Spider-Man: No Way Home - Brilliant But Lazy

after months of walking through the unforgiving desert of entertainment that is phase four of the mcu spider-man no way home felt like a much needed oasis it had some fun moments strong character work decent action and it even managed to address a lot of the complaints fans had with tom holland's version of spider-man myself included all in all it was a refreshingly good time at the movies and it was kind of brilliant for what it did for this character in a couple of hours however no way home was also pretty damn lazy with many of the great things in it being undercut by very poor setup and vague exposition in fact upon further inspection i think this movie may have just gotten away with a little too much nonsense simply by being fun and serving up some delicious nostalgia pie to its audience how's the pie [Music] so good all this begs the question is spider-man no way home really as good as we all thought it was or do its faults drag it down into the mud with the rest of the garbage in phase four well as good old dr silverman once said that's what we're gonna find out but before we dive in let me give you a little refresher just start at the beginning so this film picks up directly after the events are far from home with peter being framed for the destruction mysterio caused and the whole world finding out that he's spider-man naturally this turns peter's life upside down he has no privacy people think he murdered mysterio and the authorities are on his ass about his involvement and everything that happened boy it looks like skinny pete is in some deep [ __ ] this time huh well not really because everyone's favorite blind lawyer shows up and peter manages to avoid any serious legal trouble i'm a really good lawyer alrighty then after miraculously evading prosecution the general controversy surrounding peter starts to affect his friends and loved ones he and his aunt may are pressured to move due to continued harassment and ned and mj are rejected from their dream college simply because of their connection to him it's at this point that peter gets the bright idea to visit doctor strange in the hopes that he can hit the reset button on all this craziness strange agrees to help by casting a spell that will make people forget that peter is spider-man however because he put too much booze in his coffee strange waits until he's right in the middle of casting this spell before revealing that peter's friends and loved ones will also be affected by it are you [ __ ] [ __ ] of course as soon as peter learns this he starts requesting changes to exclude certain people but those requests ultimately wind up corrupting the spell and soon after strange pulls the plug an entirely new problem presents itself hello peter you see instead of making the world forget that peter parker as spider-man apparently the corrupted spell wound up bringing in a bunch of people from other universes who already know peter parker as spider-man and unfortunately they all appear to be dangerous villains to contend with this problem strange tasks peter with gathering up as many of these villains as he can find so they can be sent home and while doing that peter learns that most if not all of them are destined to die in their universes fighting their own versions of spider-man once peter hears about the fate of these guys he feels compelled to find a way to save them and this runs counter to doctor strange simply wanting to use his magic spell box to send them back immediately so he and peter get into a bit of a tussle during the fight peter winds up taking the box from strange steals his sling ring and then traps him inside the mirror dimension until near the end of the movie wow i gotta say i don't understand how strange could have possibly lost this fight but now i'm really starting to wonder what's in that mug anyway with strange out of the picture peter's new plan is to cure the villains of their super-powered abilities before sending them back in the hopes that they won't be put into the dangerous situations that get them killed however peter's compassionate plan quickly blows up in his face as a couple of the villains get some ideas of their own and the resulting chaos leads to aunt may being turned into a shish kebab long after peter has dealt this crushing blow ned messes around with dr strange's ring and winds up opening some portals that change the game completely you see it's revealed that in addition to all those villains alternate peter parkers were also brought into the mcu when strange's spell went wrong these alternate spider-men give peter a morale boost when he needs it most and urge him to continue with his plan despite everything that's happened the three spider-men then work together to cure all the villains and with a little more of ned's convenient magic even dr smirnoff gets restored from the recycle bin however as things are starting to get under control strange's spell gets corrupted even further and reality starts bursting at the seams with countless visitors from other universes about to pour their way in peter asks if strange could try to cast the original spell again where everyone would forget that he's spider-man but strange insists that it won't work and i guess we just have to take his word for it so in order to fix the problem peter suggests that strain should cast a new spell where everyone in the world would forget that peter parker ever existed like a somewhat responsible adult this time strange makes it clear that this spell will affect every relationship in peter's life before rushing into things and once peter agrees only then does he start casting it wow what the [ __ ] you couldn't have done that earlier anyway peter says his goodbyes to the other spiderman ned and mj and after a flash of light all the multiverse characters finally return home we then skip ahead sometime to see the effects of peter's decision nobody in the world not even ned or mj remembers him and as he's about to start explaining things to mj in the hopes of rekindling their relationship he stops himself knowing that he'd just be putting her in danger so he decides to start his life anew as just some inconspicuous nerd who just so happens to be your friendly neighborhood spider-man [Music] all right so now that i've laid out the general events of this film i think it's best if i kick off my