SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME

Despite the crowd-pleasing fan service, there's no excuse for any movie to be as lazily scripted, thematically muddled or sloppily edited as this latest Spider-Man is.

The internet has been in a frenzy for most of 2021 about a much speculated team-up of all three Spider-Men that have graced the big screen over the past two decades. But while No Way Home probably gives Marvel fans everything they've ever dreamed about, I found the film overstuffed, filled with annoying plot holes and severely lacking in wit, suspense and - most damning of all - heart.

Part of the problem is of course that 2018's Academy Award-winning Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse did such a good job introducing a similar concept that No Way Home can't help but feel like an undernourished afterthought.

Then again, there's no excuse for any movie to be as lazily scripted, thematically muddled or sloppily edited as this latest Spider-Man is. Worst off are the scenes with Tom, Toby and Andrew, which play out like discarded ideas for an SNL sketch, while the overload of redemptive arcs, heavily indebted to the plots of previous films in the franchise, make it impossible for No Way Home to make sense as a stand-alone flick.

So while I'm glad Marvel managed to draw millions of people back into movie theatres, I wish they'd offered audiences a better film.

release: 2021

director: Jon Watts

starring: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina