Spider-Man: No Way Home

J. Jonah Jameson, J.K. Simmons (“The Tomorrow War”, “Spider-Man: Far from Home”), is pushing his opinion that Spider-Man, Tom Holland (“The Devil All the Time”, “Spider-Man: Homecoming”), is the bad guy.

He say that Mysterio was the good-guy and Spider-Man killed him and he repeats, and plays, Mysterio outing Peter Parker as Spider-Man, which causes all manner of problems, and not just for Parker.

Suddenly everyone wants a piece of him; news ‘copters fly over Aunt May’s, Marisa Tomei (“The King of Staten Island”, “The First Purge”), house, people who believe J. Jonah now hate him and going to school is just all his fellow pupils filming him.

Then they all get arrested, Aunt May, Parker, MJ, Zendaya (“Dune”, “Spider-Man: Far from Home”), and Ned, Jacob Batalon (“The True Don Quixote”, “Avengers: Endgame”), as they try to pin everything on Spider-Man, although they have no evidence.

Parker and Aunt May move into Happy’s, Jon Favreau (“Solo: A Star Wars Story”, “Chef”), place, which is full of Stark Industries tech, most of which he probably shouldn’t have.

The trio are attempting to get into college but failing, no-one will have them due to the controversy surrounding Spider-Man and their association with him. This leads Parker to Dr. Strange, Benedict Cumberbatch (“1917”, “Avengers: Infinity War”).

Strange isn’t the Sorcerer Supreme, that’s now Wong, Benedict Wong (“The Personal History of David Copperfield”, “The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)”). Parker asks Strange to go back in time and stop Mysterio revealing his identity, but strange can’t, and wouldn’t anyway.

He does however, know of a spell that would make people forget. However, during said spell Parker keeps interrupting Strange, asking for various people to be left out so they still know who he is, this causes a very different spell to be cast.

Now, Spider-Man is up against some very different foes, ones he hasn’t seen before, but we have. First up is Dr. Otto Octavius, Alfred Molina (“Maya and the Three (TV)”, “Wizards (TV)”), quickly followed by Green Goblin, Willem Dafoe (“The Lighthouse”, “Murder on the Orient Express”), then Electro, Jamie Foxx (“Soul”, “Baby Driver”), The Lizard, Rhys Ifans (“Berlin Station (TV)”, “Under Milk Wood”), and Sandman, Thomas Haden Church (“Divorce (TV)”, “The Peanut Butter Falcon”).

Strange’s plan is simple: find them all, zap them into his underground prison and cast a reversal spell to send them all home. But, Parker can’t let him do that when he learns that they all die, mainly at the hands of the Spider-Man in their universe. Instead, he wants to help them, to turn them back to what they used to be.

So, trapping Strange in a mirror-verse, Spider-Man, MJ and Ned attempt to save the bad-guys, cure them. Which is going well until Norman Osborn turns into the Green Goblin and turns the whole plan into chaos, now Spider-Man is up against all of them and he needs help.

Which is lucky, as it is not just bad-guys who have made it through into this universe, Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield (“Hacksaw Ridge”, “The Amazing Spider-Man”), and Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire (“Spider-Man”, “The Boss Baby”), are also here and together, the trio must put a stop to what’s happening, but at what cost? At whose cost?

Spider-Man: No Way Home is an excellent return to form for Marvel after the rather disappointing Black Widow. Bringing back the other Spider-Men is a stroke of genius and both Garfield and Maguire are excellent, Garfield in particular.

Writers Chris McKenna (“Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle”, “Spider-Man: Homecoming”) and Erik Sommers (“Ant-Man and the Wasp”, “The Lego Batman Movie”) have done a fabulous job of fusing the old Spidey’s with the new.

Director Jon Watts (“Spider-Man: Homecoming”, “Cop Car”) keeps the movie fast-paced and exciting but it still has plenty of heart and it’s tinged with more than a hint of sadness too. Sure, most of what happens kind of gets undone by the end but the journey to get there is more than worth it and teasing a potential Venom – Spider-Man movie in the post credit scene will do just fine.