After numerous rumors and endless hype, the highly anticipated film, “Spider-Man: No Way Home”, was released in theaters on Dec. 17, 2021. Due to excellent execution, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” has become one of the highest grossing films of all time.

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” is set directly after the events of the previous film, “Spider-Man: Far From Home”. It ends shockingly revealing that Spider-Man killed Mysterio and that he is none other than straight A student, Peter Parker. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” begins with the local citizens’ reaction to the shocking revelation. Many of the citizens are outraged and begin to ridicule Parker for the Mysterio incident, and Parker soon becomes frustrated from the misinformation and hides from the public. Parker, in a desperate attempt to get his life to return to normal, enlists the help of his fellow superhero, Doctor Strange. Doctor Strange, after much consideration, agrees to create a spell that will cause everyone to forget that Parker is Spider-Man. Unfortunately, Parker does not want everyone to forget that he is Spider-Man, so he asks Doctor Strange to modify the spell so that certain individuals will still remember him; however, after altering the spell too many times, it becomes unstable and disrupts the multiverse. Because of this disturbance, villains from multiple dimensions all converge into the MCU’s (Marvel Cinematic Universe) dimension.

Although “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is a great film, it is not perfect. The main issue with the film is that not all of the villains in the movie are written well. Even though Green Goblin and Doc Ock perfectly portray an evil villain, on the contrary, it was easy to tell that little effort was put into making Sandman and Lizard complex characters.

Despite these issues, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” genuinely shocked me. It was difficult to have imagined such a grand and ambitious film concept to work so coherently. I went into this movie thinking that it would be a cliche, throw in all of this nostalgia in order to sell tickets, type of film. Boy was I wrong. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” had perfect pacing. Too many modern films throw in so many unnecessary scenes in order to drag out the film. Although this film’s runtime is roughly two and a half hours, each second feels intentional and well planned out. My complaint about previous MCU Spider-Man films is that they depicted Peter Parker as Iron Man 2.0. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” fixes this issue by making him feel like an original character that isn’t too entangled in the other MCU conflicts. It allowed Peter Parker to be a traditional hero and fulfill his journey rather than just be another superhero in the crowd. The acting in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is phenomenal. Willem Dafoe’s performance as a timid, frightened old man who is tormented by his alternate self is very well executed. His performance in the original Spider-Man films are brilliantly performed, but his acting in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” left a greater impact. The way Dafoe is able to play a psychotic character who you ultimately feel for is extremely impressive. Many other films cast psychotic characters, such as Patrick Bateman and Joker, but this film was able to make me genuinely feel and care for the psychotic Green Goblin.

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” is a must see film. It is a rare, one of a kind movie that greatly executes its high intentions. ★★★★☆