Spiderman’s soaring success

“No Way Home” is too good for home viewing

by Ursula Stickelmaier, Editor

Warning: This article will include spoilers for the new film

  “Spider-Man: No Way Home”

On July 23, 2020, Marvel fans across the world got the big announment

they had all been waiting for: “Spider-Man: No Way Home” was in

the works. Now, after waiting for more than a year, the movie has

finally been released and has already made about $1.5 billion dollars,

making it the eighth highest grossing movie in history.

Spider-Man: NWH is the third movie in Tom Holland’s “Spi-

der-Man” series. Fans of the series remember how “Spider-Man:

Far From Home” ended and everyone was excited to see how

Peter Parker, the main character, and his friends were going to

hand to handle the challenges of the world knowing

Spider-Man’s real identity. And trust me, this movie does not fail to jump right into that.

It picks up where the last movie left off, Peter Parker vs. the world. Everyone knows the man behind the mask and they all blame him for the death of Mysterio, a crime he was framed for by the villain Mysterio himself. But the trouble Peter faces doesn’t just stop at people hating him, and he reaches his breaking point when his friend, Ned, and girlfriend, MJ, are rejected from every college they apply to just for being associated with him.

Now the fear of not going to college is something some seniors

might be facing right now as applications go out and acceptance letters come in. And it’s this fear that Peter and his friends face, so

he does what anyone would do, and turns to a fellow

superhero skilled in the magic of the multiverse,

Dr. Strange. Strange performs a spell that makes

the world forget who Spider-Man is, but

after Peter makes a few too many changes

to it, the spell ends up bring

ing villains from multi-ple universes into

the current world.

If you’ve seen the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield versions of the Spider-Man saga, this is good news for you. The return of classic villains

such as Doc Oc, Green Goblin, and the Lizard also means

the return of those who played those roles, such as Willem Dafoe

and Alfred Molina. It is always nice to see actors who played charac

ters we know so well reprise their roles just one more time, and that’s

why you could hear screams and gasps throughout the theater when Maguire and Garfield came onto the screen.

In my opinion, Maguire and Garfield stepped back into their roles as Spider-Man wonderfully. I found that nearly every scene left me laughing. I was a huge fan of both their movies, (with the exception of Maguire’s “Spider-Man 3”,) and to see them on screen again was amazing.

But this movie wasn’t all laughter and smiles, and I felt my heart breaking as Marisa Tomei ended her role as Aunt May for good. If you know the Spider-Man comics, you are probably aware of Uncle Ben and the effect his death has on the series. But with no Uncle Ben in Holland’s Spider-Man movies, Aunt May had to step in and say the words every Spider-Man must hear: “With great power comes great responsibility.” It always hurts to watch a character you love die, but it’s important to keep in mind that it’s this death that helps Spider-Man grow and truly become the hero he was always meant to be.

The movie ends with an epic fight between the multiverse villains and the three Spider-Men. This final battle has everything you want out of a Marvel fight sequence. It’s funny, full of action and it’s guaranteed to have you sitting on the edge of your seat wondering what will happen next.

Overall, this movie was fun, sad and pretty much made you feel like you were having every emotion all at once. It is a definite must watch and I can’t wait to see what happens to Peter next. But one thing for certain, this would all be a lot simpler if we were lizards.