(The Disneycember logo is shown, before showing trailer clips and screenshots from Spider-Man: No Way Home)
Doug (vo): How often do I get an early screening for a Disneycember review? A big thank you to those who invited me to Spider-Man: No Way Home, and a head's up, at the time I'm recording this, I have no idea what the public thinks of this movie. So keep in mind, in this spoiler-free review, I have no reactions to compare this to. All I have to give are my general thoughts. And those are, next to Into the Spider-Verse, this is probably my favorite Spider-Man movie. Does it mean it did everything right? Oh, God, no. There is a ton you can nitpick and rip apart about this movie, and trust me, I know there's gonna be other videos that do. But the things that work in it work so insanely well, I feel like it cancels them out. I swear this movie watched my review, as well as the reviews of other critics, I'm sure, of all the other films and listened to the criticisms and listened to the strengths and said, "Yeah, we can fix that", and gave me the live-action Spider-Man movie I feel like I've always wanted to see.
Story[]
Doug (vo): Last time we left Peter Parker and MJ, he was just exposed as being Spider-Man. The film cleverly doesn't turn everybody against him, it's more half-and-half. Some people see him as a hero, some people see him as a villain. I personally think this is very clever, seeing how constantly divided we usually are. Nevertheless, all the pressure not only starts to get to him, but his friends as well. Peter goes to Doctor Strange to see if there's a way he can somehow erase everyone's memory that he was Spider-Man, and, well, the spell goes wrong, the shit hits the fan, and suddenly, villains from the past Spider-Man movies arrive. Yeah, I don't think that's a spoiler. It's in all the advertising.
Review[]
Doug (vo): And I guess I won't say any more after that, as, yeah, that is kind of where it gets into spoiler talk, but I'll start off by saying, one of the things I really enjoy about this movie is that, for a good 20 minutes, these characters from the other movies are out of the picture, and I didn't miss them. I was enjoying where the film was going and all the choices and dilemmas and turmoils and everything else that these kids have to go through. They're not even really kids anymore, they're looking at colleges, and I'm glad they're addressing that they do look a lot older and that they're slowly entering adulthood. This is the first time I looked at Tom Holland and I'm saying to myself, "Wow. He's really looking like Spider-Man."
(Clips focusing on the villains are shown)
Doug (vo): But when the villains do show up, it's just as entertaining. I think it goes without saying that most of these villains come from Spider-Man franchises that didn't end on a high note. Most people didn't find their finales that satisfying, especially because they weren't supposed to be finales, but people hated them so much, they didn't make any more. This movie, for the most part, feels like it's giving these characters the finale they deserve, while still being its own unique Spider-Man movie.
(While various clips continue to show, we are shown clips of Spider-Man's previous solo appearances in the MCU)
Doug (vo): I said before in the other Tom Holland films that I feel like they were kind of playing the slow game, like it starts off with him as a kid, and they never really feel that epic, like they're unlike the other movies where they're not self-contained, they always tie in to the MCU and we don't get the really big themes and ideas and drama and everything that I really did like in the other Spider-Man movies. But like I said in the last one, I think they were building up to it, like, this big, epic Spider-Man movie is coming, you just got to get through a few issues of Peter still establishing himself, just like the comic did. Well, this feels like that big, epic movie, because while, yes, there are a lot of fun, light-hearted fights between Peter and Doc Ock and Green Goblin and so forth, there are some surprisingly heavy moments in this film, heavy moments that, yes, will remind you of the other Spider-Man movies and sometimes maybe feel a little repetitive, but because these characters are so likeable and so well-built up and are telling this story in a different way with different characters and different places and circumstances in different order, still with the same themes and ideas that Spider-Man is centered around, it doesn't feel repetitive. It's kind of like when you see Lilo & Stitch or How to Train Your Dragon, like, yeah, we've seen those kind of stories a million times, but when it's done with these characters and this way, it feels like you're seeing it for the first time. This was the same for me. It felt like it took all the strengths of the other Spider-Man movies, the deliberately slow pace of the Maguire films, the charming humor of the Garfield films, and the self-awareness of Spider-Verse, and squished it all into this massive celebration of everything that I love about Spider-Man.
(Clips and screenshots focusing on several characters and action sequences are shown)
Doug (vo): But I don't want to give the wrong idea. This isn't the perfect movie. There is plenty wrong with it. Characters, particularly villains, change their motivations out of nowhere. A lot of the effects surprisingly aren't that good. They're not all terrible or distractingly bad, but outside of a few action sequences, all the effects look kind of cartoonish, which is ironic. There is a cartoon, and I think it shines a lot better at this, because it just needs to look good, not realistic. There's weird moments that, I guess, had to be edited out for time. I remember there's one scene where a bunch of characters are entering an apartment, and somebody's like, "Where's this character? Oh, he's staying in the truck." And it's never addressed why. I think this movie might be a little too excited to have some of these characters together, and maybe they let them chat a little too long, particularly in the last third. I'm saying to myself, "Yeah, okay, cute. You can trim this down a bit." There is a mid-credits sequence that, I think when you think about it, is really gonna piss you off, like a past film was promising something, and then suddenly, it's reneged and maybe leading to something else that, I don't know, is a weird direction to take it, but again, that could just be me. Some characters are trapped in places that you say to yourself, "I feel like that character wouldn't be trapped in that place for so long." But you're so impressed with how another character trapped that other character that you kind of don't care.
Final thought[]
Doug (vo): The pros in this movie more than outweigh the cons for me, but, yes, there are things done in this movie that either changes the lore around that some people won't like, or some characters just do some stupid stuff out of nowhere that doesn't always make a whole lot of sense. But for me, it did everything so right, and I was so invested in what was going on, that I forgot about a lot of those moments really quickly. This is one of those films I would love to go back and see again with a crowd, just to see their reactions. I really do love now that these movies took their time, really let us get to know these characters and their interactions and their friendship and rivalries and so forth, so that when you did get to the big, epic movie, it really did feel big and epic. It did what Spider-Verse did and built upon what you already know about Spider-Man, using it as an advantage rather than a disadvantage. So I had a really good time and I think you're gonna have a really good time, too. But I could be wrong. What did you think? Do you think it's worth all the hype or do you think it's another example of Sony trying to squeeze too much into their Spider-Man movies again? Let me know your thoughts by swinging on in and checking it out for yourself.
(A scene showing Spider-Man, holding MJ, flying around Times Square, while the Daily Bugle reports Spider-Man's true identity as Peter Parker, is shown)