Spiderman: No Way Home

Not a tad disappointed at all. Absolutely fabulous.

I'm not really a MCU fan, but even then you've got to admit, Spiderman has its charm.

I remember when I was a little kid, in 2002, the first Spiderman was released. Starring Toby Maguire, it was the topic of the year. Back then, smartphones weren't a thing, we get our information from the newspapers and we watched the movies in the theatres instead of Netflix. Then there was a sequel, Spiderman 2, which was literally the topic of the year, even bigger than its predecessor. And I remembered I was in awe watching it - the movie stuck with me forever, and I can still remember the scenes even today.

I never really watched Andrew Garfield's reboot of Spiderman until 2 days ago. In my opinion, while Toby Maguire was the original one, he was a tad too mature. Andrew Garfield's is far less nerdy but is a much more agile and acrobatic spiderman, even though slightly weaker as it stayed loyal to the comic version by using web-shooters instead of shooting his own webs. 

Tom Holland's version never really resonated with me. I like his physicality and agility but he was far too talkative and immature to be a superhero but that's partly because he's in a universe where his 'colleagues' and villains were far too grand so his role was dwarfed and pale in comparison.

Until now, we've got Spiderman: No Way Home.

Spoilers - yes, all three spidermen are in the film! Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield are in too!

Let's just admit it, it was a mind-blowingly fantastic 2 and a half hours. The only complaint I have about this film is that the pace is far too high - you never really get to take a breath because the story just pushes along non-stop. I guess with 5 villains, you don't really get to rest.

I won't spoil too much other than revealing the other two are appearing, but I will just say I feel very, very bad for Tom Holland's version of Peter Parker.

He came into MCU universe as a young, innocent, naive kid. But by the end of the movie, he has absolutely nothing left. He lost his mentor, Tony Stark. And then, he lost his only family member - Aunt May. He had to watch both of them died, and one in his arms and he had to flee because he was being pursued. He then lost his friends because he pled Dr Strange to rid everybody of memory about him, including Strange himself. He lost MJ. He lost Ned. He lost Happy. He lost everyone. At the end, he started living on his own, starting a new life, but anonymously continuing as a spiderman.

My question is thus this, why can't Strange cast a spell that makes people forget about 'Spiderman', instead of 'Peter Parker'? If everybody is attracted to Peter Parker because he was Spiderman, making them forget about Spiderman should have done the trick equally efficiently. That way, at least Peter Parker gets to keep his friends like MJ and Ned, although he would probably still lose Happy and Strange. But that looks like a far nicer alternative than a lonely choice.

And this movie ends the trilogy. This effectively makes him the loneliest Spiderman. Toby Maguire's Parker had MJ and Aunt May, Andrew Garfield's lost Gwen but he similarly still had May. Holland's had nothing. It's really a very, very sad ending for a little kid who joined MCU happily but now has absolutely nothing left.

I hope there could be a sequel where somehow the spell breaks, and Strange gets a chance to fix it again. Or, better, maybe Wanda wouldn't be affected by Strange's spell, and Wanda retains her memory of Parker and looks for him in the next Doctor Strange movie.

He deserves a better outcome.

But overall, this movie is absolutely fantastic, worth every penny I spent.