Our Take On... Spider-Man: No Way Home
If you’ve been paying attention to the most recent developments in the Marvel Universe, especially with shows like “Wandavision”, “What If..” and “Loki”, as well as “Into the Spider-Verse" and the upcoming movie “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”, you’ll see that the big focus at the minute is the concept of the multiverse. The idea that there are an infinite number of alternative realities but each with common links. In “Spider-Man: No Way Home”, we discover that not only is multiverse real, in the context of the MCU, but each has their own Spider-Man, as well as his own villains. What this means for us, the viewer, is that we can expect to see actors return to roles that we might previously assumed they wouldn’t be returning to.
But first, the story. Without going into too much detail, the film picks up immediately where “Far From Home” left off in which Peter Parker’s secret identity was revealed to the world. In order to protect those he cares for, Peter asks Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) for help to make everyone in the world forget that they know Peter’s secret, but this doesn’t quite go according to plan, and before we know it, Peter’s enemies scattered across the multiverse start to appear. As seen in the trailer, we get a returning Alfred Molina as Doc Ock from “Spider-Man 2” (2004), as well as Willem Defoe as the Green Goblin from the original “Spider-Man” (2002), as well as Elektro, played by a returning Jamie Foxx from “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”. Do the Spider-Men themselves make an appearance? You’ll have to wait and see, because it’s not up to me to spoil that for you.
The film itself is a huge amount of fun, and can be enjoyed by newer fans to the series as well as people who (like me) have been seeing these films in the cinema going back to when the “Spider-Man” (2002) was released. It’s loaded with the usual amount of Marvel humour, mixed with a couple of serious moments that really raise the stakes. It does help if you have seen the original films, if nothing else it adds to the reaction of seeing some of the returning cast members and other characters, especially the ones that we thought we wouldn't see again. The film also serves as a neat closer to this current “Spider-Man” trilogy of films that have taken Peter on a real journey since “Homecoming” in 2017. We finally see Peter step out from the shadows of the Avengers, specifically Iron Man, and find his own identity. This is probably Tom Holland’s best outing as the main character, but his support from Zendaya as MJ and Jacob Batalon as Ned are as good as ever, and the three have a great chemistry together.
The MCU films have been on a really strong run since “Endgame”, and following on from “Black Widow”, “Shang-Chi”, and “Eternals”, this film only adds to that list. It’s long, but with the amount of story and characters involved, it definitely warrants the run time, but it flew by for me and my daughter (10) when we watched it. It’s also worth noting that while Disney technically own Marvel, the rights to this are still held by Sony, so don’t expect to see it on Disney+ any time soon. The solution? Get to your local Golden Discs, or order online...you can enjoy it at your leisure!
OUT NOW on DVD, Blu-Ray and 4K
These are the superhuman summations of our man Kevin Dillon.
