"Spider-Man: No Way Home": review

[WARNING: major spoilers. Can't be helped.]

There was some sort of vaccine-pass thing going on when "Spider-Man: No Way Home" hit Korean theaters, so I didn't have a chance to see it until it was finally available on home video. Of course, there was so much online buzz and commentary about the movie that I pretty much knew the whole plot before I even had a chance to see it. Watching the movie, then, was less a question of learning a new story than of finding out the various ways in which the scriptwriters incorporated fan service* into the plot.

2021's "Spider-Man: No Way Home" is the third installment in the so-called "Home" series of Spider-Man films. It's once again directed by John Watts, and it stars Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, Jamie Foxx, Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, Thomas Hayden Church, Rhys Ifans, Benedict Wong, Tony Revolori, Marisa Tomei, Andrew Garfield, and Tobey Maguire. As you can tell from the cast list, a lot of stars from previous Spider-Man movies are back, many of them digitally de-aged. Some actors (Church and Ifans), instead of being de-aged, had old footage from previous movies reused.

"No Way Home" picks up where "Far From Home" left off: with Mysterio revealing Spider-Man's identity as Peter Parker to the world. This causes Peter and all his friends and loved ones problems as he's now associated with the "scandal" of having seemingly killed Mysterio (problems for all except ex-bully Flash Thompson, a Spider-Man fanboy who revels in the attention Parker is getting, and who has even written a book titled Flashpoint to plump the idea that Flash is close friends with the web-slinger). 

Realizing that he has become a liability to those around him, Peter gets the idea to visit Dr. Strange to ask that Strange cast a spell to make the world forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Strange at first demurs, but Peter ultimately persuades Strange to try despite a warning from Strange's associate Wong—who has become the Sorcerer Supreme in Strange's five-year absence (you'll recall that Strange was erased in "Avengers: Infinity War")—not to mess with the fabric of reality. As Strange casts his spell, Peter keeps interjecting various changes so that the spell won't affect those closest to him, but by constantly interrupting Strange's concentration, Peter ends up ruining the spell, which Strange quickly contains before it can go totally rampant. Unfortunately, the effect of Peter's badgering is a multiverse-level rift that, before it closes, allows in a few villains that Spider-Man has faced in other universes: Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Electro, Lizard, and Sandman. Except for Sandman, these villains have been pulled from their universes right before their deaths. 

Strange creates a spell that will send the villains back where they came from, but Peter, recognizing that this will likely mean their demise, suggests curing the villains of their ills instead of merely sending them back. This puts Strange and Peter at odds with each other, resulting in a phantasmagorical fight that Spider-Man somehow wins through... math? (I was somewhat unclear on how Spidey used math against Dr. Strange.)

The rest of the movie is about Peter's attempts, along with girlfriend MJ and best bud Ned, to cure the villains, which results in the porting-in of two other Spider-Men, one from the Sam Raimi universe (Tobey Maguire), and the other from the Marc Webb universe (Andrew Garfield). These two Spider-Men act as older brothers to "our" Spider-Man and help him develop cures for the various villains.

I suppose I could end the review right here by saying that "Spider-Man: No Way Home" is a serviceable, entertaining action movie filled with fan-service moments, and some of those moments did indeed bring a smile to my face. But instead, allow me to go over the film's good points before I concentrate on the multitude of plot problems that detracted, at least somewhat, from my viewing experience.

