The Best Fan Service A Movie Can Offer (Spider Man: No Way Home) (Spoiler-Free Review)

It has taken me 2 days to be able to write this and I finally gained the courage to do so. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has provided us a year full of content after a year of not having any. Now, the 2021 slate of movies has come to an end with the most anticipated release of the year, Spider-Man No Way Home. With Tom Holland returning as the titular role alongside Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Marisa Tomei, and Jon Favreau, we welcome some familiar villainous faces. Alfred Molina, Willem Dafoe, and Jamie Foxx's from the Raimi and Webb Spider-Man movies return to introduce the repercussions of the Multiverse. 

No Way Home takes place immediately after where Far From Home left us in the first credit scene where Mysterio reveals to the world that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. This leaves Peter to be known as the most famous person in New York and not in a good way. This affects not only his life but everyone who is a part of his life which includes MJ and Ned. To make things right, he heads out to meet Doctor Strange to cast a spell that gets everyone to forget that they had ever learned his secret identity. However, attempting the spell to adhere to Peter's many exceptions causes it to somewhat combust and brings in old Spider-Man universes to fall into this one. Peter and his friends try to help these villains find their way home in this epic conclusion to the Homecoming trilogy. 

This film is a love letter to all Spider-Man fans, paying tribute to films, video games, comic books, basically, any IP that featured Spider-Man and got people to fall in love with this character in the first place. With the amount of fan service that is featured in this film, audiences would expect that like other movies in the past, the fan service would overpower the possibility of a good story. Thankfully, Spider-Man pleases fans in ways that no other Spider-Man film - or any big franchise film for that matter - ever could. It is without a doubt, the best kind of fan service a movie can offer. With that said, it's easy to consider No Way Home as a solid, enjoyable, and memorable entry to the MCU as well as one of the best Spider-Man films ever made. 

There was a number of quiet moments in this Marvel-epic-like-event that allowed audiences and the characters to breathe between the Marvelous action that didn't make the movie seem slow but gave the movie enough to flow through briskly with the 2 and a half hours without feeling like there wasn't enough or too much going on.

However, looking past the spectacle and epic elements of this concluding era, there was so much character development that occurred with these characters that Far From Home and Homecoming spent most of their time introducing these characters as opposed to making them rootable, even if they had become memorable and loveable from the amount of time die-hard fans spent rewatching those films. I love Ned and MJ in this trilogy, but I feel like they were not utilized properly in the first two movies. 

In No Way Home, Zendaya, Batalon, and even Tomei also bring us their A-game in getting us to root for these side characters more so than ever before considering since they were always on the sidelines. No Way Home terrifyingly changes this as these loved ones of Peter Parker are involved more than ever, allowing the possibility for them to be affected by events of this film, whether it is for good or for worse. In Tom Holland's case, this is his best performance as the iconic superhero, solidifying himself as the Spider-Man we all want more of. From start to finish, Holland allows audiences to feel for Peter in more ways than he ever did in the previous movies.

The villains of the Homecoming trilogy have never been particularly bad. From Michael Keaton and Jake Gyllenhaal, they brought the Vulture and Mysterio respectively in their subsequent features in the best ways possible, making them considerable as great modern adaptations of classic Spider-Man villains. From the trailers that promoted No Way Home, you learn that not only are Doc Ock, Green Goblin and Electro are returning to the big screen but as well as The Lizard and Sandman. These five villains were treated more carefully and fulfilled them in ways never deemed possible. For some of them, their portrayals here were better than their last appearances within their respective Spider-Man franchises especially when it came to Electro and Green Goblin. Speaking of Green Goblin, the MVP of this villainous bunch was Willem Dafoe. Do not get me wrong, seeing Molina, Foxx, Haden Church and Ifans return as these villains were a treat, but Dafoe's return to the screen was more maniacal and scary than his portrayal in Raimi's Spidey debut. 

Hard to say at this time whether Holland & Co. will return for the upcoming Spidey-sequel that Amy Pascal (Sony Entertainment) and Kevin Feige (Marvel Studios) had recently confirmed but I think that fans have made it very clear that they want to see him return. It's hard to not feel anything for this movie or these characters which especially after the final act cements itself, affecting some part of the universe we have not seen yet. (most probably seen in Multiverse of Madness)

With the heights that the cast, music, and emotional depth that was meant to be reached, No Way Home is THE movie to watch this holiday season and finally gain the box office numbers we have been begging for since the lockdown ended. Spider No Way Home is the perfect reason to return to the cinemas. And remember to stay for the credit scenes (there are TWO of them), you will regret missing them.