Twenty years of cinema was wrapped into one 2 hour and 28 minute movie. The Spider-Man franchise has seen great success over the years with three different actors taking the role of Peter Parker and everyone’s favorite Web-Slinger: Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and recently Tom Holland. Spider-Man No Way Home honors all three iterations in a movie that serves as a love letter to the character of Spider-Man and the values that come behind that mantra. The hype and expectations for this movie were at an all time high, and it has delivered to fans across the world, as it has become the sixth highest grossing film of all time at $1.69 billion globally, and the highest audience rating of any movie, at 98%. With everything to lose with this movie and a lot to gain, Marvel delivered one of their best movies of all time.

The plot of the movie picks up right where the conclusion of the second film left off, with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in Time Square with Zendaya’s Michelle Jones Watson (MJ) after Mysterio, the antagonist of the last movie, revealed that Peter Parker is Spider-Man to the world. After this, Peter’s secret identity is no more, and his life and the lives of the people around him start taking a turn for the worse, as he is facing murder charges for the death of Mysterio, as well as other charges due to the drones. The charges against Peter are soon after dropped, but he still has to deal with the repercussions of his secret identity being public. After he and his friend, Ned Leeds, and his girlfriend, MJ, get rejected from their dream school, MIT, due to him being Spider-Man, Peter then seeks out Doctor Strange, a sorcerer capable of all kinds of magic. He asks Doctor Strange to do a spell which would make the world forget that Peter was Spider-Man; but, as the spell is being cast, Peter tampers with it. This causes the spell to go out of control, opening up the multiverse and bringing the villains Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, and Sandman from the first trilogy and Electro and Lizard from The Amazing Spider-Man series to his world. Peter then is tasked with the job of sending them back to their universe while discovering the true meaning and the values of being Spider-Man.

Spider-Man No Way Home is filled with many great acting performances. Tom Holland gives his best performance as Spider-Man and makes you feel the heavy emotion that comes with some scenes. Willem Dafoe stole the show as Green Goblin, who was the main villain. It looked as if he had not left the role for 20 years, as he improved upon his fantastic performance in the first ever Spider-Man movie. Then there were the two people that everyone wanted to see in the movie: Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man and Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man. The two were great in this movie, especially Andrew Garfield, who stole the show in some scenes, showing why he is the best actor of the three. Sam Pinsky was one of the many people excited to see Andrew was Sam Pinsky. He said, “Andrew’s Spider-Man was my favorite character; I always loved his movies and he was great in this one too.” The side characters also had great performances too, as Marisa Tomei’s Aunt May took a larger role in the movie than the previous two. There are so many iconic moments and amazing scenes from this movie that it’s quite hard to keep track of them. Dan Lonergan said his favorite moment was “either when the 3 Spider-Men were all together talking and joking around, or the final fight between Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and the Green Goblin.” The movie will have you on a roller coaster of emotions, first having you laughing at some of the best comedy to come from a Marvel movie, then to crying your eyes out due to impactful scenes that feel like a punch to the stomach.

Overall, this movie is up there with the best Marvel movies, and personally, we believe that it is the best. There were a lot of doubts about the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s version of Spider-Man, but all those concerns were rescinded because of this movie. The movie really attacked the core values of what it means to be Spider-Man, and showcased the responsibility, the sacrifice, and the determination to keep going after being knocked down. All the performances help reveal these values about the character, and I do not think this movie could have done a better job. We rate it a 9.5/10.