Part Man, Part Spider, No Home - Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Walking out of Spider-Man: No Way Home, I was struck by a lot of things.

With the film opening here in Ireland 15 December, I’m wholly aware that I’ll get to see it before a lot of people: there were signs up in the cinema’s bathroom asking visitors not to discuss the film because staff had not seen yet.

This…does not follow these rules. This is a blog post, from a writer and comic-book fan, talking about a film he’s just seen, dealing with emotion, with narrative, with story-telling…the things I write about.

Herein, there will be spoilers: don’t say you weren’t warned.

But first, a joke. That isn’t really funny. Because it’s sort of a common thing that, after watching a Spider-Man film, I attempt to make some funny statement about the character. I don’t get it: is he a man, or a spider? The husband rolls his eyes, I make some remark about him not getting it. You know, the usual. I was about to post this “joke” yesterday, and I corrected myself (because of the spoilers.) And then I thought further about it, and realised that maybe, just maybe, superheroes (especially Spider-Man) should help some people who don’t get non-binary…or go out of their way not to understand. Work with me here! Peter Parker has been bitten by a spider, giving him spider-powers and if you can understand and accept that across god knows how many movies (I know, I’m just not counting) then the reader/viewer should be able to process, understand or at the very least talk about non-binaries.

So if your brain can understand Spider-Man and his narrative, your brain can also understand and respect the usage of someone’s pronouns.

And boy, does this film go out of its way to avoid binaries cos I WARNED YOU THERE WERE SPOILERS there are three Spider-Men, with references to many duplicates, non-binaries and other such things that expect the viewer to connect with the film on very human terms, dealing with grief, guilt, responsibility.

Because, after all, with great power comes great responsibility.

If you’ve seen the film, you’ll know that those very words hurt. Because Spider-Man: No Way Home goes out of its way to hurt its viewers. More on that later, while I hop back in time and do what I feel to be the compulsory catch-up so you know where and what you are watching.

The film picks up nearly immediately at the close of Spider-Man: Far From Home with the public outing of Spider-Man as Peter Parker (played by Tom Holland) much to the discomfort of girlfriend MJ (Zendaya), aunt May (Marisa Tomei), May’s friend-with-benefits (and Tony Stark’s right-hand-man) Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) and Peter and MJ’s close friend and confidant Ned (Jacob Batalon.) As Peter comes to the realisation that the ‘normal’ bits of his life have been messed up, he approaches colleague (of sorts) Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to see if any magic would help. In a decision that is more fun than sensible, Strange agrees to help but Peter’s regular interruptions to the spell mess things up. Strange’s presence within previous Marvel films as the sensible hero is set aside here in the name of a Spidey-level adventure that should be fun and entertaining.

These shenanigans bring forth all sorts of beings who know (or have known) that Peter was Spider-Man, including those who know that a different Peter (as we’ve seen in previous movies) is a different Spider-Man...or something like that. While it’s fun to see, there’s something to this spell that just doesn’t make sense, leaving Holland’s Spider-Man pursued by villains that have appeared in previous Spider-Man movies…with other Spider-Mans? Spider-Men? Spiders-Man?

Oh, I don’t know. But much like setting aside the formality of those linguistics, the film wants you to just enjoy yourself.

But the film also forgets that enjoyable beat, making it something that is fun to see.Spider-Man: No Way Home is messy, with appearances of five villains from previous Spider-Man films and yeah, as per those theories and rumours, Holland is joined by previous Spiders-Manses Andrew Garfield and Toby Maguire. Their arrival is a forced gimmick, giving MJ and Ned something to do; it’s a fun twist, and yeah, the audience cheered in the same kind of fashion as people reacted when they knew people were about to return in Avengers: Endgame.

