Take Two Tuesday: Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) ... or, look out, here comes (another) Spider-Man

I haven’t done a lot of “Take Two Tuesdays,” but when I started back in May 2014, I set my sights on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and found that I liked it better than I thought. How appropriate, then, that I’m revisiting the “Take Two” premise with another Spider-Man film.

I’ve seen Spider-Man: No Way Home twice now on home video. With a 93% score on Rotten Tomatoes, nearly $2 billion in worldwide box office, and legions of fans declaring that it’s the best Marvel movie ever, Spider-Man: No Way Home isn’t actually very good. It’s entertaining enough, with flashes of brilliance, but it’s over-reliant on nostalgia with a story that doesn’t hang together. And were it not for the pure unadulterated charisma of its leading performers, No Way Home would be an unabashed flop. 

You’re going to need to have seen the film for me to talk about why it doesn’t work, so spoilers follow for No Way Home (and, really, every Spider-Man film that came before it). I compared No Way Home to Avengers: Endgame, in that “No Way Home finds itself as the unlikely apogee of the eight Spider-Man films that preceded it.” And I’ve thought about this idea a lot over the last five months, mulling the difference between Endgame (which was built as a climax) and No Way Home (which is merely masquerading as one). I think No Way Home tries very hard to be the next Endgame, especially if you’ve seen every Spider-Man movie in the last twenty years.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Regardless of whether the rumors turned out to be true, I’ve always been excited for Spider-Man: No Way Home, even if only by dint of being the next Marvel movie. But as I waited for the lights to dim, it occurred to me that I’ve been going to see Spider-Man movies for nearly twenty years. That revelation, more than anything, finally led me to understand why some fans and critics have been hyping No Way Home as Spider-Man: Endgame. In the way that Avengers: Endgame was the conclusion of twenty-plus films and more than ten years in the making, No Way Home finds itself as the unlikely apogee of the eight Spider-Man films that preceded it. (And yes, I’m including Into the Spider-Verse.)

With his identity now revealed to the world, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) finds his whole life upended. It’s no longer fun or easy to be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, but Peter finds a way out when he asks Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to cast a spell to make the world forget. Cocky as ever, Doctor Strange agrees, but after the magic spell backfires, Spider-Man gets more than he bargained for when the multiverse drops some of its worst villains (Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, Jamie Foxx, and more) into his world.

 

As there usually is with this sort of movie, there’s a tension between how much to review and how much to preserve over and against spoiling the film. Suffice it to say that the marketing has well and truly revealed that a few familiar faces are returning in the form of spider-villains past, so it’s fair game to talk about what a joy it is to see the likes of Dafoe and Molina in particular. These performers remind us how iconic their original turns were while layering in something new, turning fan service into an art form; there are reprises of famous lines and moments, but deployed with a winking reverence instead of simply putting coins in a jukebox. 

 

There’s more to the film, as there often is with a Marvel movie, that shouldn’t be spoiled, and many fans (myself included) will have anticipated at least some of it. My sense is that the things we didn’t predict will land a little better than the things we did, if only because we’ve had years to try to guess what No Way Home might do – and, in some ways, a film this highly anticipated can end up feeling a bit like a composite of all guesses on the internet. Kudos, though, to Kevin Feige and the rest of the Marvel crew for sifting through the fan service and the cameos to find an emotionally resonant core for this iteration of Spider-Man.

 

That core, finally, brings Tom Holland’s Spider-Man the closest he’s ever been to the original Stan Lee and Steve Ditko comics. Where the preceding films had treated Peter Parker as a kind of protégé for the technocratic Tony Stark, outrigging him with enough gadgets and super-suits to make Batman blush, No Way Home strips that back for the post-Endgame world and gets into the poignant purpose behind Spider-Man. After years of fumfering around the quotation (and I’m including Andrew Garfield’s duology in that indictment), we finally come back to the idea – and No Way Home actually gets the line right – that “with great power, there must also come great responsibility.” I won’t spoil how the refrain comes up, nor how elegantly it’s hammered home in one of the better-acted scenes of the film, but it’s a point that this Peter Parker has sorely needed to learn.

 

One thing that’s held the Holland trilogy together has been the supporting roles played by MCU heavy-hitters Robert Downey Jr. and Samuel L. Jackson. For No Way Home, it’s Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange, but for the first time the relationship isn’t one of veneration. Instead, when they meet, both Peter Parker and Stephen Strange are flawed characters, arrogant and cocky (in the way that Cumberbatch does better than nearly anyone else in the MCU), and by the end of the film, Peter has, remarkably, learned from Doctor Strange’s negative example and pursued a better, harder path. One hopes that Doctor Strange has learned just as much too, though in his example let’s not forget, “the warnings come after the spells.” (See you in The Multiverse of Madness, eh?)

