Movie Thoughts: Spiderman- No Way Home

I’m not the type of person who avoids spoilers for movies like this. If you are, stop reading.

Hype beyond hype. Hype on top of hype. People get excited from combinations and team-ups. The first Avengers movie taught us that. The solo movie setups and the bets all paid off. So the team-ups got bigger and bigger. The next logical step was obvious — why not bring different generations together? Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z. No one would say no to the money.

I was excited for this and watching it (twice now) was enjoyable. It’s a well made corporate product. The set up is pretty boring but the movie doesn’t waste too much time with it. By the time the stuff we all want and expect is happening, we’re appropriately invested. The movie tries to be emotional and it succeeds (sometimes) but that’s not why we paid to see it. It works surprisingly a lot of the time. It’s a great ride, which is all it needed to be. All three Spiderman swinging together. One more inevitability fulfilled in our world where every IP is getting every last bit of juice squeezed out.

Now that they’re all together — Andrew Garfield got the shittiest movies but once you see him with others, he’s unequivocally is the best Spiderman (imo). Maguire is the classic. Holland is the Gen Z, the Now, and I’ll argue that he’ll be the first one that future generations think of. Good for them all. The villains are great, Molina and Dafoe are the best actors (Dafoe might be the best villain the MCU has ever had), Foxx is his comedic self playing autistic-lite, Ifans and Church are used so little they’re not even in the end credits sequence (Covid restrictions limited them to voiceovers), and Marisa Tomei’s hot Aunt May gets a decent send off. Why is Jon Favreau still here? (Because he’s Jon Favreau, duh.) Benedict Cumberbatch is the frustrated principal character trying to maintain order as those wily kids fudge it all up. Benedict Wong is Benedict Cumberbatch’s frustrated principal. (I just realized both their first names are Benedict, what are the odds?) Zendaya and Jacob Batalon get their send off and I’d say they’ve earned their wings, too. Charlie Cox’s Daredevil is here for a second, but not in costume. What an event. What a crossover. What a legacy.

I’m not going to lie, I would’ve liked to see Tom Hardy’s Venom step in to complete the Sinister Six instead of the lame-ass mid-credits scene he gets. Plus Paul Giamatti’s Rhino (they could’ve made a Sideways joke with him and Sandman!) and…