Good points

"Spider-Man: No Way Home" gets a lot right. Peter Parker actually experiences something of a character arc (helped along by tragedy), going from shallow and selfish to more heroically selfless, so it's good to see him evolve. There's also a line that's repeated throughout the film by different characters: "This is what we do." Aunt May says it regarding her felt duty to help the homeless, and various Spider-Men also say the line, which may be close to the moral center of the movie. Alfred Molina and Willem Dafoe, both digitally de-aged (and pretty smoothly, too), act the hell out of their roles even after a two-decade absence, with Molina's Doc Ock being the first villain to be "cured" thanks to a replacement chip while Dafoe's Green Goblin wreaks havoc, resulting in the death of Aunt May, who had initially tried to help the Goblin when his Norman Osborn personality was dominant. Zendaya also gives a heartfelt performance quite unlike her wooden turn as Chani in "Dune." The interplay among the three Spideys, who end up calling themselves Peter 1 (Holland), Peter 2 (Maguire), and Peter 3 (Garfield), was actually quite delightful; I enjoyed watching their scenes together and really enjoyed how they developed a sort of cross-universe brotherhood as their interactions deepened. It would have been nice to see more of this, but I'll discuss the issues of existing in another universe below. Action-wise, the movie was never boring; the editing and pacing were on point, even if there was an awkward question, at the very end, of leaving Dr. Curt Connors—the Lizard—naked after he had reverted to being human again. And as other critics have noted, Andrew Garfield was indeed a standout here. While Tobey Maguire remains my favorite Spidey, Garfield, as the star of the least-liked Spider-Man movie franchise, was given a slew of redemption moments that allowed us to see the potential of a more capably handled universe with Garfield at its center. The scene in which Garfield's Peter 3 saves this world's MJ, after he had failed to save his own Gwen back in his universe, was both uplifting and heartbreaking. That moment alone may have been worth the price of admission. Maguire also gets a fantastic acting moment when his Peter 2 tries to stop Tom Holland's Peter 1 from killing the Goblin. The moment plays out wordlessly, but Maguire conveys the subtextual dialogue just through the intensity of his expression. Fantastic.

And in the end, movies are about how they make us feel. We go in for the emotional experience. Fan service, while cool, is the cheap way of rousing emotions, but Peter 3's big redemption moment feels earned. Having said that, though, it's time to move on to what the bulk of this review is going to be about: the movie's many, many flaws.

Bad points

This is a notion I've harped on before, but it should be said again: multiverse narratives are inherently unwieldy. Once you open your narrative world up to the idea of an infinity of universes, you suck the impact out of any story you're trying to tell here and now. Why should I worry if a beloved character dies in this universe when I know that the same character—an infinity of the same character—is living perfectly happily in a gazillion other universes? As with time travel undoing anything tragic, this is just another way in which bad story ideas remove all meaning from the current story. So already, at a basic level, I've been against Marvel's Phase IV turn toward the multiverse. An infinity of Dr. Stranges wreaking an infinite amount of well-intended but deadly existential havoc, an infinity of Green Goblins doing the same... where does it end?

And let's talk about Dr. Strange for a moment. One thing I noticed was how snottily arrogant Strange was in this movie. I had thought that a lot of that bad attitude had been beaten out of him during "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame," but apparently not. A man with such a vast knowledge of the multiverse ought to be a lot more humble. Then again, Strange's attitude justifies his acquiescence to Peter's request to cast the forgetting spell: Peter appeals to Strange's ego, and that's enough to get Strange to ignore Wong's warning and cast the spell. Strange is certainly complicit in the disaster that follows, but it doesn't make sense to me that a man who has imbibed so much magical wisdom should be so unwise. Something doesn't quite add up about how Strange is written in this movie. Also: when Ned Leeds later discovers he can do magic and create portals, this seems to detract from the effort that Strange had to make back when he was a novice learning magic at the Kamar-Taj temple.

Then there's the larger question of magic in general. Magic has to abide by clear rules; it has to have its own consistency for any story involving magic to hold water. With the forgetting spell having the power to tear apart the fabric of reality, you'd think Strange would be more hesitant to use it than a soldier might be to launch a nuclear missile. The nature of the forgetting spell is also somewhat vague to me, and I may need to re-watch parts of the movie to understand this better, but it seems to me that there's a difference between "forget Peter Parker is Spider-Man" and "forget Peter Parker ever existed." By some sleight of hand, it seems the movie went from one idea to the other. Why not simply break the Parker/Spidey connection and allow everyone to retain their memories of Parker? And given the number of powerful spells that Strange has access to, you'd think he'd be forever hesitant to use any spell. (I'll make an exception for the so-called Mirror Dimension, which is the magical equivalent of the Enterprise's holodeck, allowing people to explore almost any scenario they want to; cavalier use of magic in the Mirror Dimension has few to no consequences.)**

Other critics have mentioned, too, that if Strange's spell is only for forgetting, then there's the question of all the material evidence that Peter Parker exists: his MIT application, social-security records, documents relating to where Parker lives, school transcripts, etc. It's possible that Strange's spell simply "dusted" all such evidence, but the film doesn't make this clear.

