Film Putting the Man in Spider-Man
I’ll admit up front that I’ve had an up-and-down relationship with Spider-Man on the big screen. I love the Raimi films and Spider-Verse, I skipped the Amazing duo, and my feelings on the MCU Spidey are mixed. I wasn’t particularly keen on Homecoming, but I thought that Far From Home was a step in the right direction. I’m also very skeptical of rumors around Hollywood and Marvel Studios in particular. So going into No Way Home, my expectations were tempered. I wasn’t watching it hoping for Tobey Mc Guire, Andrew Garfield, and Charlie Cox to show up. I was watching it hoping for a good movie for this Spider-Man. As long as it gave me that, I would be satisfied.
Well, the good news is that I definitely got what I wanted, and then some. No Way Home is more than just a good Spider-Man movie, it’s a love letter to Spider-Man, what he stands for, and his history in cinema. While the movie does have plenty of fanservice, its primary focus is on the core ideas of Spider-Man: responsibility and consequences.
The beginning of this movie takes a cue from Endgame in spending quite a decent amount of time exploring the fallout of the villain’s actions in the previous movie. In this case, it’s the consequences of Spider-Man’s identity being outed to the public and being framed for murder. The film does a solid job of showing how these events made the lives of him and his loved ones harder. From being hounded by paparazzi, to half the public calling Peter a murderer, to Him and his friends being untouchable by colleges. By the time Peter goes to Dr. Strange for help you understand his desperation.
But the thing about desperation is that it can blind us to the people we have around us and the solutions available to us. As other characters point out, Peter could’ve tried other options than a magic reset button. He could’ve accepted the full consequences of Strange’s spell and let him cast it. But in trying to have everything, Peter wound up with nothing. And what’s more, his irresponsibility has harsh consequences.
So botching the spell leads to several villains from the previous Spider-Man franchises being brought into Marvel Studio’s universe. And since they’re supervillains who go on rampages, naturally Peter has to stop them. But it’s upon finding out their various fates once returned to their universes that Peter is faced with a hard choice: should he send them back home and ensure his own universe’s safety, or should he try to cure and rehabilitate them? Strange encourages the former, Aunt May the latter. It’s a difficult decision, and one that really tests Peter’s moral compass.
He does eventually decide to help the villains, but inevitably he ends up being double-crossed. And this is where the other shoe drops. Acting irresponsibly will ultimately hurt you and others. But sometimes so will doing the right thing. And now Peter will have to make another hard choice. Will he act out of revenge? Or will he stick by his morals?
And it’s this conflict of the consequences of responsibility vs irresponsibility that is the core of this film. Doing the right thing isn’t always easy, and it doesn’t always turn out positively. But that doesn’ mean we should stop trying, either. Sometimes we’ll lose. Sometimes we’ll have to make incredible sacrifices in order to do it. But it’s still worth doing. It’s still worth trying to be better. And there will be times when the consequences for doing the right thing are actually good. We just have to keep swinging.
Film Best Inter-Crossover
No Way Home was so awesome! The threequel film had three franchises (actually four, with Sony’s Marvel Universe), being crossed over in the MCU.
I love how the villains were Multiversal Visitors instead of a new enemy for MCU Spider-Man. It was nice that MCU Peter was saving them by curing them before sending them back to their universes. And with the other Multiversal Visitors being shown that presumably teases appearances of Spider-Man’s Enemies and Allies to appear in the next trilogy.
The only thing I wished could’ve happened was SSU Venom and Eddie Brock, because they only spent the rest of their time with knowing about the MCU, which is justified, despite the mid-credits-scene teasing the role for the film. Despite that however, they do leave half of the Symbiote behind, which sets up Spider-Man 4.
I am hoping that The Multiversal Visitors will return later hopefully for the future.