Not every aspect of Spider-Man : No Way Home is successful but the stuff that works, works marvellously. Remember the cheers we all heard in the cinema when (spoiler alert) Captain America finally got his hands on Mjolnir in Avengers : Endgame? Well get ready to hear those again during a scene around a kitchen table. Hell I even clapped and whooped.
The stuff that doesn't work marvellously is the stuff that marred earlier Spider-Man films too. Less is always better, a maxim to live your life by. One that Sam Raimi and Marc Webb ignored in their Spider-Man sequels when there were too many bad guys, when there was too much going on and not enough time spent quietly chilling with characters we've come to enjoy. At least this time around there's a reason for packing the film with famous faces. It's the downside of fucking with the multiverse as Peter Parker (Tom Holland) finds out to his peril when he asks Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to cast a spell to make everyone forget that Daily Bugle podcaster J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) has unveiled him to the world as Spider-Man. Peter's meddling makes the spell go wrong and cracks open reality and soon bad guys from other universes start leaking through into this one. Enemies from earlier films aka other universes like Dr Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina), Electro (Jaime Foxx) and The Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) arrive in our MCU timeline. Now Poor PP has to take care of business more than ever before while protecting his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) and his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya). It's fierce hard being the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.
It really is. The previous films Spidey appeared in took it relatively easy on him. Not this time around. Nope, this time around he suffers and we do too because how could you not like Tom Holland in the part. He's just so likable, friendly and funny. Without the Avengers around (where are they by the way??) it's up to him to carry the film and he does so with ease. In Holland's previous films he always had the support of other Avengers to fall back on but here all his does is annoy Dr Strange and in doing so shunts him offscreen for a large portion of the film's running time. With him gone the stakes feel more down to earth, even when they are literally out of this world and the parts of the film where it's just him and Ned and MJ feel so light and frothy you'd happily watch 'em go on forever. Pete and MJ, what a couple, her humour and his heart. C'mon Marvel, give us a little 30 minute one off of just the two of them on a date, with nothing flying at their heads. They've earned it. Do it before Zendaya rockets off into the stratosphere.
About 30 minutes in the familiar faces start appearing, some like Doc Ock and the Green Goblin will make you grin like its 2002 (& 2004) again, Jaime Foxx's Electro is way more enjoyable than his previous onscreen incarnation in The Amazing Spiderman 2 but other baddies who'll remain unnamed still suck. Their appearances though are a brilliantly meta way to tie the earlier Spider-Man films to the latest one but god it makes it fierce messy at times, especially during the two big action setpieces where there is just too much going on onscreen, CGI bonzanas guaranteed to give the people old enough to have seen the previous films in the cinema a headache. The people who've seen all the films since 2002 have the advantage here though because this Spider-Man installment definitely ain't for the casual viewer. A lot of it's knowing humour depends on how much you remember of the older films and one genuinely well earned bit of emotion fuelled action only works because of an otherwise crappy earlier film.
Spider-Man : No Way Home suffers when there's too much happening but IMO it's the best of the Marvel Spider-Man films so far. The title character has always been strong enough for his own MCU film and he's finally got one he can really call his own. Director Jon Watts (who also directed Spider-Man : Homecoming) does a fine job of tying together the madness while also managing to clear up a couple of loose ends from earlier films too, one of which will make your heart absolutely soar.
The latest Marvel extravaganza is in cinemas now. Everywhere. In every universe. Constantly. Go see it knowing as little as possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment