Spider-man 3: No Way Home
Dec. 21st, 2021 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThis one I saw last Saturday with dear friends, and we had a great time, masks and being parted on the seats not withstanding.
Mostly, it was fanservice of the best kind, to wit, the type that works on both a Doylist and Watsonian level. Also definitely that rare thing, a MCU film where the third act with its inevitable big action finale full of special effects isn't less interesting than the character stuff that came before. Mind you, the reason why it's not is something I don't think could be repeated anywhere else. Also, I'm ridiculously charmed by the key premise of this movie, which I don't think you could pull off with another MCU hero, either, and no, I don't mean "meeting each other's variants". (Which could be and was fun with others, too.) No, it's: Save the villains. All the villains, from all the Spideruniverses. (Well, all that made it into this movie. One draws the line at Mysterio, and Vulture is doing fine and is alive in his prison cell, having been already saved by Spidey, thank you very much.) While most of the long term heroes have at least one villain they used to be friends with and whose fall they regret and would prevent if they could, I can't think of anyone other than Peter Parker who would in fact want to save all. Who when realizing all these people were brought to his universe a moment before their deaths and thus would die at once when being sent back would in fact conclude it would be better to figure out a way to redeem them, heal whatever factor triggered theiir supervillainy, give them another chance. And it's not only MCU Peter, it's both Maguire and Garfield!Peter and MCU's friends and family who take this stand. (More about this in a moment.)
In a genre that in fact specializes in killing off its villains more often than not - again, Vulture was a laudable exception and that "Homecoming" let Peter save him confirmed him as my favourite on screen Spider-man at this point -, and in a time where in rl everything seems to prime us to annihilate/destroy/utterly despise at the very least opponents , this strikes me something gloriously humane. Seriously, what was the last medium where the central goal isn't "defeat the villalins" or "defeat, then save the temporary antagonist who is Under The Influence" (i.e. Bucky Barnes in "Winter Soldier"), but "save all the villains?"
Now, not so coincidentally the villains with the most presence are Otto Octavius from Spider-man 2 (Raimi edition) and Norman Osborne (Spider-man 1, ditto), respectively, though both of Garfield!Spdey's villains also get good lines and good moments, and the Sandman from Maguire 3 isn't even that much of a villain to begin with. But let's get real, Alfred Molina and Willem Dafoe are where it's at, and their respective roles in this film feel very appropriate to how they were originally presented in their films of origin. Heretically, I'd even say Norman Osborn is a tick more effective here than in the very first Sony movie, both in the "is actually a genius scientist, too" dimension and the "hurts Peter Parker like no other" dimension.
But a film where solely the villains are a highlight would not have gotten to me the way this one did. All three incarnations of Peter Parker were awfully endearing and yet not repetitive - also, the film doesn't pretend there is no age difference, so of course Maguire!Peter is the veteran who has his life mostly worked out, but still recognizable the Peter from the Raimi trilogy, while Andrew Garfield, whose fault the flopping of the ASM movies was not - I thought the first one was quite good, in fact -, has the chance to work through a key trauma while helping the others out. But good lord, for MCU!Peter, this movie is is pretty much unrelenting whump with a few bright spots to take a breath, and he confirms his status as my favourite Peter, which doesn't mean I don't like the others as well.
In my cinema, the appearance which got the most cheer and gasps when it happened wasn't the arrival of one of the Peters or one of their villains, but the arrival of Peter's much needed lawyer. Who was whom you'd want him to be for a NYC based hero like Peter, and THANK YOU, MCU, for thus canonizing the Netflix shows in the same week as the series "Hawkeye" on Disney+ does.
All of this could have meant the regular supporting cast gets nothing to do, but this is not so. In fact, I'd say Ned fares better here than in "Far From Home"; for the first time, he, MJ and Peter felt like a trio of friends to me, rather than Peter having separate relationships to them both. And I will always be grateful for the way the MCU Spider movies managed to flesh out their version of Happy Hogan, because he had endeared himself to me in IM3, and if this is the last movie we see him in, which is very likely, then it was a really good farewell to a character who started out as a gag director cameo.
Downsides: well. I'm not in general a friend of amnesia plots, though I will say that the one used here doesn't look like it's going to be forever and ever, and in fact, my guess it it will crumble in the next Doctor Strange outing. Also, for those of us who were wondering what happened to Uncle Ben in the MCU and if, in fact, the slot of "mentor figure whom Peter Parker loses to death" was filled by Tony Stark, well, we got our answer, when the fateful words "With great power comes great responsibility" were at last spoken. But I will say that the context sells them to me and makes them personally meaningful in a way the deaths of Raimiverse Ben and ASM Ben respectively were not, not least because those Bens were killed off early on when we were still getting to know their nephews.
In conclusion: someone give that boy a hug! All of them. At this point, at least some of their villains would volunteer.
Mostly, it was fanservice of the best kind, to wit, the type that works on both a Doylist and Watsonian level. Also definitely that rare thing, a MCU film where the third act with its inevitable big action finale full of special effects isn't less interesting than the character stuff that came before. Mind you, the reason why it's not is something I don't think could be repeated anywhere else. Also, I'm ridiculously charmed by the key premise of this movie, which I don't think you could pull off with another MCU hero, either, and no, I don't mean "meeting each other's variants". (Which could be and was fun with others, too.) No, it's: Save the villains. All the villains, from all the Spideruniverses. (Well, all that made it into this movie. One draws the line at Mysterio, and Vulture is doing fine and is alive in his prison cell, having been already saved by Spidey, thank you very much.) While most of the long term heroes have at least one villain they used to be friends with and whose fall they regret and would prevent if they could, I can't think of anyone other than Peter Parker who would in fact want to save all. Who when realizing all these people were brought to his universe a moment before their deaths and thus would die at once when being sent back would in fact conclude it would be better to figure out a way to redeem them, heal whatever factor triggered theiir supervillainy, give them another chance. And it's not only MCU Peter, it's both Maguire and Garfield!Peter and MCU's friends and family who take this stand. (More about this in a moment.)
In a genre that in fact specializes in killing off its villains more often than not - again, Vulture was a laudable exception and that "Homecoming" let Peter save him confirmed him as my favourite on screen Spider-man at this point -, and in a time where in rl everything seems to prime us to annihilate/destroy/utterly despise at the very least opponents , this strikes me something gloriously humane. Seriously, what was the last medium where the central goal isn't "defeat the villalins" or "defeat, then save the temporary antagonist who is Under The Influence" (i.e. Bucky Barnes in "Winter Soldier"), but "save all the villains?"
Now, not so coincidentally the villains with the most presence are Otto Octavius from Spider-man 2 (Raimi edition) and Norman Osborne (Spider-man 1, ditto), respectively, though both of Garfield!Spdey's villains also get good lines and good moments, and the Sandman from Maguire 3 isn't even that much of a villain to begin with. But let's get real, Alfred Molina and Willem Dafoe are where it's at, and their respective roles in this film feel very appropriate to how they were originally presented in their films of origin. Heretically, I'd even say Norman Osborn is a tick more effective here than in the very first Sony movie, both in the "is actually a genius scientist, too" dimension and the "hurts Peter Parker like no other" dimension.
But a film where solely the villains are a highlight would not have gotten to me the way this one did. All three incarnations of Peter Parker were awfully endearing and yet not repetitive - also, the film doesn't pretend there is no age difference, so of course Maguire!Peter is the veteran who has his life mostly worked out, but still recognizable the Peter from the Raimi trilogy, while Andrew Garfield, whose fault the flopping of the ASM movies was not - I thought the first one was quite good, in fact -, has the chance to work through a key trauma while helping the others out. But good lord, for MCU!Peter, this movie is is pretty much unrelenting whump with a few bright spots to take a breath, and he confirms his status as my favourite Peter, which doesn't mean I don't like the others as well.
In my cinema, the appearance which got the most cheer and gasps when it happened wasn't the arrival of one of the Peters or one of their villains, but the arrival of Peter's much needed lawyer. Who was whom you'd want him to be for a NYC based hero like Peter, and THANK YOU, MCU, for thus canonizing the Netflix shows in the same week as the series "Hawkeye" on Disney+ does.
All of this could have meant the regular supporting cast gets nothing to do, but this is not so. In fact, I'd say Ned fares better here than in "Far From Home"; for the first time, he, MJ and Peter felt like a trio of friends to me, rather than Peter having separate relationships to them both. And I will always be grateful for the way the MCU Spider movies managed to flesh out their version of Happy Hogan, because he had endeared himself to me in IM3, and if this is the last movie we see him in, which is very likely, then it was a really good farewell to a character who started out as a gag director cameo.
Downsides: well. I'm not in general a friend of amnesia plots, though I will say that the one used here doesn't look like it's going to be forever and ever, and in fact, my guess it it will crumble in the next Doctor Strange outing. Also, for those of us who were wondering what happened to Uncle Ben in the MCU and if, in fact, the slot of "mentor figure whom Peter Parker loses to death" was filled by Tony Stark, well, we got our answer, when the fateful words "With great power comes great responsibility" were at last spoken. But I will say that the context sells them to me and makes them personally meaningful in a way the deaths of Raimiverse Ben and ASM Ben respectively were not, not least because those Bens were killed off early on when we were still getting to know their nephews.
In conclusion: someone give that boy a hug! All of them. At this point, at least some of their villains would volunteer.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-21 10:25 pm (UTC)Glad that the Matrix will be on HBO Max here, so at least one of the two I'll see without having to wait too long.
no subject
Date: 2021-12-21 11:14 pm (UTC)