The Sunday Mail
“SPIDERMAN: No Way Home” is without doubt the best movie of 2021.
No, that is not an exaggeration, nor is it hyperbole.
Since the movie’s release, I have been closely monitoring the numbers, and, boy, they make for some fascinating reading.
According to a BBC article last week, it has become the first pandemic-era movie to make more than US$1 billion at the box office.
What makes this feat more impressive is the fact that it has surpassed the billion-dollar mark in only 12 days, and did so without the world’s biggest movie market: China.
“Spiderman: No Way Home” also took the title of the highest-grossing film of 2021, and currently has ratings of 94 percent and audience approval of 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Now, I don’t usually pay attention to the numbers, as a film’s marketing has a huge bearing on such figures, and not many studios have deeper pockets than Marvel.
However, this film lives up to the hype and ticks every single box.
Tom Holland gives arguably his best performance as Peter Parker, while Willem Dafoe (Green Goblin) comes off as a worthy adversary both in the context of the story and from a performance point of view.
Dafoe, in particular, went full method as a now-resurrected Norman Osborne, who is forced to go up against Holland’s Spiderman alongside the likes of Electro (Jamie Foxx), Dr Oct (Alfred Molina), Sandman (Thomas Harden Church) and Lizard (Rhys Ifran).
Parker, as a result of having his true identity revealed, goes to Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) for help.
Their plan is to conjure up a spell that will see the whole world forget Spiderman, but something goes wrong and opens up a portal to the multi-verse.
It’s all riveting stuff. The action is intense and is complemented by some great acting.
Charlie Cox also makes a short but memorable cameo during the film’s first act.
These are not spoilers, given that the internet was awash with clips and commentaries on their appearances even before the movie was officially released.
I went to watch it on the day it was released and I had already seen a couple of clips from the movie, courtesy of Twitter and YouTube. I only bring up the aforementioned names because that is the main focus of my review. Redemption was a common theme throughout the film.
If this is to be Holland’s last film as Spiderman, then so be it.
I couldn’t think of a better way to end Holland’s arc as the MCU Spiderman.
Rather than concentrate on the now-tired origins story, the MCU chose to concentrate on a young and impressionable Peter Parker.
Concentrating on his high school days opened up the MCU to a younger and brand-new audience.
Holland, Zendaya (Michelle Jones-Watson) and Jacob Batalon (Ned Leeds) have been great as the main trio of the MCU Spiderman film “Homecoming”, “Far From Home” and most recently “No way Home”.
The additions of Robert Downey Jnr (Tony Stark), Samuel L Jackson (Nick Fury) and Cumberbatch (Strange) have added the star power needed in the movies without necessarily taking the attention from this young cast.
While the Sony movies were all bad, they did fall short on so many levels.
With the exception of Molina and Dafoe, the movies did not have great villains.
“Spiderman 3” all, but ruined the works of the previous Tobey Maguire movies in one scene. When it comes to Garfield’s Spiderman movies, the villain problem was the films’ biggest weakness.
We also felt that Garfield’s time as the webslinger was cut rather short, and all one has to do is pay attention to his facial expression to see how much it meant to the Brit to wear that costume again.
He even gets to redemption moment, from a story point of view, when he jumps to MJ’s aid in “No Way Home”.
The film also does a great job in changing the conversation from Spiderman to Dr Strange with that post-credit scene.
The scene in question has since been turned into the trailer for the Doctor’s next outing “Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” The film is due for release on May 6, giving the studio plenty of time to market and hype the movie.
