4 stars out of 5
I hope Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jon Bernthal all have points negotiated in their boilerplate contracts, because all three actors are in both of the summer’s billion-dollar bashes, The Odyssey and this latest Spidey flick. Which picks up with Peter Parker (Holland) navigating the difficult decision he made in No Way Home to “erase” himself from the lives of MJ (Zendaya) and his chubby buddy Ned, for their own safety.
This leaves Spider-Man more time to bust local crimes, much to the pleasure of the New York police chief, that “Jeff” lady from The Bear. She’s in this a fair amount in the early going, and then not at all for most of the rest of the movie.
Other Bear alum Bernthal? He reprises his Punisher character from one of those streaming series. Punisher and Spidey have a fun rapport that gives way to bromance.
When not crimefighting, Peter uses his keen scientific mind (plus his AI helper voice Naomi Watts) to try to keep his “maturing” spider powers in check. (I feel I saw that storyline in another Spider-Man movie but… ah who cares.) He even visits Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) for advice because Peter can’t visit that Lizard professor in every movie.
And then a new villain appears, except the villain doesn’t appear, but they can jump into anybody’s mind. Which is pretty cool. And this threatens a quasi-governmental agency with some dark secrets, kind of like that one in Disclosure Day except this time Mr. Milchik from Severance is the boss. I won’t tell you who the new villain is, but it is a familiar Marvel name. (No, not Steve Ditko.)
As Peter/Spidey juggles the forces of evil, biological changes, and male loneliness epidemic, Destin Cretton (taking over the director chair from three-timer Jon Watts) does a truly good job balancing these elements onscreen. I didn’t see his previous Marvel work Shang-Chi (I did enjoy his 2019 film Just Mercy), but Cretton has a real flair for action sequences. Yes, I sprung for the Real3D glasses which made it extra groovy as Spidey webs his way across town.
Entertaining all the way through, I feel this is the best Spider-Man movie since the Sam Raimi era. Excelsior!
being underrated is overrated
Jack Silbert, curator