 

In the way that Avengers: Endgame reminded us all why we like Marvel movies, No Way Home fairly becomes an ur-text for why Spider-Man stories matter and why we have spent twenty years watching films (of admittedly variable quality) about this amazing, spectacular hero. We’re rooting for this impossibly optimistic kid who keeps trying to do the right thing, even when it’s the hard thing, even when it costs him. After twenty years, there’s more to him than just corporate synergy or pure nostalgia, and one feels that – finally – the creators of this film care just as much about the character we do. After an overfull Spider-Man 3 in 2007 and the desperate grab for franchises in 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, No Way Home feels like building the future and honoring the past all at once, not jumping ahead to what some Hollywood bean counter thinks will maximize profit but rather acknowledging and celebrating Spider-Man fandom itself. It’s terrific, it’s fun, and it’s emotional, and I can’t wait to see it again.

 

Spider-Man: No Way Home is rated PG-13 for “sequences of action/violence, some language, and brief suggestive comments.” Directed by Jon Watts. Written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. Based on the Marvel Comics by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, Jamie Foxx, Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, and Marisa Tomei.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

“Spider-Man, Spider-Man,” the old song goes, “does whatever a spider can,” and lately it’s seemed that what a spider can do better than anyone is fumble and reboot himself twice in five years (yes, Andrew Garfield’s web-slinging debut was as recent as 2012). And while I eventually came around to liking The Amazing Spider-Man 2, it was still something of a mess, and what Spider-Man really needed was not his own immediate shared universe but rather a strong solo film, and on that front Spider-Man: Homecoming finally does what the franchise(s) hadn’t done since 2004.

Tom Holland reprises his role from Captain America: Civil War as Peter Parker, the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man who’s eager to get back into the Avengers fray but whose mentorship deal with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is proving to be something less than attentive. Desperate to prove himself to Iron Man, Spider-Man follows a trail of advanced weaponry used and sold by The Vulture (Michael Keaton). Amid all this, Peter has to find time to compete in academic decathlons with his friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) and ask senior girl Liz (Laura Harrier) to the homecoming dance.

At the risk of sounding like a corporate shill – I’ve yet to receive that check from Marvel – one thing about Spider-Man: Homecoming that works exceptionally well is its existence in the shared universe. I’m not sure how well the movie scans for someone who hasn’t seen Civil War, and indeed the movie assumes (perhaps rightly) that everyone on the planet did see it, but it feels right to put Spider-Man into a world that is already so dense, with surprising connections to existing film events and to comics elements that hadn’t yet made their way to film. And then there is the indomitable force of Robert Downey Jr. himself, who has become synonymous with the Marvel brand and whose presence feels like a benediction over the film. And no, this isn’t Iron Man 4, much as the trailers might have led us to believe. It’s a proper Spider-Man film, with a tight focus on Spidey, his world, and how it all fits seamlessly into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

As Spider-Man, Holland continues to make the role his own. Sans the Maguire self-consciousness and the Garfield angst, Holland plays Peter Parker as a gawky kid penned in by an awkward high school existence, with the Spidey suit representing an outlet for all his irrepressible charm and desire to make a positive impact on the world. Most importantly, there’s no artifice in the distinction between Peter and Spider-Man; their goals are the same, their personality only differing by degrees. Most excitingly, Holland seems enthused by the role, so perhaps we’ll end the spiral of reboots and stick with him for a while.

As foolproof as the Marvel formula seems to be, their villains have been admittedly inconsistent. For every multilayered Loki, there’s a one-note Malekith or an aptly-named Abomination (and let’s be honest, unless you’re a superfan, you don’t even remember in which movies those characters appeared). Director Jon Watts does well to keep the scope of The Vulture’s plans local and intimate, with no aspirations to take over or destroy the world. Wisely, this insular approach allows the film to develop what Vulture’s real motivations are, and Michael Keaton (Batman to Birdman to bird-man) renders him with very relatable goals and evident humanity beneath his role as antagonist. Even without the added frisson of seeing Keaton in a comic book film once more, his performance is a real treat, never fully hammy but likewise never unaware of just how much fun he can have with a meaty role like this. Spider-Man has never faced The Vulture on-screen before, but better still, he’s never faced a villain like this one before. If his ilk is what we can expect from the Sony/Marvel détente, I’m eager to see what’s next.

There is just so much about Homecoming that is delightful, full of surprises and so many small careful touches like the deliciously amateurish student news segments or the way the film works in so many villains and Iron Man without feeling overfull. Unlike the Garfield films, which often operated under the assumption that the most interesting thing about Spider-Man was everything else around him, Spider-Man: Homecoming doesn’t rush to any big moments or overload itself with Easter eggs (there are enough of them to go around, though). Homecoming takes a core idea – Spider-Man wants to be something more than he is – and builds outward from there, keeping the subtitle as an omnipresent reminder that our protagonist is a high school sophomore on the cusp of immense life changes. The news that the Sony/Marvel partnership is considering their Spider-Man in terms of a five-film arc (of which this is the second) augurs well for characterization, which has been so important for our Marvel heroes. Spider-Man is not Iron Man, nor is he Captain America, and this film remembers that.