analysis with a positive and that is that no way home does have all the pieces of a pretty good character-driven story peter starts out by not being willing to separate his life as spider-man from the people close to him but after his inclination to do the right thing causes him to suffer a great personal loss he learns that he needs to draw a line between his two lives in order to keep his friends and loved ones safe this is an excellent story to tell with a character like peter parker and by the end i think the writers truly succeeded in showing the audience just what kind of self-sacrificing person peter is although what i think is really cool about all this is how the easily mishandled concept of the multiverse was made to be an integral part of peter's story rather than just a cheap gimmick you see in the ever expanding landfill of lazy unwarranted sequels and soft reboots the idea of the multiverse just seems like the ultimate excuse to keep playing on people's nostalgia in place of an actual story it's simple really grab something that people already have an emotional connection to and just shove it into your movie with barely any context at all other than the word multiverse now while no way home certainly does this it also takes what we know about those characters to further explore just who this peter parker is sure having all these villains show up again is awesome on that pure lizard brain level but peter's decision to try to save them all from their eventual deaths is what gives their presence meaning and clues the audience in to peter's values similarly seeing the three spider-men interact with each other is wonderful but it's the fact that they reinforce peter's great power great responsibility philosophy that makes it all worthwhile as if having these characters merely be functional in peter's story wasn't enough though a decent amount of them get meaningful payoffs that logically follow from where we last saw them for example andrew garfield's version of spider-man saves mj redeeming himself for his failure to save gwen in the amazing spider-man 2. furthermore toby's spider-man prevents the goblin from being killed with the glider which not only harkens back to his final encounter with the goblin but also reinforces what he learned about seeking revenge in his own trilogy suffice it to say in terms of doing the whole multiverse thing right and also telling a good peter parker story i think no way home does a pretty decent job however for as much as i can give credit for strong characterization and making the most out of this wacky premise i think the way in which peter's journey comes together is a bit of a stretch to start the only reason peter goes through any kind of character arc at all here is because both doctor strange and wong are written as completely stupid and irresponsible [ __ ] you see initially strange tells peter that there's nothing he can do about his unmasking citing how they just messed with reality to bring back the people thanos dusted as well as the fact that he no longer has any way of reversing time this sounds like something that strange would say but then he remembers that there's a spell which makes people forget things and all of a sudden his concerns about altering reality go right out the [ __ ] window strange's friend wong chimes in saying that performing that spell is super dangerous however strange just rebuts this point claiming that they've used it for a lot less like covering up their magical orgies or whatever do you remember the party of commertage no exactly so after a two-second conversation about giving the entire world amnesia wang the current sorcerer supreme just leaves saying that he doesn't want any part of this and strange then proceeds with casting this super dangerous spell for peter with very little trepidation to make matters worse the fact that strange starts this spell up without discussing the specifics with peter first is completely unforgivable i mean strange's gross oversight here is the reason that the spell gets corrupted at all sure the film wants you to think that the spell getting corrupted is peter's fault because he wasn't willing to include the people close to him but that's just a bunch of baloney strange knew how this needed to work and he knew the reality shattering risks if something went wrong so there's absolutely no reason for him to do something this idiotic that is no reason pertaining to character or story anyway no i'm afraid the real reason both strange and wong make such horrendous decisions at the start of this plot is just to create an excuse for characters we know and love to show up again and fair enough considering what they do with them but i feel like we could have gotten here by much more logical means that would not have assassinated both strange and wong maybe instead of doctor strange acting completely out of character and doing something really dumb some other evil character could have been impersonating him for their own nefarious purposes better yet maybe the magic stuff could have been removed altogether and the multiverse could have been introduced through some sort of technology i mean that worked pretty well in that spider-verse movie so why not i don't know they could have done any number of things to make more sense out of this premise but instead they chose to jump as hard as they could on the nearest rake putting the crappy way that this story gets started aside though the next major step in peter's journey is learning about the fate of the villains and facing the consequences that come about from trying to help them however i'm afraid that this too is manipulated in weird artificial ways you see after peter takes all the villains over to happy's apartment and starts developing cures for each of their various conditions things go south pretty damn quickly the goblins start slapping him around electro pushes doc out the window and then teleports out of there sandman floats away in a dust cloud and the lizard who for some reason was sitting outside in a truck unsupervised the whole time tosses peter around for a bit and then [ __ ] off until the end of the movie the ultimate point of all of this chaos is just that the goblin kills aunt may which brings peter to his lowest point in the story now while this moment is probably the most important piece of character development that this version of