By: Jesse Striewski

Aside from Batman, Spider-Man has always been one of the few superhero characters that I don’t mind watching on screen. But as just a casual fan, these newer films with Tom Holland as the titular hero have been much harder to enjoy than the early 2000’s films starring Toby Maguire and directed by Sam Raimi.

I’ll try to sum up No Way Home (what’s with all of the “home” references in the title of every one of the Holland flicks, anyway?) as simplified as possible for fellow outsiders such as myself; Spider-Man/Peter Parker is basically hated by the world for the events in the last entry, Far From Home, and enlists the help of Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to erase everyone’s memory of it. In doing so, it allows other previous foes from other dimensions into his world.

It does allow for some exciting moments, and it was interesting to see some of the actors and characters from the Raimi films appear on the big screen again, such as Maguire, Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin, and Alfred Molina as Dr. Octopus. But eventually it just became as clunky as all of the other ridiculous superhero films these days that I could care less about (like the Avengers or Wonder Woman), and the plot was far too similar to the 2018 animated feature Into the Spider-Verse. And I get there are people really into these movies, but it’s lost on me how they possibly maintain the time and energy to know all of the ins and outs of all these countless characters and storylines (I’d be exhausted if I tried).

I also made the mistake of taking my kid to see it in 3-D, which is the most absurd and shameless gimmick by Hollywood these days, and not only completely pointless for most films (such as this one), it has completely taken away any magic from the concept entirely. But look, it’s not that No Way Home is a bad film per se (it was still better than that new Matrix film, something so disappointing I elected not to even review it at all), it’s just not what someone like me is looking for from a Spider-Man movie. I think I’ll just stick to the simplicity of those old Raimi films next time I’m in the mood for one.

Rating: 2.5/5 Stars