Warning: Spoilers Ahead. 

By Lauren Lucy

The recently released movie Spider-Man: No Way Home has left viewers’ jaws hanging in amazement. The beginning of the movie presents Tom Holland’s identity as Spider-Man being revealed to the nation. This leaves Spider-Man and his friends to be exposed to society, and his normal life as Peter Parker combines with his superhero life. This negatively affects Peter, as he is blamed for all of the death and destruction, but luckily, he is able to escape the charges. Peter goes to Doctor Strange (played by Benedict Cumberbatch), a superhero that skillfully creates spells, and asks him to cast a spell, where only his close friends will remember who he truly is, but the spell is disrupted. Dr. Strange’s mistake within the spell leads other supervillains from all the alternate realities to enter Peter Parker’s universe due to the breaking of the multiverse, the collection of alternate universes. 

Image courtesy of Marvel Studios & Columbia Pictures. 

The supervillains from other multiverses that come to Peter’s world in search of him are: Otto Octavious (Alfred Molina), who had previously died when sacrificing his own life so that Spider-Man could continue protecting the city in Goblin War; and Norman Osborne (Willem Defoe), the Green Goblin who pushed Gwen, Parker’s girlfriend during The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), off a bridge, causing her to die. Parker wanted revenge and hunted down Osborne and impaled him with his own goblin glider. Electro, a character in 2004’s Spider-Man 2, was given electrical powers after falling into an electrical plant. He was given the panel to all the electricity in New York City, and in a fight to save the people and take down Electro, Spider-Man overpowers him with electricity, which causes him to die. The two other characters that appear from the multiverse are Sandman and the Lizard, who appeared in previous Spider-Man movies but never died. 

Parker is tasked with capturing these villains and sending them back to their multiverses. May Parker (Marisa Tomei), Peter Parker’s aunt, notices the problems present in these villains. Peter grew up being taught that “with great power comes great responsibility.” When May reminds him of this, he feels pressured to fix their impurities prior to them being sent into their multiverses. Parker is able to fix Octavious’s system, but Osborne’s Goblin persona convinces the other villains to rebel against Spider-Man. In this process, Osborne injures May and causes her to die. 

Image courtesy of Marvel Studios & Columbia Pictures. 

Ned (Jacob Batalon) and MJ (Zendaya), Parker’s best friends helping him behind the scenes, accidentally summon two different versions of Peter Parker from different universes, played by Tobey Maguire, previously seen in the original Spider-Man trilogy (2002-2007); and Andrew Garfield, previously seen in The Amazing Spider-Man movies (2012-2014). The three Spider-Men come together to create potions for each of the villains in order to turn them into their previous identities. Holland, as the most recent Spider-Man, summons the villains to the Statue of Liberty, where the three Spider-Men fight the villains and inject them with their potions in order for them to return to their universe as their past identities.

The only problem is that Doctor Strange has lost control of the spell, and more and more people are coming from the multiverse. Peter decides that in order to fix this, he will sacrifice his identity, and everyone that used to know Peter Parker will forget who he is. The movie ends in sorrow, with Peter Parker seeing everyone he used to know and them not recognizing him. 

Maguire and Garfield each played Spider-Man in a trilogy series, and this was Holland’s third and final movie as Spider-Man. Holland starred in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019). Holland also appeared in a Captain America movie, as well as two Avengers movies, and was able to fight alongside the Avengers. Holland has proved himself to be the greatest Spider-Man. 

Despite lagging movie theater ticket sales due to COVID-19, Spider-Man: No Way Home is the largest grossing movie in the pandemic era. No Way Home has accumulated around $1.5 billion worldwide and is currently the eighth-highest-grossing movie ever globally. It is now officially Sony’s top-grossing movie ever, just recently passing 2019’s Spider-man: Far From Home. 

The cinematography and construction of each scene is unbelievable. The director, Jon Watts, pieced together and placed every scene beautifully by using symmetry, one-point perspective, and chiaroscuro to highlight the main focus of each scene. Michael Giacchino, an Emmy, Grammy, and Oscar award-winning composer, created the soundtrack for the movie. The soundtrack enhanced the tempo of the dramatic action in every scene. In all, the movie’s soundtrack, cinematography, and plot made it incomparably the best Spider-man movie yet.

Image courtesy of Marvel Studios & Columbia Pictures. 

Upper School student Daisy Storey (‘23), a Marvel fanatic, claims “the more you know about previous Spider-Man, movies the more entertaining it is.” Her sister Lucy Storey (‘22) states, “because the movie united the characters from the previous movies, it made it my favorite Spider-Man movie yet.” Tucker Walker (‘22) claims, “this movie was the first of the Spider-Man movies that reminded me that the story is based on a comic, because of all of the villains that appeared.”

After seeing multiple Spider-Man movies, I can highly recommend Spider-Man: No Way Home, because it incorporates a sentimental side and focuses on the mortality and humanity of Holland’s character as Spider-Man. The movie forces Holland’s Spider-Man to question his true identity and compassion for others, despite who they are. This is the best Spider-Man movie by far, due to Holland’s Spider-Man ultimately proving his integrity and humanity, despite the challenges he encounters. Even if you have not seen the previous Spider-Man movies but enjoy nonstop action and movies about overcoming obstacles, I would highly recommend going to the theaters to watch.