Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ on VOD, in Which Spider-Man, Spider-Man and Spider-Man Face the Fight of Their Lives

Spider-Man: No Way Home debuts on VOD three months after it defibrillated the Covid-ravaged movie-theater biz (it grossed $1.88 billion globally) and caused critics to have coronaries over the prospect of the future theatrical experience being nothing more than gigantic superhero crossover movies. So, if you want to get hyperbolic about it, some things and people were revived, and some were brought closer to death. Some stats to consider: It’s the (deep breath) eighth Spider-Man movie, the 27th Marvel Cinematic Universe movie and the third movie to feature Tom Holland in the title role (although he’ll reportedly continue playing Peter Parker and his alter ego on into the future). It’s also the (pushes glasses held together with masking tape up on nose) fourth movie in phase four of the MCU – if you need that type of information, and maybe you do, you go ahead and do you as you do – following snoozefest Eternals and preceding the upcoming saga Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (due in theaters in May). It also challenges the notion of spoiler reveals, since I’m tempted to mention certain things that happen in the movie, although you probably already know them by now even if you haven’t seen it. Let’s get on with this, then.

SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Further context, on top of the context I already gave you, because Marvel movies are like doing homework: The events of No Way Home directly follow those of 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home, when the good guy-who-was-actually-a-bad guy Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) not only framed Spider-Man as a villain, but also revealed to the world that the kid behind the mask is Peter Parker. So all of it is hitting the fan as this movie opens, including the continued smearing of Spider-Man’s reputation by tabloid newspaperman J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons), who’s been reframed here as a spittle-flinging Alex Jones/Fox News type.

But more importantly, we learn that Peter’s Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and former Tony Stark assistant Happy (Jon Favreau) have been dating. She’s dumping him (note: someone’s way outta someone else’s league here) when the plot comes crashing through her door. Peter swings his GF MJ (Zendaya) into the window and there’s many rapid-fire one-liners and sight gags pinging hither and yon, including one in which May cluelessly thinks all the commotion has to do with her nephew having sex with his girlfriend. And then she hears the news helicopters hovering outside, because they followed Spider-Man home.

There’s something to do with Peter/Spidey facing serious legal charges, so they have a meeting with a lawyer, who happens to be Matt Murdock, a.k.a. Daredevil (Charlie Cox), and then we never see him again in the movie, which kind of sucks, but is understandable, because it’s an overstuffed 148 minutes. The plot about the legal charges goes away too quickly so it can get on with May and Peter moving into Happy’s place because it’s funny to see the poor guy be annoyed and miserable, and Peter realizing that his being outed has rendered him, MJ and best pal Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon) as too much of a PR problem to get into MIT. Now one, it’s nice to see that Peter isn’t considering a full-time career as a superhero, because one assumes it’s like playing pro football in that the duration will be brief and the physical toll is heavy, but not like playing pro football because it pays poorly and you’re more likely to end up dead. Considering his desire to be a scientist (or whatever) is waylaid by this roadblock, his hand may end up being forced into the devil-horns sign forever: Thwipp goes the web shooter.

But Peter has an idea: He’ll alter the fabric of reality in order to make the lives of two miniscule earthlings slightly better. IT’S A PLAN, as they say, SO CRAZY IT MIGHT WORK. He asks his old pal Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), master of magic, if there’s some way to do this, and the elder gentleman, who we all previously thought was highly intelligent, has pity on the kid and agrees to cast a spell of forgetting, and it’s at this point where the details of how and what exactly happens are moot, because suffice to say, Peter, being a dumb teenager, meddles with Strange’s sorcery, causing shit to go astronomically cosmically haywire.

Before you know it, characters from movies in which Spider-Man was played by an entirely different actor start showing up. Aren’t those movies set in an entirely different universe? Indeed they were, but this (assumes nasally voice) phase of the MCU jumps headlong into the “multiverse,” which boggles the mind, perhaps terminally, but at least there’s hope of Spider-Ham showing up again, right? Or Howard the Duck? How about BOTH? I digress: This is a huge mess Peter/Spidey has to untangle, but I won’t say if it’s untangleable or not, you’ll have to find out for yourself.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: With apologies to Andrew Garfield, the following is THEE definitive ranking of the Spider-Man movies to date (live action only; it’s a given that animated masterpiece Into the Spider-Verse outpaces all of them by a mile). I’ll give directorial vision the upper hand over the glossy MCU template any day:

8. The Amazing Spider-Man 2
7. The Amazing Spider-Man
6. Spider-Man 3
5. Spider-Man: Far From Home
4. Spider-Man: Homecoming
3. Spider-Man: No Way Home
2. Spider-Man
1. Spider-Man 2

Performance Worth Watching: The cat’s way out of the bag, the statute of spoiler limitations has loosened and it’s pretty much common knowledge that there’s a multi-dimensional pileup of Spider-Men in this movie. So: In total redemption of Andrew Garfield, he’s the official scene thief of No Way Home, whether he’s delivering a one-liner or a heartfelt sentiment.

Memorable Dialogue: This functions better on screen than on paper:

Peter Parker 1a: You know, Max was the sweetest guy ever before he fell into a pool of electric eels.

Peter Parker 1b: That’ll do it.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: I’m torn between praising No Way Home for its clever buoyancy, vibrant heart and nifty conglomeration of Spider-Men past and present (you know, Garfield and Tobey Maguire reprising their iterations of the character) and shrugging my shoulders at Jon Watts’ serviceable direction, its lack of a memorable action set piece and the blah conglomeration of past villains, who rarely do anything interesting. Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin chews up a scene or two, and Alfred Molina’s take on Dr. Octopus might mark the most welcome return – but was anyone clamoring for the return of Jamie Foxx’s godawful Electro, Rhys Ifans’ forgettable Lizard or Thomas Haden Church’s bland man bad man Sandman?

But Watts’ three Spider-Man movies have skated by on their cheery optimism and the youthful zeal of Holland (alongside Zendaya and Batalon, who are crucial to shaping the films’ frisky comedy). No Way Home serves up the concept of redemption with a significantly more upbeat tenor than most movies; ever the hopeful youngster unjaded by the world, Holland’s Peter Parker clings to the idealism of second chances, a theme that’s wound deeply into this zany, off-the-rails plot. Tomei’s spirited take on Aunt May plays a key role, embedding that idealism in Peter, which remains core to the character in spite of the difficult changes he suffers through here.

Smartly, the film pays heed to our hero’s Spider-Man-ness, which will ring true to those of us who grew up dog-earing comics we bought at gas stations for a couple of quarters each. Smarter still, No Way Home ropes in all the stuff from previous Spider-Man films without succumbing to the wearisome self-awareness of movies that know they’re movies, and instead embraces the silly-but-serious tone of classic comic books.

My biggest beef with this multi-dimensional rift in Spidey space-time is its dedication to (here comes those two dreaded words) fan service. It’s hard not to compare the movie to Into the Spider-Verse, which gave us a fistful of Spider-people we’d never seen on film before and was experimental in a way that leaves one exhilarated, while No Way Home is content to remix familiar fodder, to elicit smiles of recognition rooted in nostalgia. (Translation: No live-action Spider-Ham, which is disappointing.) But it does so in a manner that meshes earnest sentiment with an undeniable sense of giddy joy.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Spider-Man: No Way Home is a sure-fire crowdpleaser. It won’t blow your mind, but it’ll keep that mind entertained for two-and-a-half hours.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.