“Spider-Man: No Way Home” starts off where the previous Spider movie, “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” concluded: The baddie, Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) had broadcast Spider-Man’s secret identity to the world, thereby putting Peter Parker’s buddy Ned, his girlfriend MJ, and his Aunt May in danger.
Let’s cut to the chase: Is this new “Spider-Man: No Way Home” any good? Like all sequels (or in this case, since it’s part of a massive nine-quel), it suffers from the usual fact that one can only really experience the world-building once; it’s only completely pristine, new, exciting, and mind-blowing—one time. The rest is rehash. And, as I stated of the recent release “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” in my review, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is a perfectly good rehash.
Spoiler Alert
Warning: I’m going to talk about what would normally be considered a major spoiler, because I think not mentioning the main hook of this movie is to simultaneously neglect giving audiences incentive to go see it. However, anyone wanting to see the movie with a completely clean slate, anticipating getting hit out of nowhere, in the face, with surprises, is not going to be happy hearing some of these things. So proceed with caution.
So this time around, Peter “Spider-Man” Parker (Tom Holland) has just had his secret identity revealed by the perennially shouting online conspiracy theorist J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons). It should be noted that Simmons is not actually reprising his character from “Spider-Man” (2002) and its sequels.
This results in a media firestorm: helicopters hovering outside Peter’s apartment, getting stoned (by actual stones), and his high school principal (J.B. Smoove) and front office staff becoming cartoonishly star-struck and sycophantic with their new celebrity student.
The worst part of this unwanted megafame, though, is that the press-instigated (and continually fueled) controversy regarding ethical and legal issues surrounding Peter’s actions as Spider-Man gets him and his friends—girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and friend Ned (Jacob Batalon)—rejected from all the institutions of higher learning they’ve applied to.
The one they all really wanted to get into (so they could remain united as friends), M.I.T., even specified that the rejection was in regard to all the Spider-Man brouhaha. Which is nonsense—M.I.T. would welcome Spider-Man in a heartbeat on full scholarship (in exchange for allowing its professors to lab-test his spider abilities). Who do they think they’re fooling?
Strange Happenings
Peter goes to see Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), that caped, arm-waving magician who opens portals to other dimensions and time-spaces by using a sort of large (but invisible) sparks-generating can opener.
Peter wants to know if it’s possible to go back in time and get a do-over—that is, hide his identity from the world again. Dr. Strange declares that that particular request is not possible, but what he can do is make everyone alive forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Peter thinks that’s perfect.
The spell-casting commences, and then suddenly Peter realizes this memory erasure will include all his close friends and relatives. His realization kicks off a few stop-start situations: Peter keeps remembering more people he’d rather not have included on that list, which ends up distracting and annoying Dr. Strange so much that the spell is eventually rendered useless.
And not only that, but an altogether different outcome ensues, whereby the spell-gone-wrong rends the very fabric of time-space. And you know what that means—spoiler-alert!—Spider-Men from parallel universes (old “Spider-Man” movies) may show up in this movie.
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