...Tobey and Andrew?
Yes. Of course they are. There's no way this movie would have been made without them. They're just here for third act shenanigans, but Tobey, Andrew, and Tom are almost gloriously functional as a comedic unit. They all seem intimately familiar with each other but each one seems just weird enough to the others. There are some great reactions to Tobey having organic webshooters, which Andrew and Tom both think is weird and gross. Tom at one point brags about being an Avenger, and Tobey responds "That's great! What is that?"
Probably my favorite moment in the movie is that moment in the trailer when MJ falls off the Statue of Liberty, but Spider-Tom can't reach her, and instead Spider-Andrew leaps in to catch her, giving him some closure on what happened to Gwen in Amazing 2.
So getting back into the thing that I think hurts the movie, I feel I should rewind to a section of my life nobody cares about where I was a kid who read a lot of fan fiction on the internet. At one point I was totally into Sliders fan fiction, because that show ended on a cliffhanger and I sought whatever closure I could on that stupid show. One of them that really stuck with me was this fan fiction which was really lengthy and really stupid, which featured the main characters of the series just standing around in a room coming up with scientific ways to bring back all the characters who died on the show. I get it, the writer is trying to write some closure to his own frustration, but it didn't make it suck less. It's still people standing around the room coming up with vague solutions to extreme problems.
There comes a point in its midsection where No Way Home becomes that. I admire its dedication to want Peter to save even those who don't want to be saved, but its just...standing in a room coming up with vague solutions to extreme problems. And the idea becomes a little more absurd seeing the baddies all just kind of chill around, but if they were even remotely this reasonable to begin with they wouldn't have had all those movies devoted to them fighting Spider-Man. Goblin has his phasing in and out of consciousness to get away with it, Ock was kind of trapped, and Sandman has motivation, but Electro just seems to be screwing around. And why is Lizard going along with this? Isn't he supposed to...you know...like the way he is?
And that's what a good half hour of this movie is: "Just sit down over there and let me come up with a vague solution to whatever is bugging you."
This kinda steamrolls into the third act, where everyone just goes feral at the Statue of Liberty, though mostly just Lizard, Electro, and Sandman (Goblin pops in toward the end). And when all these vague solutions take effect, I can't help but ponder that these have actual ramifications that Peter isn't anticipating. These aren't just villains from different dimensions, they're technically villains out of time as well. Curing Norman Osborn alone would have a HUGE ripple in Tobey's universe, as it fundamentally erases Harry's arc in those movies. Harry was also the one that funded Octavius in Spider-Man 2, which would effectively change Ock's fate as well. Speaking of Ock, let's say for the sake of argument that the events leading to Spider-Man 2's climax still happened, curing him effectively does nothing to change his fate. It's clear he was pulled out just before he died, because he knows who Peter is, which he didn't know until he tried to drown his little ball of fire. Putting him back with him in control of his arms doesn't change the scenario he was plucked from, and he'd likely still drown in the river. As for Andrew's universe, curing the Lizard early does seem to have some slight ramifications, because maybe Captain Stacy wasn't killed. Though curing Electro and Sandman effectively changes nothing.
Of course (other than Mysterio) the one villain who doesn't get a second chance at life is Topher Grace's version of Venom. But nobody seemed to like him, so the hell with him, lol.
On the back of this, there are some slight retcons here and there to try and make the scenario work. Most notably Doc Ock knows Osborn was the Green Goblin, though that wasn't public knowledge in the Tobey movies. Sometimes the little inconsistencies are bothersome, but not often.
Other nitpicks: It's very clear that Thomas Hayden Church wasn't available for filming, so they decided to use a CGI sand double for him and just filmed a cameo for him later. Lizard has a period where he wants to "wait in the truck" and instantly I though "budget save."
Aside my squabbles with the movie, the big moments hit hard. It's never been explicitly stated in these movies but it doesn't seem like MCU Spider-Man had an "Uncle Ben moment," at least not according to this movie. This movie hits the viewer sideways by killing off Aunt May and letting her be the one to tell him "With great power comes great responsibility" just before she meets her fate. I probably should be questioning this Spider-Man's whole vague origin, but this moment is an effective tear jerker so I'll allow it. The end also features Peter giving in and allowing Strange to complete his spell, which means everyone forgets not just that he's Spider-Man, but that they have any kind of relationship with him at all. There is a sweet moment at the end where he tries to reconnect with MJ and Ned at the end but can't bring himself to, because he doesn't want to burden them with his life.
Incidentally, I think this ending is a failsafe in case Sony can't reach another deal extension with Marvel. The last one was catastrophic, but I think a lot of the fan rage was because Far from Home ended on THAT cliffhanger, which hinted at another MCU adventure. This one seems to work as way for this Spider-Man to distance himself from the MCU if need be. He's no longer the heir to Tony Stark's tech, he no longer has ties to Happy Hogan or Doctor Strange, and he can even reset his supporting cast if he wants. We'll see where it goes from here.
That does bring me to the midcredit scene, which is Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock trying to figure out where the hell he's at, after being transported in the midcredits of Venom: Let There Be Carnage. This means he and Spider-Man are going to tangle, right? Hold the phone on that, because Eddie is transported out pretty much with the other villains, thankfully separating this universe and Sony's garbage Spider-Villain universe. Eddie does however leave a fragment of his symbiote behind though, setting the up the black costume for Spider-Man 4 maybe?
The very end credit is a teaser for Doctor Strange 2, which looks crazy! Can't wait.
One last cameo to bring up: Matt Murdock. Timed to coincide with Kingpin's arrival on Hawkeye? Yay.
MCU Ranking1. Black Panther
2. Captain America: Civil War
(*Hawkeye)
3. Thor
4. The Incredible Hulk
5. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
6. Avengers: Infinity War
7. Doctor Strange
8. Iron Man
9. Spider-Man: No Way Home
10. Black Widow
11. Avengers: Age of Ultron
12. Captain America: The First Avenger
13. Avengers: Endgame
14. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
15. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
16. Thor: The Dark World
17. Iron Man Three
(*WandaVision)
18. The Avengers
19. Guardians of the Galaxy
(*The Falcon and the Winter Soldier)
20. Spider-Man: Homecoming
(*What If...?)
21. Captain Marvel
22. Ant-Man
23. Spider-Man: Far from Home
(*Loki)
24. Ant-Man and the Wasp
25. Eternals
26. Thor: Ragnarok
27. Iron Man 2
Spidey-Ranking1. Spider-Man 2
2. Captain America: Civil War
3. Spider-Man 3
4. Spider-Man
5. Avengers: Infinity War
6. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
7. Spider-Man: No Way Home
8. Avengers: Endgame
9. The Amazing Spider-Man
10. Spider-Man: Homecoming
11. Spider-Man: Far from Home
12. Venom: Let There Be Carnage
13. The Amazing Spider-Man 2
14. Venom