Review: Spider-Man: No Way Home

Spider-Man: No Way Home is easily one of the most anticipated Marvel films ever to release. With the exception of the Avengers films and maybe Captain America: Civil War (which featured Spider-Man), No Way Home is virtually unmatched in hype and anticipation. With all of that hype comes the question of will the film live up to such lofty expectations. We can finally answer that question with this Spider-Man: No Way Home review.

No Way Home clocks in at two and a half hours, and it uses almost all of that time extremely well. You could shave off roughly 15 minutes without losing much, but overall the film is well-paced and full of action. Like most other Marvel Studios films, action and humor take center stage in No Way Home. There are plenty of big action sequences, and a fair amount of that Marvel-branded humor, but one thing that separates Spider-Man: No Way Home from many other Marvel films is the emotion.

Talk to anyone who’s watched Avengers: Infinity War or Captain America: Civil War, and they’ll tell you emotions were running high. No Way Home is right up there standing tall with those high-emotion films. What Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is put through in No Way Home is more emotional than anything we’ve seen the character have to work through in previous films from Sony and Marvel Studios. Tom Holland takes it in stride, with his best performance as Spider-Man to date.

Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) has a role to play in the film, but it’s not overbearing. When it was first announced that Doctor Strange would feature in No Way Home, many fans wanted Peter Parker to have a chance to be on his own, without some sort of mentor looking over his shoulder. Strange is in a significant portion of the film, but this is very much a Peter Parker movie.

The multiverse is a big component of the Marvel Cinematic Universe moving forward, and it features heavily in Spider-Man: No Way Home. However, this still feels like a very self-contained Spider-Man movie. The greater MCU doesn’t really factor into the movie as much as you might think. By the end of the film, there are some consequences that will likely be touched upon in upcoming MCU films, but overall you’ll only be wondering about the future of Spider-Man and his friends.

Aside from the 15 minutes that could be removed to speed up the film a bit, there isn’t much about the film that could be improved. Some of the dialogue can be cheesy at times, but that’s also a Spider-Man thing from the comics, that hasn’t been as prevalent in the films. Is this an example of poor writing, or just being more faithful to the source material? It’s hard to say, but either way it’s not enough to knock the film down at all.

Spider-Man: No Way Home is easily the best Marvel Studios film of the year, and probably one of the best Sony Pictures films of the year. If you’re a diehard Spider-Man fan, No Way Home will certainly be in your top two or three, and many will slot it in as their favorite Spider-Man movie. It doesn’t quite beat out the best of the best in the MCU, but it’s certainly up there giving those films a run for their money.

Pros:

• Tom Holland goes above and beyond to deliver his best performance as Peter Parker
• Fun and action-packed sequences push the film forward
• There’s a ton of emotion that really makes you feel for these characters
• Doctor Strange brings a bit of the greater MCU, but it’s not overbearing at all

Cons:

• Some very minor visual effects issues
• A few lines of dialogue seem cheesy and clashes with the more witty overall humor
• The more you think about the end of the film, the less sense it makes
• A bit too much plot convenience to help out our hero

Score: 9/10