spider-man has ever had unfortunately the sequence of events and actions that get us here are questionable to say the least in fact this entire section of the movie seems to be purposely designed for aunt may's death and it disregards a lot of logic character development and motivations in order to make that happen for one why in the world is aunt may even here yeah i know she lives there but you're seriously telling me that peter had the foresight to tell ned and mj to stay away from this apartment but not aunt may why i don't buy for a second that peter would risk mae going anywhere near these guys or that he would trust them enough to not screw him over i mean i get that he just wants to help but after spending the whole day capturing these villains and seeing how dangerous they all are they really should have known better than to leave one down on the street in a truck and let the rest mosey around in the apartment with his very vulnerable aunt this is all made even worse when you take into account that peter literally just learned what can happen if you put your trust in the wrong people at the end of the last movie hence why we're here in the first place you lied to me and i trusted you i know that's most disappointing part as if peter's questionable decisions weren't bad enough though even some of the other characters here make some bizarre choices just so they're not in the way for may's big death scene for example doc ock is back to his normal self when electro blasts him out the window and we even see him latch into the side of a nearby building but then he just leaves he could have easily come back to help peter fight the goblin like he conveniently does later but doesn't because aunt may had to die similarly sandman vanishes like a fart in the wind even though his entire motivation is just to get back home to his family and peter is his only real hope of doing that he could have easily helped peter out here just like he did earlier but didn't because again aunt may had to die no matter how you slice it peter's low point in this story is pretty contrived and while i still generally like the fact that this peter has now officially suffered that big character-defining loss in his life i just wish it came about in a way that made at least some amount of sense anyway after peter's low point his story is all set to resolve in the climax where he makes that big decision to be forgotten in order to save reality however just like the first two steps of his journey this is also tainted by a few problems that do a lot to undermine it to start the spell that fixes everything depends on understanding exactly what happened with the first spell and i'm afraid that they're both explained very poorly you see when strange first tells peter what's going on he says that the spell pulled in people from other universes who know peter parker is spider-man however some of the people that show up in the mcu clearly don't know spider-man's identity i mean electro certainly never knew i just thought she was gonna be black and that dopey ass version of eddie brock in the mid-credits scene doesn't even have a spider-man in his universe so that doesn't make sense nevertheless the movie operates as if what strange said is true because peter being forgotten is the thing that puts everything back to normal with that being said though i don't really understand why the original spell to make people forget peter as spider-man wouldn't have worked a second time around when peter asks about it strange just says it's too late for that now but without any further clarification this just feels like the writers sweeping a legitimate question under the rug in order to squeeze some more drama out of the ending they're here because of you what truly blows my mind though are the absolutely insane implications of strange's final spell you see in addition to the mcu's peter parker being completely forgotten the final spell implies that every person from every universe would also forget that their peter parker existed i mean with the rules established the spell wouldn't have worked otherwise right so all other peter parkers have had their relationships in history erased with all due respect what the [ __ ] you know how it was nice and heartwarming to hear that toby's peter and mary jane finally made the relationship work well now she won't remember who he is and the same goes for any versions of peter that had kids or any sort of meaningful relationship for that matter [ __ ] even their jobs and life accomplishments would have been wiped out by this just like the mcu's version jesus christ the worst part is that when these other universes are brought up again and we all know they will be future writers will either not address this problem at all or they'll just say that the spell didn't work that way with zero explanation as to why when that happens i'll then have tons of comments saying see you were wrong and my last bit of sanity will officially be gone so given everything i just went over i can't help but feel like pretty much every step of peter's journey in no way home is compromised in one way or another to the point where it just sucks a lot of the magic right out of it for me i guess what i'm trying to say here is that no matter how much i squint and try to just enjoy the story for the things it does well i can too clearly see the writer's hand pulling the strings behind the curtain during many of the film's most important moments and i think a film is at its best when you never notice that kind of [ __ ] although the more i thought about it i couldn't help but wonder why the writers made some of these choices particularly the soft reboot-like nature of that final spell i mean peter's arc would have been pretty much the same if the final spell was just that everyone in the world forgot that he was spider-man but the writers went far far beyond that and i have the sneaking suspicion that they were sort of instructed to do so you see since tom holland's version of spider-man was introduced into the mcu he's ironically been tied up in a web of corporate tape from the beginning marvel studios called the shots sony footed the bill and the prophet wasn't exactly split in sony's favor after all sony was the one in need at that time and marvel studios had all the leverage due to them having the biggest entertainment dong in town however sony still