SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME

In SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME, the lies that Mysterio spread about Peter Parker have seriously damaged the futures of him and his friends, MJ and Ned, so Peter tries to fix everything by having Dr. Strange create a magic spell to make people forget Spider-Man’s secret identity, but the spell goes wrong and unleashes several supervillains from the multiverse. SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME is terrific fun, with lots of action, many laughs, multiple surprises, and strong tearful moments, but it has many light obscenities and profanities, strong violence and occult content that mar the movie’s powerful, redemptive main message of doing the right thing.

As the movie opens, Peter and his friends, MJ and Ned, are suffering the consequences of Mysterio’s lies from the last SPIDER-MAN movie. Half the people on the street believe Mysterio’s lies that Peter is the one who killed him with small flying drone bombs stolen from Tony Stark’s company. Since everyone now knows that Peter is Spider-Man, Peter can’t walk down the street without hearing some boos and cheers.

Meanwhile, Peter, MJ and Ned are about to start their senior year in high school. They’re also waiting to hear from the places where they applied to college.

When they all get turned down by every college, including the one they hoped to attend together, MIT, Peter decides to take action. He goes to Dr. Steven Strange to ask him to reverse time. However, Dr. Strange says he can’t do that because he no longer has the Time stone the Avengers used to defeat Thanos. So, Peter asks Strange for a spell that would make everyone forget Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Strange says he can do that, but, as he tries to do the spell, Peter keeps thinking of exceptions to the spell. After all, he doesn’t want MJ and his Aunt May to forget who he is.

The spell goes crazy and starts bringing supervillains from other multiverses who, like Aunt May, discovered Spider-Man’s secret identity. Soon, everybody has their hands full.

SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME is filled with fun surprises and twists, plus lots of action. There’s also plenty of serious jeopardy leading to stirring, sad and tearful moments. All the performances are perfectly melded with the story’s twists and turns, including some surprise appearances. NO WAY HOME is clearly one of the more entertaining superhero movies from Marvel and may be considered the best SPIDER-MAN movie since SPIDER-MAN 2.

NO WAY HOME has a strong moral, redemptive premise that everyone deserves a second chance, even supervillains. In the movie, Aunt May inspires Peter to do the right thing and give the supervillains a second chance to set things right. Eventually, with help from his old friends and three new ones, he comes up with a plan to do just that. However, the plan comes with a heavy price and a big fight. NO WAY HOME also promotes teamwork, sacrifice and has a strong message against revenge.

SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME has many mostly light obscenities and profanities, intense action violence and occult content, however. Though Peter Parker and others come to regret his attempt to use magic to change their circumstances, Dr. Strange does need to do another spell to solve another plot problem. Also, Ned gets hold of one of Dr. Strange’s portal rings that can transport people to another location.