Okay, dear readers, it’s time. I can’t believe it but I’m about to talk spoilers for one of the most anticipated movies of all time, Spider-Man: No Way Home. (Thankfully this movie lived up to the hype.)
In this post, I’m going to break down the spoiler-filled moments in this film and I’m going to analyze how they affected this film and potentially the future.
Like I said before, MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! So…continue reading at your own risk…unless you’ve already seen it of course. Lol. Enjoy!
Okay, so let’s talk about the first major spoiler in this film.
Daredevil’s Return!
On Wednesday Vincent D’Onofrio returned to reprise his role as Kingpin. And then on Friday, Charlie Cox returned as Matt Murdock in a minuscule cameo that made everyone, including me, cheer. Yes, the Man Without Fear is back and he’s in the MCU…officially.
After hearing rumors that Charlie Cox was in fact about to make his debut in the MCU I binge-watched all three seasons of Netflix’s Daredevil and it blew my mind. The series was so gritty and perfectly crafted, telling a concise over three seasons that I honestly didn’t want to stop. And at the center of its greatness was Charlie Cox who solidified his stance as the perfect Daredevil. People who haven’t watched the Netflix series aren’t ready for his awesomeness in the MCU.
Wong Is Now Sorcerer Supreme!
Wow, what an awesome reveal. Apparently since Doctor Strange blipped Wong became Sorcerer Supreme in his absence which is unbelievably cool.
In case you didn’t know, in the comics, Wong was utilized in a very stereotypical way. He was Doctor Strange’s sidekick/valet. Basically, he was Strange’s servant. It wasn’t a good look to adapt in this day and age and to only improve Wong’s position in this franchise by making him Sorcerer Supreme put the biggest smile on my face.
The Villains Return…But Not In the Way We Think
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Mwa-ha-ha. The villains are back and ready to kill Spidey in the newest Spider-Man flick but things don’t go down as expected. Instead of it being a full-on battle for two hours straight our MCU Peter Parker pledges to help the classic antagonists so that when they return to their universes they don’t die at the hands of Spider-Man.
The twist actually provides a profoundly perfect storyline for this Peter Parker because he is just so sweet. Of course, Holland’s Parker would want to help the villains rather than just fight them to the death.
Unfortunately, that would lead to major consequences.
Doctor Strange and Spider-Man’s Confrontation
I loved this scene for two reasons. One, I love Doctor Strange, and every time he’s onscreen I just kind of melt inside. He’s just the best! Two, the fact that Peter Parker defeated him by using geometry is the most Spider-Man thing he could do. I love it!
Aunt May’s Demise
Spider-Man isn’t Spider-Man until he loses someone incredibly close to him. I thought that Marvel Studios had taken him through the wringer enough by having him lose Tony Stark who became a bit of a father figure to him but nope, this was the film that would take Parker through the emotional wringer.
Aunt May’s demise at the hands of the evil Green Goblin was not only shocking but devastating. That scene, it was hard holding back tears.
Peter Parker has been through so much but he needed this extra kick in the pants to become a bonafide Spider-Man.
The Spider-Man Return
I’ve never been fond of Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man and I loved Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man but I hated the movie. That, however, didn’t diminish the awesomeness of their return in this film in the slightest. Even I was beaming from ear to ear as my entire theater erupted when they appeared.
It felt almost unreal seeing these iterations of Spider-Man on the big screen again aiding Peter Parker in a way that didn’t feel corny or underwhelming.
In fact, Jon Watts found a way to not only give these two iterations of Spider-Man closure but seeing them find redemption in their own personal ways was beautiful…truly.
(If only they had handled Luke Skywalker’s story in The Last Jedi with as much love. 😠)
The End
To say I cried is an understatement. The end of Spider-Man: No Way Home is really depressing and yet it is the only ending that made sense for Peter Parker. For him to be so selfless as to let the memory of him be forgotten even from the people he loved absolutely destroyed me. It was like the sad ending of a good animated Disney movie. It wrecked me.
It also made it where I will not quite be the same again while watching him in the other films because I do know how his trilogy ends and I’m just…sad.
Oh well, great job Marvel Studios for finally giving Spider-Man the trilogy he deserves.
I’m sure there’s more I could be talking about and I probably will start delving into the complexities of this movie a little more (most likely when the film comes out on Blu-Ray and I can see it again) but for now, like I said before, they did that!
I thank you for reading and I hope you have a tremendous day.