Coupled with Strange's arrogance is the question of Peter's annoying, badgering insistence on modifying the forgetting spell. As much as Strange is guilty of casting the spell to begin with, Parker is the one who breaks Strange's concentration by asking for this or that modification: let Aunt May remember me; let MJ and Ned remember me, etc. This makes for a very weak premise for the adventure that follows. I get it: Peter's still young and shallow, but this is where we have to delve a bit into the psychology of war to see how plausible it is that Peter, after all his adventures as a superhero and member of the Avengers, can remain so naïve. A young soldier goes into battle, finds himself in the thick of it, and comes out of that horrific crucible a seasoned man, more deliberate and deeper in his thinking and in his appreciation of the world in general. As a superhero constantly on the go, constantly dealing with pressing ethical dilemmas, Peter Parker should have acquired something of the war veteran's mentality. I know he's supposed to be, per the comics, an eternally irrepressible, wide-eyed youth, but I just don't buy it. Being a superhero is a taxing, soul-rending, thankless business. How can you remain positive under all that strain? In fact, the movie itself shows something of this at the end: after the Goblin kills Aunt May, Peter becomes darkly vengeful and wants to kill the Goblin with his bare hands. This temptation toward evil should be, in my opinion, something that has dogged Peter since long before he ever met the Goblin. So if Peter were seasoned and mature, as I think he would be after having spent some time as Spider-Man, he would have known better than ever to have come to Dr. Strange for help. This is, I think, a huge narrative flaw in the film because it lies right at the root of the all the film's conflicts.

The multiverse presents another problem: when Peter 1 encounters Otto Octavius, Octavius rips off part of Peter's StarkTech nano-suit, and the nanobots in the suit bond with Octavius's tentacles, allowing Peter 1 to control them. This makes for some great humor, but I had to wonder at how the tech from an entirely different universe could possibly bond with the tech from "our" universe. I suppose such cross-compatibility is possible if two universes evolved "closely" enough to be similar, but still—what are the odds?

Here's another poser: Peter 1 tells Aunt May he thinks he may have broken some ribs, and after Aunt May dies, Peter gets shot by authorities closing in on the site of Aunt May's death (Happy Hogan's apartment building, I think). We never hear any more about this, and Spider-Man has not been established as bulletproof.*** By the same token, Peter 2 gets stabbed in the back by the Goblin, but he ends up waving it off, claiming, "I've been stabbed before." This might not actually be a flaw in the story because I've long suspected that the Spider-Man movies have hinted at the idea that Spider-Man possesses a Wolverine-like healing factor. The only problem is that this doesn't explain why both Peter 2 and Peter 3 complain of occasional back problems. A healing factor ought to take care of such things.

I also had to wonder about something: when Ned magically portals in Peters 2 and 3 (would you step through a random magic portal?), they both make reference to the idea that they'd already visited Peter 1's universe. I'm still trying to untangle what this means. Dr. Strange notes, early on, that the reason the villains came to this universe was that they were somehow drawn there by the existence of Peter Parker (which makes one wonder why they weren't drawn to other universes containing Peter Parkers); does this mean that Strange's original spell, when it went wild, also drew in Peters 2 and 3 for a time? None of this is clear.****

Also unclear were some of the action sequences in the final battle. While Peter 1 wore a StarkTech Spidey suit that made him stand out, it was often hard to tell which Spidey was Peter 2 and which was Peter 3. Director John Watts has received criticism, before, for blocking his action scenes in a sometimes-incomprehensible way, and this was, unfortunately, also true of parts of "Spider-Man: No Way Home."

And then there's that one big moment of awkwardness in which Peter 1 quotes Aunt May by saying "With great power..." and Peter 2 finishes the quote by saying, "...comes great responsibility." The moment is awkward because Peter 3 can only stand to the side and nod lamely: he says, "Uncle Ben said that," but his Uncle Ben never said such a thing! (In the Garfield-verse, Uncle Ben implied that idea.) I found that moment a little cringe-y as a result.

Coming back to the multiverse for a second: if you saw "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse," then you know that that movie brings up the idea of quantum-level decoherence: if you're from Universe A, and you travel to Universe B, you can't exist in Universe B for long, or you'll end up decohering, fraying out of existence. Assuming the universe of Miles Morales is part of the larger Marvel multiverse, shouldn't the problem of decoherence exist in Peter 1's universe as well? This is never addressed.

All of which leaves me with two final, significant criticisms. 

