Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) lives up to the hype. It is an awesome film which has no equal. I was surprised that there was so much going on in the film which even I did not see coming. SPOILERS AHOY!
The screenplay by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers showed their brilliance by combining comedy with just the right amount of action. In case of direction, Jon Watts who has directed the previous 2 films in the franchise, really bettered himself with each film, and he knows how to end a trilogy even though a sequel has been confirmed.
My favorite parts of the movie were the fight scenes with Doctor Strange. The way he opened the portal for the mirror dimension was brilliant. It reminded me of the scenes in Marvel’s What If where Strange himself tried many times to change the fate of his beloved, and here we saw multiple changes happening in the multiverse, Sam Raimi (original trilogy) and Marc Webb (Amazing Spider-Man duology) acted as producers here but I can’t wait for the former to direct Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022).
If there is one movie to compare Spider-Man: No Way Home to that would be Doctor Sleep (2019). In that movie, Mike Flanagan (one of my favorite filmmakers) managed to combine the aesthetics of Stanley Kubrick with the writing of Stephen King.
The movie is simply unpredictable, we see villains from across all universes, and the opening trailers did well to conceal just how many we would be seeing in the venture itself. In terms of acting, Willem Dafoe who like Nicolas Cage nails every role he is given, stole the show. Ironically, Cage was offered Dafoe’s role in the very first Spider-Man movie though he declined as he wanted to play a superhero (Ghost Rider) rather than a villain. However, Cage was cast as Spider-Man Noir in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) later on.
Tobey Maguire captured our hearts, I really enjoyed watching this movie in Cue Cinemas here in Lahore, the last movie I watched was Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker in December 2019 in the very same cinema, and quality-wise it is a superb theater chain.
Andrew Garfield was brilliant too in his apologetic tone as majority of the public knows he himself was the reason the Amazing Spider-Man 3 was never made though of course we will never know the full story behind why the last film in the franchise never came to light. The part where his Spider-Man saves the current universe’s MJ was really heartwarming.
Additionally, the villainous characters of Sandman and Doctor Octopus acted as the moral compasses of the movie, with Electro, Lizard and Green Goblin being the eviler of the combined five.
Overall, Spider-Man: No Way Home is perfect in each and every way. I read in Brian Tallerico’s review over on rogerebert.com that the movie’s running time is overlong. However, I detest because all of the elements taken together, especially in the realm of a feature film make Spider-Man: No Way Home a must-watch.