benefited from this one-sided deal in the form of repairing their damaged ip sure they gave up some profit and creative control but letting spidey ride on the mcu's hype train only made him more valuable over time skip ahead to when the last film in that initial arrangement was in development and it was clear that sony wanted a new deal to put some distance between them and the old mouse house i mean why else would they end no way home by essentially cutting all the ties that this version of peter parker has to the mcu coincidence why i think not no i think it's much more plausible that no way home was sort of designed in a lab as franchise management in other words the goal was to create separation from the mcu while still leaving that door open and also laying the groundwork for sony's own spider-man cinematic universe you know the one they've been hilariously trying to build up since 2014 with such cynical studio driven goals likely being the impetus for this movie it only makes sense that weird decisions would be made and corners would wind up being cut this kind of studio meddling is usually the kiss of death for movies like this but in no way holmes case i actually think it weirdly worked out for both the studio and spider-man fans of course sony made out like a bandit getting the separation they wanted breaking in the cash and completely outshining everything else disney's been doing lately but coincidentally spider-man fans who've been critical of the mcu's interpretation for a long time got the return to form that they've been wanting to see what i mean is that since this whole spider-man rental started an ever-growing number of people including me started to feel as if something was just off with this version of the character sure he was quippy and awkward but with each appearance he felt less like a broke-ass unlucky nerd who struggles with being a superhero and more like well iron man junior he had access to tons of cutting-edge technology that was specifically designed for him everyone in his personal life knew he was spider-man and there was never any real consequence for it and hell until no way home even the villains he faced were primarily motivated by their hatred of tony stark rather than anything to do with peter himself now even though a lot of creative liberties were taken with the character none of this was outright bad per se i mean yeah it was a departure from what people have come to expect from spider-man but this young peter parker growing up in a world of other heroes did make sense and they told some decent stories with them however i think things officially crossed a line and far from home where peter's secret was revealed to the world and what i assume was meant to be a parallel to tony revealing his identity all the way back in phase one that decision was set to fundamentally change the status quo of the spider-man character going forward and i think that was the last straw for a lot of fans who just wanted to see a more traditional version fast forward to no way home and in addition to getting several heaping scoops of nostalgia via the multiverse crap fans finally got fixes for a lot of their complaints with the tom holland spider-man peter's making his own suits and tech now without any help from wealthy benefactors his identity is a secret to the entire world and he won't be so flippant about revealing it going forward and to top it all off he's even stuck in a crappy apartment with a landlord breathing down his neck for the rent rent getting all of this in one movie was an absolute christmas miracle so it's pretty obvious why a lot of the issues in no way home flew under the radar for so many people in the simplest of terms it gave almost everyone who went to see it something that they wanted however as i hope i've made very clear by now simply giving people what they want doesn't really factor in all that much to the quality of the writing sure you may want something to happen in a piece of media but if it happens in ways that don't make sense within the established framework you can't really say it was executed well for example you might have wanted to see this version of spider-man align more closely with the comics or other widely accepted interpretations just like i did but if that only happens due to characters making idiotic decisions or poorly explained magic being applied to their entire world then i'm afraid that the cost just might be a little too high so with all of that being said what's the final verdict for spider-man no way home well after letting the hype wear off and putting my personal feelings aside i'm gonna come out with a bit of a hot take and say that this film is just a few points above average i don't usually do the whole numbers thing but if i had to i'd put this somewhere in the neighborhood of a 7 out of 10. now don't get me wrong no way home definitely gets a lot of things right the strong focus on peter parker's character the clever use of the multiverse and solid performances all around however the way in which the film puts all these pieces together is the real problem here with characters making odd decisions and major events happening for sketchy reasons at the very least i can confidently say that no way home does not belong in the trash heap with the rest of phase 4 because even though it has significant flaws it actually tried to tell a coherent story and to some extent pulled it off who knows though maybe no way holmes box office success will make marvel wake up and realize that people just want to see entertaining movies about likeable characters again i mean things have got to be getting better by now right oh my god what the hell is even that [Music] please don't talk about me when i'm gone

Channel: Cinema Sleuth

Views: 4,879

Keywords: Spider-Man, No Way Home, Sam Rami, MCU, Marvel, Andrew Garfield, Toby Maguire, Doctor Strange, Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Electro, Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr, Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Tom Holland, Comic Books, Movie Review, CinemaSleuth, Sony, Multiverse, Phase 4, Spider-Man PS4, Spider-Man 2, Jamie Fox, Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, Avengers, Avengers Endgame, Spiderverse, Into The Spiderverse

Id: jRnH6m1DSqA

Length: 23min 42sec (1422 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 06 2022