Put another way, the Homecoming sequel in 2019 (Spider-Man: Winter Formal?) cannot come soon enough. To those who had written off Spidey or gotten bored of him, Homecoming is a proper return to form for the wall-crawler, with a can’t-miss performance by Michael Keaton.

Spider-Man: Homecoming is rated PG-13 for “sci-fi action violence, some language, and brief suggestive comments.” Directed by Jon Watts. Written by Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Jon Watts, Christopher Ford, Chris McKenna, and Erik Sommers. Based on the Marvel Comics by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Starring Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Marisa Tomei, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Laura Harrier, Jon Favreau, and Robert Downey Jr.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

It’s been a wild ride here at The Cinema King, getting amped up for Captain America: Civil War by engaging ourselves in a Grand Marvel Rewatch of the twelve-picture Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel’s latest (and longest) film, Captain America: Civil War is also its biggest in terms of stakes, cast, and moral complexity, and it’s a dazzling super-triumph.

After years of operating unchecked amid several major global events, The Avengers find their powers under scrutiny by a United Nations resolution that seeks to oversee their operations. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), feeling guilt over his complicity in the creation of Ultron, signs on almost immediately, but Captain America (Chris Evans) has grave reservations about signing away his liberty. The rest of their teammates are forced to choose sides in the conflict when Cap’s childhood friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) comes out of hiding, further splitting the team as regards Bucky’s responsibility for his actions as the Winter Soldier.

Civil War manages to be both sweepingly epic and deeply personal, with far-reaching consequences stemming out of what is essentially a clash of personalities, a philosophical difference of opinion about the nature of individual power. And what’s really striking – shout-out here to directors Anthony & Joe Russo and screenwriters Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely, because they deserve it – is that the film never sacrifices one for the other. We get wonderful character beats and big-scale action sequences. One minute we’re in the kitchen with Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) as hosts of an adorable impromptu cooking show, and the next we’re in Leipzig for the airport sequence which is even more awesome than the trailers let on. (Honestly, the airport scene might be Marvel’s best action sequence to date, worth the price of a DVD, and eerily reminiscent of Whedon’s two 360-degree shots of the Avengers collaborating.)

And yet, for as much as the film valorizes character development, delivering some of the least opaque motivations for superhero characters yet, I really must quibble with the title of this film. Captain America: Civil War is not quite a Captain America movie – at least, not in the way that Captain America: The Winter Soldier was. In some part, this is due to the inclusion of RDJ as Iron Man, because Downey steals the screen whenever he shows up, but it’s also because the script is uncannily fair to both sides of this conflict. Both Stark and Cap have lines that might convince a fair-minded viewer to change their own opinion, and the film has neither a cop-out “villain orchestrated it all” twist nor any out-of-character beats like the comics source material (in which Tony Stark put Daredevil in a space prison). Civil War is balanced, and it may be difficult to digest for that reason, and kudos to the filmmakers for never cheapening the weighty debate.

Indeed, a better title would have been, simply, Marvel’s Civil War, for the film is unmistakably a waypoint for the franchise as a whole. There are beats in here that pay off all the way back to 2008, bringing everyone from Ant-Man to Thunderbolt Ross into the fray, and Civil War introduces Spider-Man (Tom Holland) and Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) to the MCU in ways that make me incredibly excited for their standalone films. Holland in particular is the new definitive Peter Parker, capturing the webslinger’s inability to keep quiet without letting us forget that he’s perhaps too young for this. Civil War feels very much like a slice of a universe, but while Cap is undeniably a star it’s difficult to say he’s the star.

Ultimately, this is not actually a bad thing. It’s at worst a misnomer, but I’d rather have a film with a handful of fantastic characters than a film that limits its focus unnecessarily. I think we can all agree, for example, that The Force Awakens didn’t necessarily need more Luke Skywalker, especially if it cost us a few scenes with Poe Dameron. Whether it’s Captain America 3, Iron Man 4, or Avengers 2½, Civil War is too exciting, too much fun, and too engaging to write off on a technicality. It leaves you wanting more, a sage move for a ballooning franchise like this one. It sends you out of the theater debating over which scene was the coolest, to be sure, but it also sends you away with a moral question that’ll take up most of the car ride home.

Captain America: Civil War is rated PG-13 for “extended sequences of violence, action and mayhem.” There’s a lot of running/jumping/shooting/punching sequences, several extended; a few explosions and scatological profanities; and a few shots of bloody people. More of the same, really, from Marvel.