Review of the movie "Spider-Man: No Way Home" - the main Christmas film of the year on the importance of putting up with mistakes

A spectacular conclusion to the new trilogy about the friendly neighbor, which will delight fans.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Spider-Man: No Way Home Action, Adventure, Fantasy Director: Jon Watts Cast: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau Premiere: December 15, 2021

Who is hiding under the mask of Spider-Man

The life of Peter Parker ( Tom Holland ) has turned from a fairy tale into a nightmare: the whole world knows who is hiding under the mask of Spider-Man, and because of Mysterio's deceit, people think that the young Avenger can be dangerous. His reputation as a hero also hurts his friends: MJ ( Zendea ) and Ned ( Jacob Batalon ) are not accepted to college, and Aunt May ( Marisa Tomei ) is harassed by the paparazzi, and Happy ( Jon Favreau ) finds himself at the center of a federal investigation.

To atone for his guilt, Parker goes to Doctor Strange ( Benedict Cumberbatch) and asks him to conduct a rite of oblivion, after which everyone in the world will forget about the events of the last days. Having interrupted the spell a couple of times, Peter thereby violates the space-time continuum and villains who want to get even with Spider-Man flock to New York from all over the multiverse.

Rarely does a movie come out that pulls audiences together

Rarely does a movie come out that pulls audiences together as much as No Way Home is likely to? In recent years, experts have been unanimous about the death of film distribution, but the final part of the spider trilogy restores justice in the industry and returns a large audience to the halls (even if only for a couple of weekends).

The key to this phenomenon lies not only in the fanbase: superhero Jon Watts sums up not only the events of the new reboot but also the previous two Peter Parker series, thereby making the hall breathe, laugh and cry in unison. Someone will find here malicious speculation on fan service, others - a tribute to the canon. The truth, of course, is somewhere nearby, and you do not need to have a spider-sense to get to it.

No Way Home really has a lot of local jokes

No Way Home really has a lot of local jokes, references, and characters. But at the same time, such an impressive cult has formed around the two previous incarnations of the Spider in particular and the giant Marvel universe in general, that among potential viewers, it seems, there is not a single one who would not know about the meme "I'm something of a scientist myself" eternal argument about the best Peter Parker ( Tobey Maguire, of course!) and other fan brawls.

In a couple of decades, a small cohort of geeks has grown into an army of a comic book, movie, and TV connoisseurs. That is why the new "Spider" should be watched in the hall, picking up the groans and sighs, clapping and stamping feet - in other words, sharing a unique cinematic experience with other viewers who also carried Peter Parker with them from youth to adolescence and, finally, to maturity.

And yet, in No Way Home, it's not hard to see some irritating loyalty to the public. What you most expect before watching will happen exactly on screen - no cheating or sleight of hand. The hall here is in trembling anticipation not of “what will happen”, but “when it happens”. In this story, everything is clear in advance, even from the stage of the first releases and Internet leaks: “No Way Home” is a touching, but manipulative every minute tribute that tries to both please the public and move the stagnant Spider Holland off the ground (to no one said, of all three Parkers, this one is the most static, and he desperately needed a shake-up in the trilogy finale).

The third part of the Movie

The third part, of course, can be called a sweet valentine to all the Spider franchises, but it lacks the main thing - the visual zest, the movie magic that made the Raimi trilogy and Webb's eulogy so memorable. For a film that seems to absorb the best from each of the parts, it is shot outrageously simply: no tricky editing from the 00s, no spectacular flights from the Garfield series - rather concentrated Marvel, where action scenes are outsourced to graphic masters. No Way Home's best visuals are the ones featuring Doctor Strange, and all of these episodes, reminiscent of a teaser of the upcoming " Multiverse of Madness ", are far more captivating than the spidery battles with the Sinister Six.

In this regard, "No Way Home" is likely to follow in the footsteps of another popular film, "Avengers: Endgame."The conclusion of the superhero team saga became one of the highest-grossing films in history and broke records in forum discussions, but after a few months and a couple of new parts of the Marvel universe, it felt like it had sunk into oblivion, remaining an important, but still an episode of a giant series. The third "Spider-Man" is also an intermediate movie, connecting, say, the new " Doctor Strange ", the continuation of " Venom " and other important branches of the franchise. The uniqueness of the events is lost when you realize that they are only a small part of the gigantic comic book universe.

However, something still prevents Watts' film from finally getting bogged down in the epic of sequels, prequels, and meta-continuations. "Spider-Man: No Way Home" - the movie, despite all its gloomy tone (prepare handkerchiefs - you will often cry here), is truly New Year's. And it tells, in essence, about the same things as the previous series: in the case of the young Parker Holland, about growing up, a responsibility that fell out of nowhere, and more importantly, victory over his own infantilism. Peter must accept his imperfection, come to terms with the traumas of the past and begin to live in a new way. The spell of eternal oblivion, and with it Christmas in the finale, beautifully frame the entire spider universe: restart failures will be forgotten, old mistakes will be corrected, and only the goodwill remains in memory. When could this happen, if not on a holiday,

It's easy to imagine that director Jon Watts could play out such an ambitious and epic plot in the most straightforward way - just shoot 2.5 hours of spectacular action in which Spider-Man will write dizzying pirouettes on the web and beat the bad guys until they themselves return back home. Nothing of the sort: No Way Home contains surprisingly few battles by today's comic book standards. It is much more interesting for the authors to pay attention to the human nature of each character involved, to push them against each other, mainly in conversational scenes. Even more amazing is that the idea worked perfectly - having even the slightest emotional attachment to Spider-Man, it is simply impossible to tear yourself away from what is happening on the screen.

The already mentioned heavy baggage this time turned from dead weight into a solid foundation for the plot, which a few years ago it was difficult to even dream of. Let's respect the studio's decision to keep all the surprises of the film a secret and let's just say that Spider-Man fans should not miss No Way Home. In a historical sense, the film is as important as The Avengers in 2012 - for a moment, the first big crossover of the most famous comic book characters on the big screen.

However, even on its grand scale, the new Spider-Man feels like a deeply personal coming-of-age film about the titular superhero's coming of age. By the end, the cheerful and naive Teenage Spider, as he has been since his debut in Captain America: Civil War, turns into a man with serious mental wounds and an adult view of the world. Now Peter Parker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe definitely deserves the Spider-Man costume and is ready to be a hero consciously, without anyone's mentoring.