With this being the ninth solo Spider-Man film, you could be excused for thinking if there is anything about the character left unexplored. Thankfully, though, that is not the case. The film resolves the consequences of a previous choice made by Peter Parker – one that has left us with a Spider-Man with no friends or emotional support system. He is just a guy who has basically given over his life to being a superhero and the toll that responsibility takes on Peter. Interestingly, this feels like an inversion of the sequence in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 in which Peter (here played by Toby Maguire) gives up his responsibility to try to lead a normal civilian life. Both sides of this coin come to the same conclusion. With great power indeed comes great responsibility, but also the great need for Peter to balance in his life between his super heroics and taking time off to recuperate physically and emotionally from these adventures.
Shepherding this new adventure is MCU veteran Destin Daniel Cretton, 2021’s Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings. While the director of the previous Tom Holland-led Spidey-films, Jon Watts, wasn’t showing any signs of missing a step in his staging of action sequences for the franchise, Cretton brings a new, fresh eye to the proceedings working to make sure that we the audience feel the same exhileration that Peter feels while swinging through the canyons of Manhattan.
With No Way Home, Marvel played coy with the fact that the two previous cinematic Spider-Men – Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield – were returning to the franchise. Here, they do the same with the identity of Sadie Sink’s character. And while most fans seemed to have guessed whom it is she is playing, the marketing “mystery” around her character also serves to distract away from the fact that there is another MCU resident who shows up here, previously unannounced. It is nice to be surprised in a theater in this day and age, and kudos to those involved at Marvel at keeping this one under wraps.
And yes, there will be some plot threads left hanging at the end of the film. It is a franchise within the larger multi-franchise tapestry that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe after all. However, the film still serves its own adventure with a satisfactory ending, even if many of the answers he finds by the end do suggest further questions that will undoubtedly be taken up in the next inevitable installment.