Annlyel Online 
No Way Home fell flat to me. It was blandly pleasant but entirely unexceptional. I feel like they just checked the boxes of fan service and called it a day. The worst part is the tedious first half hour, getting through set-up that the trailer more efficiently covered in 30 seconds. The supporting cast is also very uninteresting and feel like they belong in a Disney Channel sitcom, not a superhero movie. Aunt May and Happy’s relationship is cringey, Peter and MJ’s romance lacks passion or excitement, and Peter’s friend is clearly there just to be a comic relief sidekick, but unfortunately more annoying than funny. I think Daredevil had the only laugh-out-loud line in the movie, and he didn’t even need to be in it.
The entrance scene for the two previous Spider-Men was underwhelming. Walking onto a sitcom set isn’t exactly the big entrance that swooping in to join a battle would have been. They seemed oddly nonchalant about having been transported to another universe where all their loved ones were gone and they had no known way of getting back. For most of their screen time, they just seemed to stand around doing “remember when” speeches about their old movies. And all I was remembering was how much higher the stakes felt in those movies, and how much more emotionally involved I was in them.
The villains give more entertaining performances than anyone else in the movie, but they just repeat their old schtick in predictable fashion. The movie is textbook “idiot plot.” Nothing could proceed if the characters didn’t do very stupid things over and over again. Dr. Strange and Peter mess up the spell, Peter and Aunt May naively walk into the villains’ trap, and the villains simply accept an invitation to walk into Spider-Man’s trap later on. And JJJ was right, why did Spider-Man choose to risk destroying the Statue of Liberty in this battle?
I think the action peaked early with the bridge scene. There was a lot of Spider-Manny web-slinging action there, which was fun. The later battles felt pretty chaotic and unstructured. And the jump scare “fake out” with Tobey’s Spider-Man getting stabbed was a really cheap move. I’m still trying to figure out how Spider-Man’s webs can hold Lizard in place but MJ can just rip an object right out of them like they were tissue paper. Jon Watts failed to come up with very many good-looking “money shots.” If Zack Snyder had directed this, we’d have so many more wallpaper-ready shots of the three Spider-Men in heroic and action poses against photogenic backgrounds.
What I was stunned at, and I think quite pleased with, was how the movie proceeded to undo and retcon away everything it possibly could about the MCU Spider-Man’s canon. The results of this story line are a surrender to the critics of the MCU Spider-Man, of which I admit I am one of them, and not in any way a defense of their “reimagining” of the character. I would be fascinated to learn why they decided to do this 180-degree course correction.
They write out Peter’s entire supporting cast. They make him get rid of all of his Iron Man technology and his connection to Stark Industries, and have him sew his own beautiful, comic-accurate, fabric costume. Iron Man, Jr. no more! They give him something approximating the famous “death of Uncle Ben” origin, complete with the “power/responsibility” quote. They have him lose his long-time girlfriend, which didn’t happen in his comic book origin, but did take place about 10 years into his original comic run. It’s not done as a death this time, but is still tragic and unexpected. They also give Peter a status much closer to his traditional natural state of being a loser. Instead of getting into a great school and getting a high-paying job, he’ll be living in a small apartment and struggling to make ends meet. The MCU Spider-Man was always much too careless and cavalier with his secret identity. This movie’s plot seems to have been designed to give him the motivation to guard his identity as a vital secret, just as the comic book Spider-Man always did.
A lot of these changes build in much more of the angst that always tortured the comic book Spider-Man. He doesn’t “Spider-Man” for fun. He was motivated to do good by guilt and regret. And he did not have a network of support around him. He had to achieve most of his heroics all by himself, without even having a friend to confide in, because he could not reveal his secret identity. It’s a truly shocking development how they’ve now set up the MCU Spider-Man to be an almost completely comic-accurate version in the next movie. This is the first time since Spider-Man debuted in the MCU that I’m looking forward to the next Spider-Man movie instead of dreading it.
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Yes, it felt very much like Spider-Man was being written out of the MCU and into Sony’s waiting arms. I don’t know much about his story in the comics so it’s nice to see that they’re finally sticking true to his humble origins as a hero rather than just a kid who’s getting everything handed to him on a silver platter.
I personally thought the film handled everything very well but this is an opinion based off of a viewing in a packed, very enthusiastic crowd. I’m very eager to watch it again in the comfort and solitude of my own home to garner a second opinion. I want to see if the film really was as good as it seemed or if it was one of those movies that’s particularly entertaining because of its fan service points.
Despite not liking the film as much as others, I’m glad you’re looking forward to the next Spider-Man movie.👍
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