The first: there's no guarantee, after the villains have been cured, that they won't die after they're returned to their universes. In Norman Osborn's case, we probably have, at the very least, a radically altered timeline in which Osborn sees the error of his ways, and his son Harry never becomes Green Goblin II. But a sane Osborn could still end up apprehended and imprisoned (or hospitalized) for his crimes. In Otto Octavius's case, he was snatched from his universe right before he reverted to goodness and died, so he's very likely going to be returned to that moment to die, anyway. Sandman didn't die in "Spider-Man 3," so I suppose he's going to be fine. Curt Connors the Lizard, as noted before, reverts to humanity and is left naked at the site of the Statue of Liberty, where the final battle of "No Way Home" takes place; what will become of him? Electro might or might not be fine; he's had a taste of true power, so that hunger might linger within him even though he's back to normal now. So the fates of these villains have by no means been guaranteed by the fact that they've been "cured."

The second criticism has to do with the very notion of "curing" evil. "No Way Home" seems to preach the moral gospel that evil is simply a pathology, a physical sickness, a chemical imbalance or a flaw in some computer hardware. Get a few of your Spidey-friends together, come up with some chemicals and tech, and voilà: you can cure the bad guys. This may seem like a weird thing to do, but I need to rope in Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry to make this next point: over several movies, Harry Callahan dealt with a series of villains who were all pathological; part of Harry's un-PC worldview was the idea that the insanity defense is a crock: murderous criminals are best dealt with by blowing them away. Say what you will about the death penalty, but once you kill a criminal, it's guaranteed that that man will never again commit that crime. That's where Harry was coming from. Insanity doesn't affect the moral question of murder for someone like Harry, whereas in the Spiderverse, criminals deserve our pity. Personally, I'd find it hard to pity someone like the Goblin, who killed dozens or even hundreds of people, and I can understand Peter's rage after the Goblin killed Aunt May. Peter 2 intervenes right before Peter 1 can deliver the Goblin a killing blow (and Peter 2 gets backstabbed for his efforts), and maybe on some level, he's trying to show Peter 1 that "we're better than that." Still, I must say that I'm more partial to Dirty Harry's point of view. If a bear comes out of the mountains, enters your town, and kills three people, you put the bear down. You might not think the bear is evil, but it's still responsible for the deaths of three people. Responsibility, as a concept, still exists even when moral agency doesn't. A man with a brain tumor who shoots up an elementary school, simply because he's not himself, has still committed a heinous act for which there ought to be real consequences.

Conclusion

So those are my questions and criticisms of "Spider-Man: No Way Home." Overall, I did like the movie, which has a good heart, and I admit I enjoyed most of the fan service, especially the redemption of Peter 3, Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man. That said, the movie was freighted with all sorts of plot holes and narrative flaws, all of which detracted, in some way, from my enjoyment of the film, for as much as we watch movies for the feels, we also watch them for the intellectual stimulation they provide, and while "No Way Home" was big on emotion, it was, like many Marvel films, sadly lacking in the brains department.

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*The term "fan service" originally applied to naughty moments in animé cartoons in which a female character might be shown flaunting abnormally large breasts or wearing a short-short skirt that allows her to briefly flash her panties at the horny teenage viewer. These days, the term has the more innocuous meaning of cinematic moments that are there merely to please the crowd in some way, e.g., by bringing back an old, beloved star years after his or her heyday (think: Michael Keaton brought back as Batman—an idea that's actually happening).

**Upon second viewing, I see this issue was, in fact, dealt with. The initial spell was to dissociate Peter Parker and Spider-Man; the second spell, at the end of the film, was to make everyone (presumably across the multiverse, because the spell was to repel a multiverse's worth of villains appearing in the sky) forget that Peter Parker even exists.

***It's possible that Peter's StarkTech suit is bulletproof, but this theory is shaky. Octavius tries to stab Peter 1 early on but fails to penetrate Peter's suit, snaring only Peter's necktie—but through the suit? Octavius does manage to rip part of the suit away. Are his octo-claws stronger than bullets? Maybe: they're supposed to withstand the heat of the sun and to be impervious to magnetic fields, explaining his Faraday moment with Electro in the final battle. And later on, also during the final battle at the Statue of Liberty, the Goblin is able to use his arm-mounted blade to slash Peter, so it's still unclear as to what, exactly, is going on.

****Even after watching the movie twice, I still don't quite understand what happened. Best guess from available evidence: as hypothesized above, Dr. Strange's first spell temporarily brought Peters 2 and 3 to this universe before they were suddenly sent back when Strange contained the spell. This explains why Ned Leeds's lola recognizes Peter 2 and waves at him. This might also explain why both Peters were willing to step through a magical portal back into this universe—they'd already been made familiar with magic.