The Complications of the Interwebs - Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) Review

Director: Jon Watts

Notable Cast: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, Jamie Foxx, Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, Marisa Tomei, Benedict Wong, Rhys Ifans, Thomas Haden Church, JK Simmons

 

The final of four Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films in 2021 just happens to be one of the safest ones. In a year filled with giant question marks around new heroes like Shang-Chi and Eternals or the long-awaited, and still very mediocre, Black Widow, Spider-Man: No Way Home seemed like the one that audiences could devour with the most ease. It was a hero in his third solo film of the franchise, one with a deep history in pop culture, and audiences were craving a bit of comfort food in the wake of a new wave of pandemic after a long and tumultuous year. 

 

Marvel understood the need and so did Sony, considering it was a cooperative effort between the two studios in the most obvious ways possible. 

 

The box office numbers reflect this choice as audiences still repeatedly flock to theaters to see this third Spider-Man solo flick.  It’s not shocking. That’s what No Way Home is built to be as a film. It’s pure crowd-pleasing popcorn material through and through, almost to a fault. Nonetheless, through its dynamic action and charming performances, it’s hard not to love Spider-Man: No Way Home to some degree even if its reliance on nostalgia overpowers so much of its run-time and material. 

 

Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)

Director: Jon Watts

Notable cast: Tom Holland, Samuel L Jackson, Jake Gyllenhaal, Zendaya, Jon Favreau, Marisa Tomei

In a way, Spider-Man has always been the perfect superhero. He’s relatable in a lot of ways. Granted, most of us couldn’t have invented web fluid and shooters in high school… but we’ve all been a day late and a dollar short in our real lives, and that’s the thing that’s made him so endearing. He’s kind of a sad sack. For every success, something must go terribly wrong. As our third “Spider-Man 2” in twenty years, this accidentally proves true for the franchise. Again.

Getting out of the way immediately that Spider-Man: Far From Home is not actually a bad movie, especially in comparison to either of the “Amazing Spider-Man” movies, it is lacking a certain something. And I believe that ‘something’ is a fundamental misunderstanding of the character’s strength.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

Director: Jon Watts

Notable Cast: Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey, Jr, Jon Favreau, Marisa Tomei, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Laura Harrier, Tony Revolori, Donald Glover, Gwyneth Paltrow, Chris Evans

Third time’s a charm right? As the third version of Spider-Man that mainstream audiences have seen in recent memory (with Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man being one of the films to truly kick off the box office obsession with superhero films back in 2002), Spider-Man: Homecoming had a lot of things that could have gone horrifically wrong with it. Could is meld the Sony and Disney/Marvel production concepts? Would audiences accept another new cast and “soft reboot” of the hero when both of the previous incarnations crashed and burned with fans and critics in some weird ways? Yet, as surprisingly unsurprising as it is, Homecoming not only looks to dominate the box office, but it’s a remarkably good Spider-Man film that strikes a great balance and manages to fix so many of the issues that were bogging down the last series of films. It’s light-hearted, fun, and ultimately stripped down of the melodramatic densities that this figure had accrued over the last decade and a half. Enough so that it, even compared to other MCU properties, seems a bit refreshing if not occasionally too consumable. With a few flaws in tow, it’s hard not to appreciate the execution and intent of Homecoming for what it is and how it succeeds in that manner.