Review may contain minor spoilers. Cheat Sheet will contain major spoilers.
When a franchise starts feeling a little diluted, usually you dig into the IP catalogue and see what you can dig out. With this latest instalment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, digging does help – as long as you please the fans as much as possible.
With Spider-Man: No Way Home – the third in the Spider-Man “Home” collection, the ninth in the actual “Spider-Man” film franchise (excluding the Venom and Morbius spin-offs), and the twenty seventh in the MCU, Sony and Marvel have shaken hands and brought the big guns to the screen, saving the best for last – kinda…
No Way Home throws you directly into the tail end of the previous instalment of Far From Home, literally. As the world discovers that Parker (Tom Holland) is actually Spider-Man after a video of a dying Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhall) revealing his true identity is broadcast by J Jonah Jameson (J. K. Simmons), Parker’s life is ruined, along with his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and Ned’s (Jacob Batalon) chances of living a normal life after the stigma of the current events. Parker decides to abuse the magical friendship with Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and have a spell cast on everyone to ‘forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man”. That’s everyone… including Doctor Strange himself. When Parker realises that he wants a handful of people to know, like MJ, Ned, Aunt May… the spell being cast keeps getting altered until it becomes unstable, resculting in the exposure of the multiverse. That means there are multiple copies of each other in other worlds. But it isn’t until Parker tries to correct some already established wrongs, when he encounters his first bad-arse villian – Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina) who is out to get Peter Parker, but not THAT Peter Parker. After their confrontation, it turns out that the multiverse rip has transported previous villians from other Spider-Man worlds (cue the earlier Spider-Man IP library) and we have an amazing showdown.
Without trying to reveal too much, the blending of a library of previous stand-alone franchises hasn’t been done before. And it’s done extremely well. There is plenty of throw-backs, references, a sneaky cameo where No Way Home brings in another Marvel franchise that you wouldn’t expect, and if there’s a particular question about “how are they going to do / explain that”, they do it and explain it very well.
Spider-Man: No Way Home is an emotional rollercoaster full of action, fun, tragedy, and a visual display of awesomeness. A perfect chapter in the MCU.
In cinemas now.
5/5
Cheat Sheet:
There is a mid-credits scene, and a “teaser’ at the very end for something mad-as.
