“Spider-Man: No Way Home” dropped in theaters on Dec. 17, 2021, and almost made history as the highest grossing movie on opening weekend. Making $1.3 billion, it fell short of “Avengers: Endgame” which grossed a staggering $2.798 billion. The nostalgic masterpiece created by Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal is a must watch, checking off all the boxes for a perfect film. 

Minor spoilers ahead.

The film had a stacked cast including Tom Holland (playing Peter Parker), Zendaya (playing MJ), Willem Dafoe (playing Norman Osbron), J.K. Simmons (playing J.K. Simmons ), Jamie Fox (playing Electro) and many more. What set this movie apart was the pure sentimental twist provided from past Spider-Man film characters coming into Tom Holland’s Spider-Man universe. This mainly includes the breathtaking surprise from beloved actors Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire who previously played the role of Spider-Man.  

Other character appearances include Matt Murdock (played by Charlie Cox) AKA “Daredevil” from the Netflix series, who poses as a great lawyer for Peter Parker and Happy (played by Jon Favreau)

This movie caused great anticipation for fans, as many hoped that all of the former Spider-Man actors would return.  Marvel did a magnificent job promoting the movie through their engaging trailer and leaks.

The budget for the film was roughly 200 million dollars, and so far has made an estimated revenue of 1.3 billion dollars.  Rotten Tomatoes critics have rated it at 97%, whereas the viewers rated it at 98%.  

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” introduced old villains in an upgraded, yet classic, way. Green Goblin had new advanced tech and now no mask, and Doctor Octopus (played by Alfred Molina) got introduced to Stark tech. Electro, played by Jamie Foxx, had the biggest glow up when he contained his power and gained yellow lighting that constructed himself a mask and a better haircut.

The plot of this movie followed after the previous film “Spider-Man: Far From Home” in which Spider Man’s identity was outed to the whole world by the villain Mysterio. Once his identity became known his life fell apart as he and his friends’ hopes of going to college and being seen as good people was diminished. 

The footage in New York of Mysterio not only exposed Spider-Man’s identity, it posed him as a villain and a killer. To combat that, Peter seeks help from Doctor Strange (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) and they cast a spell shown in the trailer that ultimately breaks the multiverse and brings villains from other multiverses into this one.  

The encounters with these villains brings out emotions we have yet to see from Spider-Man and captures beautiful cinematic moments in the heat of it, one of which was a poster for the film.  An acting performance that stood out the most and gave the audience chills was Dafoe’s menacing laugh during a battle with Spider-Man.

Back to the nostalgic part, there were many references to the old Spider-Man films like famous lines from Uncle Ben and a specific scene of MJ falling in the trailer relating to Gwen Stacy’s death in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” when Andrew Garfield couldn’t save her.

Many times throughout the movie caused standing ovations from fans which made it cinematic history and truly a masterpiece, maybe surpassing the hype surrounding Endgame. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” did so well in theaters that Marvel is thinking about having another trilogy after this with Tom Holland as Spider-Man and a seperate third movie for Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man.

Andrew Garfield was fired before he could complete his trilogy but made a comeback in this movie, completely redeeming himself and making fans fall in love with his character more than ever before.

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” was a masterful film with everything fans could ask for whether it was emotion, character development, cinematics and ending.  

Well done Marvel. Well done.