Review: Spider-Man: No Way Home

 Spider-Man dips his toe into the multiverse.

I’m sorry this took so long, life has been hectic lately, as you all well know. Let’s skip a lengthy preamble and get right to it, shall we?

 

Such a cool poster.

Spider-Man: No Way Home opens where Spider-Man: Far From Home ended, Peter taking MJ for a webswing around New York, dropping her off and then seeing that Mysterio had sent a faked video of his ‘murder’ to the Daily Bugle web show and outed him as Peter Parker. He freaks out for a second, but then sees MJ starting to get mobbed by others who saw the reveal and the two try to find some place to get away from people. Tall order in one of the most populated cities in the world. They swing about, traveling over the city, through sewers, just barely dodging Flash Thompson who is horrified to learn Peter and Spider-Man are the same person, before landing at the Parker’s apartment. We come in on Aunt May in the process of breaking up with Happy when they hear Peter come in and go to check on him. Classic bit, they come in just as Peter begins taking off his costume, they see Peter in his boxers with his girlfriend, assume and everyone is embarrassed. Peter and MJ do their best to try to distract Aunt May and Happy, we learn in their distraction that May is breaking up with Happy because he’s a bit too clingy, but they’re forced to reveal to them that Peter has been outed. Shortly, Peter and his friends and family are brought in by the Department of Damage Control (The US government department that handles superhero stuff) for questioning. MJ is tight lipped in her interrogation, where we learn that her legal name is Michelle Jones Watson, but she refuses to be referred to as such, Ned is tricked into revealing that he’s been the “man in the chair” for years now, and Peter just tries to tell the truth, but no one believes him. He’s let go though, and he and Aunt May look to get legal counsel.

 

Daredevil catch!

His legal counsel comes in the form of Matthew Michael Murdock, esq. My theater gasped when we saw Charlie Cox on screen as Matt Murdock, and we cheered when the scene kept going. Matt advises them that there is no evidence that Peter was involved in the murder and massacre in London beyond Mysterio’s “confession” so legally he’s fine. Unfortunately, there is the court of public opinion, and they need far less evidence to convict someone. Case in point, someone at that moment hurls a brick through the Parker’s window. Peter reacts to catch it, but Matt is faster, catching it in midair. When everyone is shocked by this, Matt just shrugs and says he’s “a very good Lawyer.” To try to get some peace, Peter and May move into Happy’s condo, he insisted.

 

Peter tries to go back to life, complicated by things like Flash acting like their BFFs and using that fake connection to hawk his book Flashpoint, his teachers putting up a shrine to him (one believes Mysterio) and just people following him and harassing him and his friends. One bit of piece he can find is being alone on the school roof with MJ. He, MJ, and Ned try to take their minds off the insanity and look forward to getting into college. Unfortunately, they are rejected from all the schools they allied to, even their group dream school of MIT. Flash got in though, and Ned get’s a great moment where he gets to call him an idiot for not being able to read the damn room when he comes into the donut shop MJ works at to celebrate with them. MJ, who is pessimistic by nature, tries to brush it off and get back to cleaning up the Halloween lights that are still up despite it being nearly Christmas. Seeing the little light with a wizard on it gives Peter the idea that will ultimately make a mess of his life.

 

I see this going well, no complications.

Peter goes to the Sanctum Sanctorum, finding the place covered in snow. Apparently, Dr. Strange told Wong to make sure one of the portals in the Sanctum was closed, he forgot, and a blizzard blown through. In Wong’s defense, he’s still technically the Sorcerer Supreme so his duties are a bit too numerous to remember to shut one door. He got the job while Strange was blipped and Strange hasn’t officially claimed it back yet. Peter asks Strange if he could use magic to make everyone forget that he is Spider-Man. Strange agrees, despite Wong’s warnings, and they go to the bowels of the Sanctum to perform the spell. Strange begins casting the Ruins of Kof-Kol, preparing to make everyone forget. Realizing that when Strange meant Everyone-everyone, Peter tries to edit the spell so that Aunt May, MJ, and Ned are excluded. But each recast of the initial spell makes it more and more difficult to control until it breaks. Strange is able to contain the spell, though, and is more than a little pissed when he learns Peter jumped from Rejection from college to magic mind rewriting instead of the more obvious “talk to admissions and see if they’ll change their minds,” and kicks him out.

 

With help from Flash to find the head of admissions, Peter swings to the Alexander Hamilton Bridge where she’s stuck in traffic on the way to the airport. He wears his Iron Spider-Suit over his normal person suit, so he looks professional. He tries to talk to her, but is interrupted by a mysterious man with robotic tentacles starting to destroy the bridge. The man, Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock, greets Peter and tries to kill him. Peter holds him off long enough for most of the people in the immediate area to run. Ock grapples Peter and rips off some off Peter’s nano-tech suit. He incorporates the suit into his tentacles, upgrading them. He’s rather shocked when Peter transfers his suit’s mask’s nano-tech to his chest revealing his face. The shock is long enough for Peter to use his suit to override and disable Ock’s tentacles. He uses his new control over Ock’s tentacles to save the admin, who promises to help Peter and his friends to get into MIT. Peter thanks her, but a moment later he hears a mad cackle and sees something coming towards him in the sky on a glider. The figure drops a bunch of bombs that go off, but before the fight can begin anew, Peter and Ock are Sling-ring portaled to the Sanctum Sanctorum. With Ock being put into a cage.

