Spider-Man: No Way Home Review – The Perfect Ending to the Homecoming Trilogy

“A top-notch Spider-Man film that honours the previous live-action iterations…”

The wait is finally over; Spider-Man: No Way Home has finally hit cinemas. With rumours of potential plot points and characters appearing, we know the internet is buzzing at the moment. For that reason, we’re being very careful with that we say here, but please brace yourself for some light teasing.

No Way Home rounds out the MCU’s Homecoming trilogy, kicking off right where we left Peter Parker. The world now knows he is New York’s wall crawler and he has supposedly murdered Jake Gyllenhaal’s Quentin Beck/Mysterio. From that jumping off point, we dive right into the repercussions that reveal and land in this epic multiverse story.

First off, Tom Holland continues to shine as Peter Parker. He embodies what we love about the character. All whilst not being afraid to roughen up the character’s edges here and there. This is a perfect full circle outing for the character when you compare the excited, wanting-to-be-a-hero Parker to the version in this film who is weighed down by his responsibilities and begrudges them.

Our usual roster of Ned Leeds, MJ, May Parker and Happy Hogan return, plus this film’s mentor figure, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Stephen Strange. Batalon’s Leeds is made to be more than just comic relief in this film, and is included in some of the film’s most tender moments. Zendeya’s MJ is around a lot of course with being Peter’s love. She’s a fun addition as usual, however she does lose her darkness and quirkiness from the previous two instalments which is a shame. Although, given the stakes of the film, we can understand this.

Tomei’s May Parker is centralised even more as Peter’s moral compass in this film and has one of the juiciest, most influential scenes in the film. Happy Hogan…continues to be a significant tie between Spidey and the MCU. Unfortunately, thats about it.

Strange fits the mentor role very well for this film. Given the ramifications of what causes events to unfold, he acts as the perfect man to help Parker steer everything back to normal and also gets a nice nod to his next solo outing. Strange and Parker are both flawed characters and they complement each other really well during this film.

Then we get to our villains. We won’t definitively state which villains show up, but we get a strong list of previous Spidey movie bad guys. They get to fill out their stories in a fun way and we’re reminded of where we left them off. This is smart in that it steers each of them in their own direction as the film concludes. Yeah, there is a few holes in the ship that aren’t fully plugged when it comes to details about one or two of them, but we can overlook it this once. Every Spidey character that returns gets a well-earned, rounded off ending to their own story from across the live-action instalments. That’s all we’ll say on that.

The plot meshes together the fallout from Far From Home and the multiverse element that the MCU has been exploring recently. Not only do we get old faces popping up, but in some cases they appear in the most unexpected moments that have you wooping and cheering. You’re hooked by what is going on from start to finish, and the film abundantly provides a hell of a lot of fan service without making it gimic-y or cringey. You’re either going to laugh or cry out of happiness at least five times watching this film.

You also can’t fault the amount of old faces that appear and the level of screen time they get. Each old Spidey character gets the right amount of screen time without us either feeling robbed or overindulged. Each…except one. We’re not going to mention names; one debut into the MCU is great and fits into the story. However, it’s a one scene and done kind of thing. It’s nice to know that this individual exists within the MCU, but we feel that there should have been more.

There’s also how the film ends. Yeah, we’re not going to say very much about this, but it propels us into a new chapter for Holland’s superhero and a world of Spider-Man that most people will be familiar with. We can only hope that Holland is DEFINITELY up for more spider antics.

in terms of the film’s directing and tone, Jon Watts hasn’t lost any of that energy from the previous films. There is always a fear that these films will feel very different as time goes on. The differences between The Amazing Spider-Man 1 & 2 feel like different directors worked on each. Fortunately, this trilogy has contained the same through line. The film does take on a much more serious tone given the stakes, just like Endgame, but the peppering of comedy throughout lands just perfectly.

Everything that Watts has overseen; the cinematography, the score, the fluidity of the story. It all works in tangent and makes for arguably the best Spider-Man film to grace our screens. It all mixes so well and when this all blends with certain characters interacting…you’ll probably struggle to stay still in your seat. The only con of Watt’s directing is he’s been that good, we’ll miss him when he doesn’t show up for the next Spidey. He is now going to be at the helming Fantastic Four into the MCU. Having his hands full, we can’t see him back for another Spider-Man.

Related Article: Eternals Review

The main takeaway from this outing is the transformation of Peter Parker. The Spider-Man franchise in general in fact. We touched on it earlier, but now that the Homecoming trilogy comes to a close, we see how Peter Parker has grown from a wide eyed boy in a onesie to a man and fully fledged hero. In closing out every live-action Spider-Man storyline we’ve had since 2002, it shows how this film marks the aligning of a linear story now, with the MCU’s webslinger at the forefront and ready to move new territory. What the MCU has accomplished with this character specifically is incredible.

All in all, this is a top-notch Spider-Man film that honours the previous live-action iterations whilst keeping Holland’s world in the main focus and pushing his story further into hopefully more movies. Some moments maybe needed more exploration in terms of certain characters, but it can easily be overlooked by the 99% of the film that works.

Sony. Marvel. Holland. Keep this train moving. Don’t let this be the last stop.

No question. It’s a solid 9.5/10 from us to this film.

Spider-Man: No Way Home is currently showing in UK cinemas and hits US screens December 17.