But…the timing of such a reveal, with its comedic beats and quirky interactions between our Peters, comes after a brutal emotional beat that is difficult to watch: the death of May. What’s worse about this scene is that the film makes it painfully obvious that it’s about to happen, then it doesn’t happen, and then it occurs in this brutally horrific way after you’ve breathed that sigh of relief. It’s a similar beat as occurred in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 with the death of Gwen Stacy, this thing that you know is about to happen, and you worry if the film will actually go there.

In this film, when that happens, you just can’t help but wonder if the film has spent too much energy ensuring that this hurts both Peter and the audience. And, unlike that return in Endgame, this action is for life. Despite introducing magic to Peter’s world, there isn’t even an immediate attempt to bring May back, and despite this tomfoolery, Peter doesn’t even think to go to any of his other Avengers colleagues to help. While the other Peters give this Peter their condolences, they are nothing more than talking heads who can say “Yep, I’ve been there too, sorry to hear it.” It’s jarring, especially with Peter having been established as the audience’s self-insert in the latest Avengers movies, the street-level personality that can safely interact with the audience while gods and rich guys fight off aliens.

The film also goes out of its way to force its viewers to ignore Peter’s grief (and their own), immediately moving us to the shock-and-awe of the appearances of the other Peters and their vague comedy. There is little to their shared origins, nor their shared grief, simply brief, snippy dialogue that calls attention to the crossover event and leaves everything else lost in the thrill.

And that is what Spider-Man: No Way Home is: a crossover event that feels like you need to read the side-issues to truly get to the heart of things and the actual effects. The timing of the narrative suggests that the film, were it not for the grand fight scenes and the budget of its cast, could have worked better on Disney+ in an episodic format, giving time and space for all of the stories.

While including villains from all previous Spider-Man films, many of them are wasted, proving nothing more than talking heads, some of the actors themselves appearing in person only for only a few seconds. Only Willem Dafoe’s Norman Osborn and Alfred Molina’s Otto Octavius are given any real reason for being there. Except, of course, for the fact that you can’t include the other Spiders-Manses if you’re not going to include their villains.

With that in mind, the absence of any other crossover characters (whether Kirsten Dunst’s MJ, Emma Stone’s Gwen, nor the other Mays) paints this movie as a bit too much of an ego-trip for the Spiders-Mans themselves. While the film lays it on heavy that Spider-Man, and Peter, in all their forms, are defined by their support, this is told but not shown. With that in mind, the film closes on a very depressing note, removing all of Peter’s support networks, leaving him completely and utterly alone. Sure, the film shows him being brave and facing that loneliness: but it leaves us mere human viewers with nothing to look up to…except perhaps for the franchise’s dark place, teased in a mid-credit scene that only makes sense if you’ve watched the post-credit scene of Venom: Let There Be Carnage.

As an event Spider-Man: No Way Home is fun, entertaining, jaw-dropping for its energy, its acknowledgement of the ups and downs of life across three franchises. But as a narrative that wants you to love and care for Spider-Man, the movie spends so much time and energy showing off its grandeur that it forgets Peter’s heart, the thing that is truly required for all things Spiders-Menses, favouring cameos (and yeah, there’s another character that I haven’t referenced here, and you might not even see him coming.

All of this is not to say that Holland and the movie are poor: that’s just me being picky. And you should know by now that I’m picky with my narratives and my story-telling and such (you’ve gotten that by now…right? RIGHT?) So maybe this attempt to bring Spider-Man back to his street-like origins is appropriate for the character, taking him away from his adventures in space.

But, unlike MJ, unlike Ned…and definitely unlike the deceased May, we viewers know that Spider-Man has been in space and fought god-like beings from other time-lines (as well as fancy special effects guys posing as aliens.) There is no way up for this narrative or this character, so I guess it makes some sense to push him all the way down to his lowest, knowing and hoping we can see him rise once more, and perhaps even in a way that is that bit more relatable for us mere mortals.

But give him, give all of us, something to look forward to.

Because without some sort of positive hope, there really is No Way Home.