If you have made it this long without having Spider-Man: No Way Home spoiled for you then I congratulate you. I'll also try not to spoil anything here, although that makes this review a little bit trickier. I AM going to work on the assumption that most people saw one or two of the trailers, revealing some familiar villains coming back to our screens.
The basic plot concerns Peter Parker/Spiderman (Tom Holland) having quite a miserable time of things, all because of the repercussions from his battle with Mysterio. Everyone knows who he is, and everyone has a view on his actions. Some of them believe the lie fabricated by Mysterio. Some don't. What's worse is that it's not just affecting Peter, but also the ones closest to him. His friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) and his girlfriend, MJ (Zendaya), are guilty by association, which leads to them being unable to get into the colleges they have applied for. Desperate for things to go back to how they were, Peter heads to Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and asks him to cast a spell that will make people forget who he is. The spell goes just a bit wrong, resulting in our universe being invaded by characters who have met other incarnations of Spiderman in other universes.
Director Jon Watts and writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers may not have been the only people shepherding this Spiderman through his latest cinematic trilogy, but they have certainly been there for each instalment, helping to maintain the balance of light fun and major peril that our friendly neighbourhood Spiderman has dealt with over the past few years. This is the darkest of the new Spidey films yet, but it still allows plenty of time for humour, and it still incorporates a bright, solid, colour palette for the majority of the runtime. It helps enormously that Holland has a brightness to him that lights the screen further whenever he's not being beaten down by overwhelming odds.
Holland does his best work yet here (in these movies, I'm not talking about his entire career), moving from lighter moments to moments that are all the more heartbreaking because of his vulnerability, and it's hard to imagine what the bigwigs will plan next for the character. They clearly have to keep making the most of having Holland in the role, but this feels like a tough one to top. And yet, somewhat paradoxically, it's far from the best Spiderman movie. It's overlong, it's overstuffed, it's all just a bit overdone, and the third act has to ensure that every single character gets at least one satisfying moment. And the CGI is equally overdone, even if it is generally at a very high standard.
As well as Holland, both Zendaya and Batalon are as good as they have been in the previous movies. Cumberbatch has fun, playing a strong supporting role. And there’s pure joy in seeing the return of characters played by Alfred Molina, Willem Dafoe, Jamie Foxx, Thomas Haden Church, and Rhys Ifans, with each actor appearing to relish the opportunity to give their character a better resolution. Marisa Tomei remains an excellent Aunt May, doing her best to help and protect her nephew as danger crowds around them. And there are at least three other cameos/supporting turns that will have fans enthralled and delighted while the screen is loaded up with one treat upon another.
It’s clear that this has been made with the aim of really pleasing fans of the web-slinger, especially those who have enjoyed every one of his modern cinematic outings. Pretty much every big rumour you already heard about is true, but that doesn’t lessen the impact of every wonderful moment, whether big or small. It’s just a shame that it feels like a bit too much, this is a film that would have worked better split into two. It’s stimulation overload, just barely allowing the quieter, more sombre, moments time to breathe. That doesn’t mean that it’s not great, it just also feels slightly exhausting as you move towards the inevitably super-busy third act.
With great film-making tools comes great responsibility. The people putting this extravaganza together have been very careful to treat the characters with care. They just weren’t quite so careful with the pacing and the excess of visual effects.
8/10
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