Let's go back for a moment to a scene in Spider-Man: Far From Home. No, not the one where J. Jonah Jameson appears in the very-welcome form of J.K. Simmons. (Though that is obviously relevant.) But the scene where Mysterio talks about there being a multiverse, spinning a story about being a hero from another dimension. It was a tease, of course (Mysterio was bullshitting), but while it gave a sneaky wink to the spectacularly animated Into The Spider-Verse, it also deliberately sowed a seed.
One which sprouted to entertaining effect in the recent Loki TV series, before finally realising its full (Marvel) cinematic (Universe) potential here, in Far From Home’s much hyped and rumour-laden sequel. Whether you've figured out what's coming, or are taken totally by surprise by some of its, er, surprises, we're happy to report that the result is crowd-pleasing in all the best possible ways.
As you'll know from the trailers, thanks to a spell-gone-sideways, No Way Home brings back almost all the villains from the pre-MCU movies. Which, with the help of Marvel's de-aging magic, solves the problem of how a new film would cast better than Willem Dafoe as Spider-Man’s Green Goblin (who wisely ditches the Power Rangers mask early on), or the mighty Alfred Molina as Spider-Man 2’s Doctor Octopus. But, in keeping with the previous Jon Watts films, the joy of seeing them all returned is less felt in the action sequences — which occasionally become crowded and confusing with all the lightning and sand and pumpkin bombs — than it is in the sparky, snappy dialogue. At one point, it's almost like an above average SNL sketch: Spidey's various foes all gathering together to snipe and compare notes.
However, there is far more to the movie than wittily executed fan service. While it piles the villainy and jeopardy high, it doesn't neglect the series' heart: Tom Holland's Peter, and his ongoing struggle to do the right thing by his friends and family, even though doing so invariably seems to make things worse. Holland has never been more affecting in the role, or guided Peter through such a battering, as the poor kid ping-pongs between finding solutions and creating problems — much to the annoyance of Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), who doesn't so much step into Tony Stark's mentor shoes as play the exasperated foil. There are serious consequences, too. This isn't just a light-hearted knockabout. No Way Home has a massive emotional blow to deliver.
Crucially, this is a story about second chances. After Mysterio's parting revelation, Peter, MJ (Zendaya), Ned (Jacob Batalon) and May's (Marisa Tomei) lives are turned into a news-feed nightmare, and sweet Peter's efforts to fix that pop open the aforementioned can of baddie worms. It's here that the theme of second chances gets really interesting. Why should only our hero have a second chance? Why not also, Peter reasons, all these damaged "multiversal trespassers", driven to criminality by manufactured schizophrenia, errant mutagens, or crossed nanowires?
As crazy-meta as the narrative gets, it always keeps its characters up front.
Just below the surface, the idea is nudged a little further. With the dimensional doors opened to the older movies, the films themselves are almost given a second chance, too; an opportunity to do-over, or at least address, some of their plotting missteps.
No Way Home is, if you step back and think about it, a bloody weird and audacious movie. Yet as crazy-meta as the narrative gets, it always keeps its characters up front, with some dynamic and, at times, truly heart-warming interplay between the established players and their interdimensional guests.
Sure, the climactic showdown on the Statue of Liberty feels very familiar (X-Men, anyone?), but it also serves up at least one punch-the-air moment that will have audiences whooping like they did when Thor rocked up at Wakanda in Infinity War, or Cap caught Mjolnir in Endgame. Indeed, No Way Home is the closest the MCU has come to the heights of those two films since Iron Man Snapped Thanos away. And for all its epic heft, it somehow stays neighbourhood and friendly. Which also helps make it, in a very real sense, the ultimate Spider-Man movie.
