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Created Dec 31, 2021 06:15AM PST • Edited Jun 20, 2022 10:15PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Perfect 5.0

   Third time’s another charm for the Spider-Man Home team. Or would that be the eighth time? It is a three series climax, a #ClimaxCubed. Marvel pulls it off — at a level previously seen only by The Avengers.

   This is ultimate OG Marvel, a flashback to the Before Times when Marvel movies were de rigueur cultural events, not like the Woke Times of ’20 & ’21, when Marvel movies are often exercises in woke scolding.

   No Way Home perfectly completes the best Spidey trilogy.

   • Spider-Man: Homecoming — Really Great Origin
   • Spider-Man: Far from Home — Perfect Sequel
   • Spider-Man: No Way Home — Perfect 2^nd Sequel

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW

   The Big Three

   • Tom Holland is the best big-screen WebHead of them all, and has been since well before this, his 5^th feature film as Peter Parker / Spider-Man.
   • Zendaya as MJ, his girlfriend and intellectual superior, is super-cool and super-cute once again, the ideal superhero girlfriend.
   • Benedict Cumberbatch plays a major role as Dr. Strange, one of Marvel’s better semi-recent moviestars. His post-credits trailer left me hankering for next year’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

   Main Mortals

   • Marisa Tomei is the most lovely Aunt May.
   • Jacob Batalon is once again Ned, the stand-in for we normies.
   • Jon Favreau underplays Happy Hogan, mostly used here as Aunt May’s jilted love interest.
   • J. K. Simmons is once again perfectly cast as media monster J. Jonah Jameson.

   Superpowered People Played by Major Moviestars

   • Jamie Foxx as Max Dillon / Electro
   • Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn / Green Goblin, a classic Dafoe character
   • Alfred Molina as Otto Octavius / Doctor Octopus, a classic Molina character
   • Benedict Wong as Wong
   • Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker / Spider-Man: Shh, don’t tell anybody.
   • Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker / Spider-Man: Shh, don’t tell anybody.
   • Rhys Ifans reprises his role as Dr. Curt Connors / Lizard
   • Thomas Haden Church reprises his role as Flint Marko / Sandman
   • Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock from Marvel Television’s Netflix series
   • Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock / Venom. TOM FREAKING HARDY
   • Jake Gyllenhaal as Quentin Beck / Mysterio

   Other Normies

   • Angourie Rice as Betty Brant
   • Hannibal Buress as Coach Wilson
   • Martin Starr as Peter Parker’s academic decathlon teacher
   • J. B. Smoove as Peter Parker’s teacher

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Really Great 4.5

7. Female Costars Really Great 4.5

8. Male Costars Really Great 4.5

10. Film

    Perfect 5.0

    There is much to praise about this perfect piece of Marvel filmcraft. Here’s a taste.

    • High School
    • Romance & heartbreak
    • Fish out of water and yet exactly where they need to be
    • Touchstones perfectly touched
    • Grit & grace
    • Multiverse manipulations

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Perfect 5.0

13. Music Perfect 5.0

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.9

17. Sex Titillating 1.6

18. Violence Brutal 2.9

19. Rudeness Polite 1.3

21. Reality

    Fantasy 4.1

    Flirts with current political reality in a traditional Marvel way, where the hero is a mistaken avenger whose use of force to protect the weak is countered by an out-of-control media. Right or Left? Right.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 3.0

23. Biological Fantasy 4.2

24. Physical Fantasy 5.0