Spider-Man: No Way Home Hits a Home Run

For a while, there has been a lot of hope, speculation, and rumors regarding Spider-Man: No Way Home. There were hints at multiple villains and talk about the returns of the first two actors to play Spider-Man under Sony. One thing I can say is that they did an incredible job on the movie. One thing that helped was the return of the original actors for any character that did return. There were lots of twists and turns in the story, both happy and sad. There were a number of times that cheers went out throughout the theatre I saw it at. Everyone was excited for what happened and everyone seem satisfied. The writers took advantage of the two and a half hours that they had to tell a well paced story. Each character had their moment to shine and no one felt actually neglected. People often say that the third movie in a series is bad but that was definitely not the case here. There were also two extra scenes during the credits that lead on to some possibly interesting things coming up in the future. I had heard this might be Tom Holland might be leaving after this but I recently read that he’ll be around for another 3 Spider-Man movies so we’ll have a lot more to look forward to. To really get into a full review, we need to get into the spoiler section though.

The film picks up right after the second movie where Mysterio had revealed to the world that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. This made trouble not only for Peter but for MJ and everyone else in his life as well. That is except for Flash Thompson who tried to say he was Spider-Man’s friend but never seemed to have the clout for it to stick enough to affect him. (He’s such an ass. I bet a lot of people were glad he disappeared for 5 years during the snap.) Even Stark Industries got in trouble because they made the drones. I mean, it’s not like Happy was the one piloting them, but he gets in trouble for it anyway. Somehow, Peter gets Matt Murdock as a lawyer and he’s played by Charlie Cox from the Netflix Daredevil show. While Daredevil doesn’t appear in the movie, they aren’t ignoring that side of Matt as he catches a brick that gets thrown in through a window behind him while he was meeting with everyone. His explanation for being able to do this? He’s a really good lawyer. He mustn’t have been too great though since he left Happy hanging when he was still in trouble which was a pretty shitty thing to do.

So, Peter goes back to school after all this and there are tons of people there, both protesters who backed Myterio and people supporting Peter. After the big lead up about this, nothing else happens there other than Peter, MJ, and Ned hanging out on the roof talking about college. This is after Ned comes up and interrupts Peter and MJ as they about to kiss. He is seriously clueless. I love how all 3 of them disappeared during the snap so they could all still be graduating together. This makes me wonder about college applications when it looks like you’re graduating high school when you’re 23. I wonder if there’s a “I disappeared during the Snap” checkbox on the application. Either way, they get their applications out and wait for the letters. Of course, they are rejected by them all including MIT because of everything that happened with Peter. I could see them rejecting Peter, which would be rude, but Ned and MJ? I guess we need a story though to get Peter looking for a way to solve this.

Enter Doctor Strange as Peter shows up to his sanctum to find a ton of snow inside with a couple people shoveling. Also, they reveal that Wong became the Sorcerer Supreme while Steven didn’t exist for 5 years. I wondow why he didn’t get it back. None of this seems to have anything to do with the story though and just seems to have been tossed in for unrelated humor. Peter wants his identity not to have been revealed because so many people were hurt by that and Steven thinks a forgetting spell will be the solution. This might have worked if Peter hadn’t kept changing the parameters mid-cast by adding in new people who should remember. Steven just barely gets the spell under control before major damage happened. This just pisses Doctor Strange off as it should but not as much as finding out that this was his first idea instead of handing it like a normal person would and appealing the decisions. I think Peter was lucky that he got walked out instead of having a portal open under him, dropping him off in Antarctica or something.

When Peter tracks down someone to help him, the real fun starts as Doctor Octopus attacks. He’s looking for Spider-Man only to find out he found the wrong one. Peter stopping him by using the nanites in his costume to control Doc Ock’s arms was kinda funny though. Green Goblin showing up didn’t help either. I did love him calling Harry a “green elf”. Steven brings Peter back to some basement of his with magic cells in it that he puts the doctor in and already has the Lizard in. It turns out that the spell is bringing other people who know who Peter is from other universes to his universe. After he sends Peter out, we get Electro and Sandman captured too and the pieces fall together that they are from different times as well as different universes. Once they get Harry back (who is temporarily himself again), Peter stops Steven from sending everyone home so some of them don’t die like they were supposed to. After winning a battle in the Mirrorverse, Peter takes the bad guys to cure them.

