SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME review: Deja-vu all over again

Expectations for Spider-Man: No Way Home are massive. The first trailer for the film became the most-viewed YouTube trailer within hours of its release and tickets to see the film’s opening weekend have been harder to snag than Hamilton tickets. With that excitement comes massive fan expectations, a burden that hangs over much of the film, often to its detriment.

Spider-Man: No Way Home takes place directly following the events of 2019’s Far From Home. A dying Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) has broadcast Spider-Man’s secret identity worldwide. Suddenly, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is the most infamous person in the world. Wanted in connection with the carnage caused by his fight with Mysterio in London, Spider-Man has become public enemy #1 in the eyes of the law, while Peter Parker has turned into a celebrity on his own.

Hounded by both detractors and admirers, Peter is at the breaking point. Unable to think of any way to rectify the situation, he enlists the help of Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to literally work his magic; Strange’s goal is to get the world to forget that Parker is Spider-Man, allowing him, his aunt (Marisa Tomei), his girlfriend M.J. (Zendaya), and his best friend/support system Ned (Jacob Batalon) to be able to live normal lives again.

Things…do not go as planned. After Peter futzes with the spell, the opposite effect happens; everyone who knows that Peter Park is Spider-Man is suddenly drawn to New York City, including a stable of villains that have tussled with Spider-Man in different planes of existence.

The whole notion of Spider-Man: No Way Home is inherently built on spoilers, most of which have become so well-known that the stars of the film have been openly joking about them for months. Without revealing anything that isn’t in the trailer (which, as discussed, has been seen by almost every human being on the planet), Strange’s magic act accidentally lures in villains from the previous Spider-Man franchises into this film. That means the return of fan-favourite Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Electro (Jamie Foxx), and more.

But Spider-Man’s rogue’s gallery isn’t the only thing that gets sucked into this world, leading to a very busy movie that attempts to balance multiple heroes, villains, and a multiverse-expanding plot into one long and fairly over-stuffed superhero spectacular (not to mention setting up future sequels and the upcoming Doctor Strange film).

Unfortunately, Spider-Man: No Way Home feels like an epic bit of fan service in search of a story. It checks off many of the sequences fans have been clamouring for, but for long stretches, the film gets bogged down with a sense of moroseness that seems at odds with this version of the character that millions of fans have come to love.

Part of what made Tom Holland’s Spider-Man so popular was that we finally had a Spider-Man that looked and acted like an awkward teen, the way he was initially portrayed in the comics. Holland imbued the character with a welcome dose of zany teenage energy that once again made Spider-Man the most beloved Marvel cinematic character (even as the field grew ever more crowded with 20+ MCU films).

One gets the sense that returning director Tom Watts and writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers (along with instructions from the Marvel overseers) want Spider-Man/Peter Parker to grow up with this installment. With much of the first wave of the MCU heroes out of the picture, Spider-Man has taken over the mantle of the MCU flagship character from the likes of Iron Man and Captain America.

Spider-Man can’t be a dweeby teenager forever, but Spider-Man: No Way Home often feels needlessly dark and ponderous. That heaviness is meant to be off-set with all the fun cameos and call-backs but because they’ve been openly discussed (or “rumoured”) for so long at this point, there are few genuine surprises in this movie (unless you’ve luckily stayed off social media for the past two years).

While the addition of the villains from the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield Spider-Man films was received with rapturous excitement from fans, they also add to a sense of sameness here. Instead of adding something new, their inclusion feels like a nostalgic look back at the films that came before but to no real narrative end. Are there really that many fans who longingly look back on the villain from the poorly-received (if not outright reviled) Amazing Spider-Man 2?

Spider-Man: No Way Home features charismatic and occasionally moving performances from its central cast, especially the trio of Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jacob Batalon. In fact, anything not directly related to the multi-verse especially takes off – it’s the massive overarching storyline that drags the film down.

Holland’s version of Spider-Man doesn’t need a reality-warping threat and a half-dozen villains in order to impart a sense of gravitas to the proceedings; if anything, the emotional core of the character is often buried amidst too many competing characters and what feels like a checklist of fan-service moments that the film has to get through.

There is still lots of fun to be had in Spider-Man: No Way Home, but you can’t escape the feeling that this film is simply trying to do too much (remember when Spider-Man 3 was criticized for having three central villains?) While there are definitely scenes here that will likely take over internet discourse the day this opens, Spider-Man: No Way Home feels like a film built out from a handful of memorable moments as opposed to the tightly-constructed earlier films in the franchise. Hopefully, the next installment brings things back down to earth for a while; watching Peter Parker simply trying to navigate college life sounds pretty appealing after this draining trip through space and time.

Spider-Man: No Way Home is in theatres on December 17.