Wick's Review

Summary - Perfect 5.0

Third time’s another charm for the Spider-Man Home team. Or would that be the eighth time? It is a three series climax, a #ClimaxCubed. Marvel pulls it off — at a level previously seen only by The Avengers.

This is ultimate OG Marvel, a flashback to the Before Times when Marvel movies were de rigueur cultural events, not like the Woke Times of ’20 & ’21, when Marvel movies are often exercises in woke scolding.

No Way Home perfectly completes the best Spidey trilogy.

• Spider-Man: Homecoming — Really Great Origin
• Spider-Man: Far from Home — Perfect Sequel
• Spider-Man: No Way Home — Perfect 2^nd Sequel

Acting - Really Great 4.5

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW

The Big Three

• Tom Holland is the best big-screen WebHead of them all, and has been since well before this, his 5^th feature film as Peter Parker / Spider-Man.
• Zendaya as MJ, his girlfriend and intellectual superior, is super-cool and super-cute once again, the ideal superhero girlfriend.
• Benedict Cumberbatch plays a major role as Dr. Strange, one of Marvel’s better semi-recent moviestars. His post-credits trailer left me hankering for next year’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Main Mortals

• Marisa Tomei is the most lovely Aunt May.
• Jacob Batalon is once again Ned, the stand-in for we normies.
• Jon Favreau underplays Happy Hogan, mostly used here as Aunt May’s jilted love interest.
• J. K. Simmons is once again perfectly cast as media monster J. Jonah Jameson.

Superpowered People Played by Major Moviestars

• Jamie Foxx as Max Dillon / Electro
• Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn / Green Goblin, a classic Dafoe character
• Alfred Molina as Otto Octavius / Doctor Octopus, a classic Molina character
• Benedict Wong as Wong
• Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker / Spider-Man: Shh, don’t tell anybody.
• Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker / Spider-Man: Shh, don’t tell anybody.
• Rhys Ifans reprises his role as Dr. Curt Connors / Lizard
• Thomas Haden Church reprises his role as Flint Marko / Sandman
• Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock from Marvel Television’s Netflix series
• Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock / Venom. TOM FREAKING HARDY
• Jake Gyllenhaal as Quentin Beck / Mysterio

Other Normies

• Angourie Rice as Betty Brant
• Hannibal Buress as Coach Wilson
• Martin Starr as Peter Parker’s academic decathlon teacher
• J. B. Smoove as Peter Parker’s teacher

Film - Perfect 5.0

There is much to praise about this perfect piece of Marvel filmcraft. Here’s a taste.

• High School
• Romance & heartbreak
• Fish out of water and yet exactly where they need to be
• Touchstones perfectly touched
• Grit & grace
• Multiverse manipulations

Edge - Risqué 1.9

Reality - Fantasy 4.1

Flirts with current political reality in a traditional Marvel way, where the hero is a mistaken avenger whose use of force to protect the weak is countered by an out-of-control media. Right or Left? Right.

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