 

Hell of a team-up.

Strange reveals that when Peter kept changing the properties to the spell, he basically reversed it. Instead of making everyone who knows Peter Parker is Spider-Man to forget in this universe, it drew in people who knew Peter Parker is Spider-Man from outside the universe. Explaining Ock, and the Lizard, whom Strange had found and captured in the sewers earlier. He locked the remnants of the spell into a prison called the Macchina di Kadavus until they can sort things out. Strange tasks Peter, and he brings MJ and Ned in, to find these visitors, capture them with a device he’s given, while Strange works on repairing the spell.

 

Peter swings out to woods outside the city. He’s in a reversed version of his suit, as he’d gotten green paint thrown on him earlier, and finds a being of electricity riding the wires. He’s almost electrocuted, but is saved by Flint Marko, the Sandman. They work together and cut the power. Separated from the power, the being returns to human form, revealing it to be Max Dillion aka Electro. Electro and Sandman are captured and brought to the Sanctum as is Peter. Electro was captured first, making Marco think Peter killed him, and he tries to retaliate but is then captured himself.

 

Meanwhile, in an alley in town, we see a disheveled Norman. The Goblin is yelling at him for being weak again. In anger, he smashes the Goblin mask and dress himself in rags before heading out.

 

Peter gets a call from Aunt May and learns that Norman is at the FEAST center where she works. He sprints to save her, only to find she’s having a very pleasant conversation with Norman. He sort of explains the situation to May, who encourages Peter to try to help these people, as Norman in his right mind is a sympathetic sort. He mentions how he discovered he, Oscorp and Harry don’t seem to exist in this reality and that’s left him despondent. He takes Norman with him, who is promptly put in a cell by Strange. It’s here that Norman, Otto, and Electro all learn that they’re destined to die when they return to their home realities. The spell that brought them here having given them life, or merely pulled them out of their timestream just before their deaths. Oh, it’s also here that they learn the Lizard can talk, he’s the one that told Max. He’d been playing mute this whole time. Peter, not wanting to doom these guys asks Strange for more time, maybe to help them. Norman mentions that he’s something of a scientist himself, so he could help too. But Strange wants to send them back and to their fates rather than risk the multiverses. Peter grabs the Macchani and tries to run. He and Strange battle outside the Sanctum. There’s a pretty cool bit where Strange tries the out off body spell that the Ancient One used on the Hulk in Endgame, but Peter’s spider-sense moves his arms on autopilot until his spirit can return to his body. Strange locks them in a mirror dimension, trying to capture Peter in the dimension he can twist around in relative ease. Peter, though, outsmarts him by noticing there’s a patter to how things shift and double and use it to tangle Steven Strange in webbing. He steals Strange’s sling-ring, leaving him effectively trapped in the dimension and escapes. He gives Ned the sling-ring and MJ the Macchani, telling them to keep it safe and break the spell open, sending the villains back to their realities, if they don’t get messages from him regularly.

 

Two of Peter's most powerful foes helping.

Peter frees the villains and takes them back to Happy’s condo. Well, most of them. Norman, Otto, Max, and Flint are brought up, but Connors elects to stay in the truck. Maybe anti-social, maybe to save on the CGI budget. I have got to imagine keeping Flint in sand form as well as making Otto look younger ate up a lot of the budget. Earlier, they’d discovered that Happy had kind of, sort of stolen a Stark Industries Fabricator machine. It’s like a 3D printer, but it can build complex machinery and chemical compounds. Peter and Norman settle on making Otto a new inhibitor chip first, as that is probably the simplest fix. They build the inhibitor chip, with a reinforced casing, and implant it on Otto’s neck. Once the voices of his tentacles are removed, Otto quickly recovers and does his best to help with the other cures. While the science types work, Max and Flint have a chat and bond over the fact they were both transformed by falling into something. They make a special siphon to use on Max, one that if he wears for a few hours will drain away the excess electricity in his system and return him to normal. Outside, J. Jonah Jameson arrives, having been tracking Peter for some time looking for mud to sling, calls Damage Control.

 

They work on a cure for Norman, but before they can administer it, the Goblin persona takes over. He quickly convinces Max to side with him, and Electro removes and crushes the siphon and steals the Arc reactor from the fabricator to amplify his powers. Otto gets electrocuted by Electro and runs off, and Flint also flees not wanting to get mixed up in all this. Peter has to fight off the Goblin, with the escaped Lizard and Electro also taking potshots at him until he crashes to the ground floor. May, being a badass, gets the cure they’d been working on, runs up and jabs Green Goblin with it. Unfortunately, the cure doesn’t work as intended. She gets hit by his glider and stabbed. He throws some goblin bombs to cover his escape. Peter digs May out of the rubble, and she, like her husband in alternate timelines, gives Peter the With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility speech, before dying from her injuries. Happy pulls up and gives Peter enough cover from Damage Control to escape. Later, Peter watches a Daily Bugle news report by Jameson, blaming him for the damage at the condo and the death of his aunt.

