Over the last two decades, Spider-Man movies have arrived in such a frenzy that you could practically tell the time by them. Who needs the endless decades of the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous when you can have the Tobey period, Garfield era, and Tomozoic in a single generation?
The continual (and contractual) regenerating velocity of the franchise has become a running joke. The distinct, if cluttered, time zones of Marvel’s webslinger overlap and collide in ways that are often entertaining and likely to be satisfying to fans in “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” even if they still lack quite the Spidey sense tingle they’re designed to provide an overdose of, even if they still lack quite the Spidey sense tingle they’re designed to provide an overdose of. This film is a combination of two Spider-Man punches and a booster. “No Way Home” is Spidey’s “Endgame” in terms of retrospective sweep and supergroup composition.
That also means there are a lot of twists, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, you should see the movie first before reading reviews like this one. The film’s ingenious revelations and appearances are so much a part of its fabric that it’s difficult to discuss it without mentioning a few of them. Jamie Foxx (who played the villain Electro in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”) warns against releasing spoilers in a message before it’s pointed out that he, too, is a spoiler.
“No Way Home” begins in the same way that its two previous installments, both directed by Watts, did: with the carefree high-school attitude that has defined Tom Holland’s Spider-Man tenure. Holland’s wholesome charm has defined this chapter. He’s a lovely, albeit rather bland Spider-Man, who has occasionally seemed more suited to the role offscreen, as Robert Downey Jr.’s student and in his friendly, funny media appearances. Holland’s sincere, easygoing demeanor, on the other hand, has helped to lighten the occasionally heavy load of Marvel films, and his mainly successful, if easily forgotten Spider-Man films have been refreshingly free of the bigger franchise’s exposition-laden, interwoven infrastructure.
“No Way Home” picks off just where “Far From Home” left off in 2019: Outside Penn Station in New York, where Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio disclosed Peter Parker’s true identity seconds before dying. News helicopters hover above Peter’s flat as a result of his new celebrity, disrupting his hitherto secret relationship with girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best pal Ned (Jacob Batalon). They’re on their way to MIT (Paula Newsome is particularly effective as a college admissions official), but Mysterio has turned Peter into a polarizing figure. Our time at Midtown High School, where Peter is surrounded, is brief — far too brief, given the presence of JB Smoove, Hannibal Buress, and Martin Starr on the teaching faculty.
Peter seeks the help of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange, who conjures up an amnesia spell that goes bad. It conjures enemies from Spider-past, Man’s opening portals between parallel universes — which in this case means between movies — instead of wiping the memory of those who know Spider-secret. Man’s Electro, Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), and Lizard (Rhys Ifans) emerge from the shadows like befuddled tourists who got lost in Albuquerque.
“No Way Home” knits together a much-remade fictional universe with a new spirit of cohesion and a warm bath of fan service by providing routes of connection between the Spider-Man flicks. It’s tempting to want some of the portals to lead into other films, such as Cumberbatch’s part in “The Power of the Dog” or Andrew Garfield in “Tick, Tick… Boom!” Better still, see Dafoe’s twisted wickie in “The Lighthouse.” That would be meta, to say the least.
By riffing metaphysically with the webslinger, the Chris Miller and Phil Lord-produced “Into the Spider-verse” unlocked this portal. “No Way Home” has some of that hilarious energy, but not the same whip-smart, unfettered unpredictability. If “Spider-verse” was about how everyone can be Spider-Man, “No Way Home” is a more official Spider-Man collection, with an operatic rather than antic tone. Despite the high-concept narrative, Watts has a human touch that often be lacking in superhero pictures, and nearly all of the actors who appear in “No Way Home” come through as individuals.
It also allows us to compare and contrast our three Spider-Men, who are all variations on the same motif. The Sam Raimi flicks starring Tobey Maguire – at least the first two — remain among the best in the genre. While Garfield’s two films are perhaps the simplest to dismiss, his presence in this film is the most powerful. Not because he is Spider-Man at home, but because he isn’t. A more mature Garfield, now seven years older and doing some of his best work, emits something that doesn’t appear in this ever-recycling, short-term-memory franchise: that there is life beyond Spider-Man.
The Motion Picture Association of America has rated “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” a Columbia Pictures film, PG-13 for action/violence sequences, some language, and short suggestive comments. The film has a running time of 150 minutes. Two and a half out of four stars.