With a well applied balance of light-hearted humor and the protagonist’s weight of his duty, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is an excellent medium for long-time Spider-Man fans, who will greatly appreciate the application of old plot developments and classic actors.

The movie begins at the exact point left-off in the previous installment, “Far From Home”, following Spider-Man’s (Tom Holland) dilemma with the villain Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his success in revealing Peter Parker’s identity.

As Spider-Man and Peter Parker’s lives merge, fans get to experience a new outlook on their timeless hero, following him in his insecurities in being known as Spider-Man and leading him to seek out the well-known Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) warlock, Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), to help him sort out the situation.

The plot escalates from Peter’s encounter with Strange, making way for some of the more enticing parts of the movie, featuring the reappearance of beloved Spider-Man villains from the Tobey McGuire and Andrew Garfield Spider-Man films. The more recognizable of these include Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin featured in “Spider-Man (2002)”, Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock from “Spider-Man 2 (2004),” both starring McGuire and Jamie Foxx’s Electro from “The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)”, starring Garfield.

Accompanying the classic characters are also the newly casted ones for the Tom Holland trilogy,  MJ (Zendaya), and Parker’s best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon). As Spider-Man endures his insecurities and conflicts with villains, there is some forced room for romance between MJ and Parker, and charismatic humor presented by Ned to give a little balance to the heroic duties that the antagonist must face. This aspect was well-balanced, with humorous remarks and romantic moments artfully placed throughout the film to “flesh-out” the hero and lighten the mood of the stressful story. This particular Spider-Man line is keen on portraying Peter Parker as his youthful self, embodying the significance of the character as both a hero and a human-being. The age of the main character is something of importance to the screenwriters at Marvel, seeing as Holland is the youngest Spider-Man to have been casted thus far, having received the role for “Spider-Man: Homecoming” at age 20, whereas Andrew Garfield was 27, and Toby McGuire, 26, when they each got their roles for their respective films.

Despite the exciting inclusion of classic villains and youthful depiction of Peter Parker to resonate with the audience, this installment was an attempt to fervently appeal to lasting fans of both the MCU and Sony’s Spider-Man, as the plot isn’t original and feels recycled. The resurrection of old villains is visually pleasing, but the experience would have been greatly added to with the presence of a more creative plot and more meaningful sequences of action, hoping in a sense, to be a bit more “epic.” 

Although the plot may have felt more like a reboot of past films, the events in the movie may be an entrance into Marvel’s new insights on the future of the MCU. In the trailer for the movie, the multiverse is obviously at work, as we know the original villains didn’t arrive in Tom Holland’s universe by accident. The multiverse concept leaves fans questioning whether it will show itself again, having also previously appeared in the Disney+ Marvel mini-series, “Loki” and “What-If?”

The recycle strategy used by producer Kevin Feige is both a misdemeanor in its unoriginality as a Spider-Man film and a success in good intentions through the callback to the originals, inciting nostalgia in Marvel fans and providing a sense of anticipation and mystery for what the future of the MCU holds for its viewers.

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