Spider-Man: No Way Home
Terms like “must-see movie event of the year” get thrown around quite a lot, but rarely is it as justified as with Spider-Man: No Way Home. 2021 was packed with Marvel shows and movies, but the newest Spidey flick stood head and shoulders above the studio’s other offerings. Marvel has made it clear throughout this year that its next big story arc is going to involve the multiverse, and in No Way Home we got to see the idea of merging realities pay off in a huge way when villains and heroes from Spider-Man movies past collided.
It wasn’t just that Spider-Man: No Way Home was a great movie that made it feel so momentous. Director Sam Raimi’s 2002 Spider-Man movie was one of the films that kicked off the modern era of big screen superheroes. As the genre evolved, Spider-Man evolved along with it. We saw Tobey Maguire ham it up as the nerdiest, kindest version of Peter Parker yet (when he wasn’t emo jazz dancing), Andrew Garfield bring his sarcastic wit to the wallcrawler in a spectacularly designed spidey suit, and most recently, Tom Holland cement himself as the definitive teenage version of the superhero. Spider-Man: No Way Home felt like a celebration of everything that has come before, as well as a tremendous thank you to the viewers who supported the franchise for so long.
The fact that Marvel and Sony managed to tell a coherent story that involved characters from across every live-action Spider-Man film of the past 20 years is nothing short of awe-inspiring. I fully expected the movie to feel like a glorified cameo-fest. Instead, it ended up being a tale of karmic redemption for Spider-Man and Peter Parker on a grand scale that was unlike any other superhero movie that’s come before it. Spider-Man: No Way Home truly was the must-see movie of the year, and considering that we also saw Denis Villeneuve’s long-awaited Dune come out in 2021, that’s saying something.
But don’t just take my word for it. Spider-Man: No Way Home is also the first film to cross $1 billion at the box office since the pandemic began. Clearly, the fans have spoken. — Daniel