For someone who has been brought up with the 90's animated series, my excitement was pretty high for where this next installment of Spider-Man could go.
So far, I've enjoyed this current incarnation of the masked web-slinger. It's been fun, exciting and has given us some solid villains. I was particularly pleased with how they did Mysterio in 'Far From Home' as he was always my favourite villain.
As always, I hadn't seen the trailers. But I was aware of what it involves, and the concept they are going for had me as excited as the rest of the target audience.
I was expecting an action-packed fan-service filled extravaganza, and I certainly got that. But it wasn't without some added emotional depth and a story that was character driven to my amazement.
It comes hard out of the blocks and you are in the thick of it straight away. But even with the amount of characters involved, time was given for familiar characters to be developed and make us feel the emotions and stakes involved.
I was certainly caring a lot more then I was expecting for what was happening on screen. That I feel could the be the films biggest strength. For a story that is filled with fan service, it is not of the usual kind. It is all given a purpose and helps the story and its themes give us that pay off worthy of the journey that got us there.
With this surprisingly character driven story in place, the cast was obviously great in this. Tom Holland gives a much wanted amount of maturity to the character and it gave us probably the best Spider-Man we have seen in the MCU. The emotional drive he gave has made me excited to where the current Peter Parker will go next.
His chemistry with Zendaya is probably given the most development it ever has. I'm still not getting Zendaya as this beloved actor by the young generation. But she is still doing solid work in this franchise.
For the rest of the cast I'm going to mention, it will only be the ones that have been seen in the trailers. So if you literally know nothing about it before seeing it, avoid the next paragraph or two.
Willem Dafoe was a huge standout. Despite giving us a great Norman Osborn from the early Spider-Man films, he managed to give us a new personal best. Dafoe is still at the top of his game and elevated the disturbing and fearful aspects of his character and he gave us a terrifying and rewarding Green Goblin that I did not think was possible. You'll fall in love with Dafoe all over again.
Alfred Molina continued his brilliant Otto Octavius in this one and contributes well to the story and bounces off Holland really well.
It was nice to see Jamie Foxx's character of Max Dillon give some much needed depth from his previous appearance. Like the majority of his colleagues, his contribution felt important and was given a purpose rather than being just fan-service.
Last mention goes to J.K. Simmons. This is purely just go to still mention that he is and forever will be J. Jonah Jameson.
The technical side also elevated their game. Director Jon Watts and his team gave us a great mix of strong story-telling and paid great homage to several eras of Spider-Man that will please fans of the source material as well as general fans who won't be fully aware of Easter eggs to nods to various references.
Michael Giacchino did a great job with the score, added to the emotions well and mixed in familiar themes from previous films to great effect.
With their being certain characters involved, the visual effects have to be spectacular and they certainly pleasing to the eye, no matter how mind-bending they get.
I also have to give credit to the editing team, who paced a lot of it really well. With a lot going on, this could have been chaotic and confusing. But it never felt too much to process or incoherent.
The only gripes I had with it, was that there were some moments that lingered a bit too much for me and therefore dragged. Also, some of that vintage Marvel comedy didn't quite work for me and also felt forced to balance some of the downbeat moments.
With those thankfully being minor drawbacks, I was pretty satisfied with what we got in the end. The marketing definitely does not prepare you for the emotional side of this story and that's a really good thing. I love how they give the story some weight and this it is about the characters rather than depending on the action.
As mentioned, the fan-service I felt was given a purpose and never felt it was added for cheap thrills. All of that gave us a well developed story with many well rounded characters. This is a wonderful tribute to many eras of Spider-Man we have had in comic, film and TV mediums and all types of Spider-Mans fans I feel with will the same amount of enjoyment.
If I had to rank it with the rest of the Spider-Man films, it makes the podium. I still feel Into The Spider-Verse remains at the top, but No Way Home is right there with Spider-Man 2 for me. But while I don't have it at the top of my ranking with the other Spider-Man films, this particular one could well be the most important.
There is the usual mid and post credits scenes to stay for. Both are worth seeing and they give you enough ideas of where the Spider-Man series is going as well as the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Rating: 8/10
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