Spider-Man: No Way Home Review: Zestful, bittersweet but resonant superhero flick

A still from Spider-Man: No Way Home

Spider-Man: No Way Home
Dir: Jon Watts
Cast: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jon Favreau, Jacob Batalon
Rating: 3/5

The title says it all. "Spider-Man: No Way Home" sends Peter Parker (Tom Holland) away from his home because living there with his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and his two besties Ned (Jacob Batalon) and MJ (Zendaya), becomes very risky after Television show presenter J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) exposes his secret identity and unmasks him as a war criminal in a bizarre twist - a claim which hordes believe following the destruction he leaves in his wake after every rescue mission.

The story begins with the scene that was seen towards the end of the last film: the young Spiderman hovering outside Penn Station when he hears Jameson and the crowds baying for his blood. His close friends, also have to deal with the backlash of being hunted by the media and getting berated and shunned at school. The three also find it difficult to get into a reputed college despite being brainy and top of the class. Spidey, in order to turn on the mystery once again, heads to Greenwich Village, hoping Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) can do the trick. Doctor Strange's attempt opens a rift between parallel dimensions, forcing into current existence, villains Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) and the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) from Tobey Maguire's and Andrew Garfield's versions of the character. So the task of saving the world becomes triply challenging for our young hero.

It's a well calibrated narrative structure meant to increase the degree of difficulty while adding new and old characters into the fray - thus increasing the unpredictability, adding punch to the fun with playful elements and peppering it with anxious and youthful buddy zest. Director Jon Watts spreads his scope across several comic books to achieve a homogenised epic entertainer that feels mega sized and complex. It's crowded with characters that don't take up too much screen time, yet make distinctive impressions with their impactful presence in the scheme of things.

This current Spiderman Universe has characters and mythology from the other cinematic iterations merging in and accessorising that are Tony Stark's gadgets which overshadow Spiderman's abilities. The epic tagline that fronts every Spiderman movie "With great power comes great responsibility," is given a weighty presence with Peter Parker eventually graduating to a hero who learns from the past, corrects the mistakes of former iterations and eventually transforms himself with weighty heroic decisions that may prove too costly yet are made with the most ennobling intentions. While it's not exactly a fun joyride all through its anxious, dippy and sad 148 min runtime, it certainly scores several notches higher than Sam Raimi's overdone version especially in terms of meaningfulness and entertainment value.