 

Ned and MJ, concerned about not hearing from Peter after seeing what happened on the news, try to use the sling-ring in a vain hope to try to find him. To their shock, Ned has enough magic in him to make it work, and they are able to find A Peter, just not their Peter. Nope, this is Peter Parker as played by Andrew Garfield. Weirdly, no one questions why he looks so different from their Peter. He proves himself by 1. Being in the costume, 2. Clinging to the ceiling, and then 3. Cleaning a dusty spot Ned’s grandma can’t reach. Since the ring worked in a way, they try again, find another Peter, but it’s Peter Classic as played by Tobey McGuire. I’ll be referring to Peter Tobey as Peter C (Classic) and Andrew’s as Peter S (Spectacular) Both Peters had been brought over with the villains but have done a better job laying low as they looked for Peter M (MCU). With magic not helping, Peter C and S ask where Peter would go when he wanted to be alone.

 

Peter, Peter and Peter being Peter.

MJ and Ned realize that he’s up on Midtown high’s building. They meet Peter and his friends try to talk him through his grief. It doesn’t work as well as they’d hoped, but then C and S join in and try to give their younger self their perspective on grief. This helps and they’re able to help Peter feel process his grief, partially by revealing that May filled in the role of their Uncle’s Ben. The three Peters, MJ and Ned break into the lab at Midtown and begin to work on cures for the villains. Peter S takes on Lizard’s cure, while Peter’s C and M work on Goblin and Sandman’s. The Peter’s bond over their love of science, giving advice to Peter and his friends, and give us little epilogues. Peter C talks about how he had problems finding a work/life balance for a little bit, but he and his MJ were able to work things out. Peter S mentions that he’s been in a bit of a hate spiral since Gwen Stacey’s death, but he’s been working through it bit by bit. They also tell Ned about how Peter’s best friend has a habit of betraying him and/or ending up killing themselves, which freaks him out. They finish their cures, and lure the villains to the Statue of Liberty (being modified to have Cap’s Shield) by telling them to show up or they’ll break the Macchina and send them to their fates.

 

And you obviously need to watch the movie to see how this all works out. It’s rather heartbreaking.

 

Jaime Foxx Electro+

I loved this movie. It had all the things that I wanted in a Spider-Man film. We got to see Peter face off against his biggest challenge yet. It served as also an epilogue to the lingering Spider-Men’s plots. We got confirmation that Peter and MJ in the Raimi films has been fine, and while Peter in Sony’s film has been in a dark place, him saving Peter’s MJ in the fall during this film’s finale seems to suggest him might be moving forward a bit. While it didn’t start until the third act, I loved the dynamic between the Peters. It was a very natural and beautiful sibling dynamic that I really enjoyed. All though it was a bit weird when you think about the fact they’re the same guy. There’s a pretty good bit I glossed over where Peter S and M were absolutely flabbergasted by C having biological webshooters. Not going to lie, I’d love another Spider-Verse film with them. I also kind of loved that May was used as the MCU version of Ben. Ben Parker is a character I like and respect, but he’s more of a presence than a character in most stories. May, on the other hand, is Peter’s rock, is the one that loves him unconditionally and holds him up as best she can. So the fact that she not only showed Peter what it is to be a hero, to run up and risk herself to stop Green Goblin, and her ultimately sacrificing herself for the greater good makes the power and responsibility line fit so much better here in my book. I loved seeing the villains from the old films were brought in. Giving guys like Otto Octavius, Electro and Green Goblin a chance at being healed and make up for their crimes was kind of nice. And making Goblin be the bane of not one but two Peter’s existence was also brilliant. Green Goblin is one of Peter’s greatest nemesis, so seeing them work him into the MCU canon without recycling the character and get an actor who would be inferior to Willem Dafoe’s performance is great.

 

Since I don’t have a negative, other than Electro being there and confirmed didn’t know who Peter was is odd, I’ll talk about the falling action. I understand why Peter ultimately decided to cut himself off from Ned and MJ, that they were hurt in this recent fight and worried that they might be hurt worse again, I can understand why he pulled back. It’s wrong, making a choice for them, but I can get why he did it. I’m worried for Peter, as while I do know that the most interesting Spider-Man stories have Peter losing whenever Spider-Man wins, to break him down to having no support structure at all is never good for him. I hope that he’ll find his way back to MJ and Ned, hopefully before Ned ends up going Hobgoblin. Yeah, Peter, you never considered losing you might make your friend into a villain, did you? The next era in Peter’s life will certainly be interesting.

 

OH, and I wonder what they’re going to do about Venom. The Symbiote just being around in the MCU can’t possibly be good.

 

So yeah, I really liked this ending to this era of Peter Parker’s life. Next time I’ll probably be talking about the New Batman. See you then!

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