By Morgan Kikke
January 26, 2022
As a Marvel fan, of course I went to see the new Spider-Man movie. It currently has an 8.8/10 on IMDb and 93% on Rotten Tomatoes! Opening weekend brought in $260 million, which is the 2nd largest movie opening of all time (after Avengers: Endgame). All our favorites are back in this film: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Betalon, Marisa Tomei, and some surprises. Here's what I thought of Spider-Man: No Way Home.
!*MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD*!
The movie starts where SM: Far From Home ends, Mysterio revealing Spider-Man’s identity, Peter Parker! Now, the whole world thinks Peter Parker is a murderer for “killing” Mysterio. Not only is his world turned upside down, so are MJ’s and Ned’s for being associated with Peter Parker. For example, the three of them are trying to get into college, MIT especially. They keep getting rejected from all the schools they applied to because of their bad publicity. Then their MIT applications come in, and none of them get in.
Peter feels so bad that he goes to Doctor Strange to try and cast a spell so people forget Spider-Man’s identity. But right when he’s about to cast it, Peter changes it so MJ knows… and Aunt May… and Ned. But that makes this spell too confusing and causes ALL the villains in all the multiverses to come to get this Peter. So Doc Ock, Green Goblin, Electro, Sandman, and Lizard, are all in the Spider-Man (Avengers) universe! Spider-Man captures all of them and brings them to Doctor Strange’s house so Strange can send them back to their rightful dimensions. But, Peter finds out that when they go back, they’ll die, so he fights Doctor Strange and beats him and leaves him in the mirror dimension. Peter takes them to Happy Hogan’s apartment and uses Stark technology to “cure” the villains. Of course it doesn’t go according to plan, and Peter is only able to cure Doc Ock and the other villains escape to terrorize the city. On the way out, Green Goblin kills Aunt May while she’s in Peter’s arms. MJ and Ned are concerned because they haven’t heard from Peter. Ned has Doctor Strange’s ring and opens a portal to look for him. But Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker shows up! (I might’ve shed a tear at this part and everyone in the theater clapped) Ned does this again and Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man shows up! The 4 of them go look for TH Spider-Man and when they do, all 3 Peter Parker’s bond over their losses (Uncle Ben for TM, Gwen for AG, and Aunt May for TH). From now on, to tell apart the Spider-Men, AG is Andrew Garfield, TM is Tobey Maguire, and TH is Tom Holland.
TH Spider-Man explains the situation to the rest of them. They go to the school and make the cures for their own villains and lure them to the Statue of Liberty. Ned and MJ are there through a portal with the magic box that will send them all home. The Spider-Men start fighting the villains, but keep getting in each other’s way and accidentally sabotaging each other. So they devise a plan and cure all of them together. Then, Ned opens a new portal and Doctor Strange comes back! But Green Goblin destroys the cube and TH Spider-Man starts beating him up and almost kills him, but TM stops him. But then Green Goblin stabs TM pretty badly, but he doesn't die, fortunately. They cure Green Goblin and are about to send them all back. But Strange can’t do the spell, so TH lets him perform the spell but EVERYBODY forgets about Peter Parker, even MJ and Ned. A few weeks later, TH Peter goes to MJ’s diner and sees her and Ned talking about going to MIT. Then, he goes to Aunt May’s grave and sees Happy (who also doesn’t know him). He moves into an apartment and continues fighting crime anonymously, as your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
Alright, here’s what I thought. Very good movie, would recommend it, but it would be confusing to those who don’t follow Marvel. There’s a scene during the final battle where MJ is falling off a building and TH can’t get to her. But AG catches her, and tears up because he wasn't able to save Gwen in his universe. The whole theater went SILENT and eyes were glossy, especially at Andrew Garfield’s face. I was on the edge of my reclined seat when Goblin was convincing the villains they don’t need help. There’s also the scene at the end of credits, like in every Marvel movie, that relates to Venom, which gets me excited for Marvel to keep going!