Watching “Spider-Man: No Way Home“ a few days after watching “Chinatown” is a wild ride.
The script is… bad? Like really bad? It had the classic hallmarks of a desperate comic book run: “Audience is bored? Reunions! Cameos!” The weird, janky, post-Whedon QUIPS dialog is on full display (them laughing at “Otto Octavius”) and it’s doing a disservice to the acting which is generally good. I know Defoe is down for anything but the fact that Molina is in this is just depressing.
Hilarious that I saw basically nothing about Sandman and Electro being in this.
The purple hoodie and green coat callback to the classic Green Goblin costume is super neat, but that’s all it is: the movie feels more like a Spider-Man movie Reddit thread than a real movie.
Why is the Lizard so awful?
Why is this the most naive version of Spider-Man ever?
Defoe killing it as usual: I think this is the main thing that people cared about, honestly.
Man, throwing the most iconic line for Spider-Man in like the fifth movie he shows up in just DOES NOT WORK. I understand wanting to give Marisa Tomei a sendoff but it just feels weirdly gross. Her actual final lines worked for me, but… man. It’s such a drastic change to make the context of that line a superhero battle born from a heroic choice instead of a selfish act….
Similarly, the split second of the Electro mask was neat. I wonder why that name is too silly while “Doc Ock” is fine?
Boy, Lizard seems really outclassed, huh? Like next to Electro and Sandman?
Garfield Spider-Man saving MJ was a really good moment.
This movie could have been an hour shorter. It could have been a TV episode, honestly.
There were genuine moments but no greater context: it’s a failure of a movie, due to the script more than anything. Effects, editing, direction, acting, etc were all fine to great, but… that script.
Why De La Soul??????