Sunday, December 19, 2021

Film: Spider-Man: No Way Home

GENRE: Action
RATING: PG-13 for violence and some language
RUNTIME: 2 hours and 28 minutes
PLATFORM: Movie Theatre
STARRING: Tom Holland (Avengers: Infinity War; Onward; Current War)
Zendaya (Greatest Showman; Dune); Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock)
DIRECTOR: Jon Watts (Spider-Man: Homecoming & Far from Home)
WRITERS: Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers (Lego Batman; Jumanji 2)
PLOT: Peter Parker gets Doctor Strange to make a spell that goes wrong and brings in villains from the multi-verse.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I had pretty high expectation for this film.  

STORY STUFF: Expectations met and then some. Such a fun movie that is full of great action pieces, humour and even a bunch of feels. The chemistry between the main cast is outstanding which then extends to the multiverse characters from the previous franchises. I am often worried when a franchise resorts to more villains to fill out their stories as they usually are the death knell to the series (see Spider-Man 3; Batman and Robin). This one manages to pull it off, but maybe that’s because we don’t need to see each of their origin stories (much like Holland’s Spider-Man didn’t feel the need to). Of course, this film will be even more enjoyable if you have seen the Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield franchises. There are a number of references that made me smile having just re-watched some of those films. There is also an early cameo that I loved because it was about time. I don’t want to give out spoilers so you’ll have to watch it quickly before someone ruins things for you. Just know that the story is awesome, the time flew by, and the ending worked.

ACTING STUFF: As I said before, the main cast have outstanding chemistry. They get to have fun but also some emotional scenes. Cumberbatch is always great to watch on screen; he has solid comic timing. As I am not sure if you know who is all this film, I’ll just say that everyone brings their ‘A’ game.  

ARTISTIC STUFF: As always, I love Michael Giacchino’s Spider-Man music – there’s just something so playful yet triumphant about it. The action sequences are very well done as I could follow the movements most of the time. I’m guessing the CG artists from Doctor Strange helped with one of the sequences, unless they do all the Marvel films. I will say that I was not a fan of Spider-Man’s new suit, it had too much gray on it – kinda looked like duct tape on the shoulder. But that’s a minor quibble. The production of this film is top notch like all Marvel movies.

VERDICT: Five stars out of five
SEE IT IF: You are a Spider-Man fan as it’s not for first timers
UPCOMING REVIEW: Being the Ricardos 

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