The first cure being Doctor Octopus was interesting because they say that the interface on the back of his neck put the arms in charge of Octavius instead of the other way around. It’s an interesting concept. After being cured, he starts helping make cures for the others, but of course, Harry goes evil again and everyone decides not to get cured all of a sudden. The ensuing battle leads up to the Green Goblin killing Aunt May which I will admit made me tear up. Peter didn’t have it too bad in this universe so I guess this gives him a little more behind him like the comic version does. I’m still not happy about it.

Cut to MJ and Ned who were holding onto the device to send the bad guys home as well as the hand teleport device from Doctor Strange. Ned find out by accident that he can open portals with it. I wouldn’t expect Ned to find out any other way despite how smart he’s supposed to be. They try to find Peter Parker and, while they do, it’s Andrew Garfield and then Tobey Maguire that they find. The audience gave a huge amount of applause when they each appeared. Them being in the movie was the worst kept “secret” ever. I know people who thought they weren’t actually going to be in it though. It makes me wonder how Steven “knew” the 5 villains were all that needed to be sent back when there were still 2 Peter Parkers out there too which must have given off the same signal or whatever as the villains did. I guess now we know why Wong is still the Sorceror Supreme.

Move on to the 3 Peters all getting together and creating cures for the villains and then theymake a plan to pull them together. The battle scene of trying to battle and yet cure the villains was done really well. You’ve got 4 villains needing curing, three Spider-Men, two of Peter’s friends, and a partridge in… ummm… I mean… and Doctor Strange. Doctor Octopus does show up a little later in time to help out. Thankfully, he’s still a good guy. The sky starts ripping open with other people from whatever dimensions trying to get in due to the spell still. It ends up that the only solution is the original plan so everyone is sent to where they need to go and Steven casts the spell making everyone forget Peter Parker.

In the end, it looks like any record of him is erased at all since he’s seen with a book to get a GED. This would make you think that his birth certificate, social security ID, and everything else are all gone too which would be very proplematical. People still remember Spider-Man though so it makes you wonder how it will all work out without the connection between the two. Plus, I’d love to know how or if reality was changed in the other worlds since the villains are all different than they were when they pop back into their original points in time. Did the ones that died survive? The Spider-Men knew them all so this was at some point after meeting everyone from their world. Did they believe that the villains had been cured that they fought in the past before they ended up going to the MCU world? There ae so many questions on that side of things that I don’t know if we’ll ever get answered.

Of course, there’s still the scenes from the credits. The first shows the Tom Hardy version of Eddie Brock talking to someone incredulously about all the MCU heroes. This means that he is not actually from the MCU universe as some people would have assumed even though Venom and Spider-Man are both done by Sony. (This makes me wonder where the upcoming Morbius movie will fit into the multiverse.) You see him pop back to his world leaving a little blob of Venom goo on the counter. My first question is why he was there in the first place. He had never heard of Peter before let alone know he’s Spider-Man so he shouldn’t have been pulled over from the spell. Second, why didn’t all of Venom go back with him? I’m sure this is a set-up for something like the Secret Wars symbiote suit but the whole scene was pretty questionable.

Then we end up back with Doctor Strange who is visits Wanda for help with issues in the multiverse. This is obviously a lead-up to the second Doctor Strange movie and looks like it’s going to be quite interesting. One person we see who will be introduced in there is America Chavez. It should be interesting to see what they do with her and how she even gets involved. I’m sure there’s going to be a lot going on, but I would love to see more on Billy and Tommy given the ending of WandaVision. All things given, this would be a good place to reintroduce them. I’ll definitely be looking forward to it but will have to wait until May 6, 2022 for it to come out.