Film Review : Spider-man No Way Home

 This phase of the Spider-man trilogy comes to an end in a big way. I have a couple of friends who have not cared for Tom Holand in the role and this movie dismisses such notions in a very vivid manner. It picks up where the previous film left off with Parker's identity being revealed. If you have seen the trailer and have half a brain the plot is not surprise. Nor are there any surprises that are not numbered among the fan theories. Though there are a few theories that do not come to life, this movie does not include Captain Marvel who was rumored to appear and try to hunt Spider Man down. Nor does Miles Morales appear. Kraven the Hunter is also not one of the film's villains.  Dr. Strange is one of the main characters but really only bookends the film, yet this movie is a clear cut set up for his sequel. 

If you did not like the previous Holland movies, I do not think you are going to like this one. Since magic figures in as a key plot point, if you need hyper realism then stick to Bat-man movies.  It feels more like a comic book. Which is the tone these movies should have. They try to fix a few problems the movies have had. It is well paced and two of the major fan's theories do occur and pay off well. It almost made me think if the internet buzz is the new focus group and wonder if Marvel did reshoots for these. I think there is a balance of meeting expectations. The focal point is not his legal disputes though the thought of Spider-man being painted as a more of an anti-hero is present. His relationship with Dr. Strange is pretty comics accurate.  I think the only flaw in the movie this version of MJ.  She worked better in the previous film, but the chemistry is not believable and trying to paint them as a couple in real life is one of the oldest Hollywood tricks in the book, if you need an example of this watch the movie "Hail Caeser" . I give that picture they are trying to paint with them a month or two before that clause in their contract expires. 

Yes, this movie is a huge marketing vehicle. The Marvel brand is out the center. To the point that this is the first time one of the post credit scenes has been a trailer. This is done in a way that works and is not heavy handed until that moment. The movie is a lot of fun, one of the strengths is how it redeem William Dafoe, who has the movies best performance, no that is not a spoiler, he is in the trailer so if you get your feelings hurt by thinking it is, then go fuck yourself.  This movie sets up the next phase of Marvel movies better than anything we have seen so far and is the best of the four Marvel movies released this year.   

Marvel Comics -2021 a Year in Review

 When I started this blog, I reviewed the comics that came out every week. Perhaps I need to go back to that, are maybe once a month would be a better goal, as their need to be some voice of quality control out there which does not just pay lip service to the current comics trends since that is what got us here in the first place. Marvel is a mess this can be summed up in the most recent Kazar comic. How hard is Kazar to mess up? Instead, they turn it into an acid trip, giving him new powers, when it is ok that he is their version of Tarzan, there is no reason to turn him into Animal Man. They want to celebrate but the artist felt the need to slut shame Shanna because her costume has worked for years. Is he a character that could use more depth? Yes, but this story does not do that and the art is awful

It is not all bad news, when the Fantastic Four is not cluttered up by becoming a home for wayward cosmic kids, they capture the feel of the first family and the art works. But the bulk of their books clutter up the stories by diluting the book with supporting casts that take away from what makes the hero special. Hulk was the first I noticed falling victim to this when we saw too much focus place on a multitude of other colored hulks.  do we need a Red and Green She-hulk? The off-shoot books from this work, but not as a main book. The Immortal Hulk book got mired into this as we had Sasquatch merged with Doc Sampson tagging along, which did not play to the strength of Leonard Sampson and melding the two characters did nothing.  They tried making She-Hulk more like Banner and took away what makes Jennifer Walters work.  The whole Hulk spaceship story they are on now is going to tank hard, I think Immortal might not have been as great as people made it out to be, but was better than what we are getting now.  

The Avengers would work better with Vision and Scarlets Witch re-joining the team and getting rid of Blade and Ghost Rider, who did not fit and are not about the same kinds of missions. Blade was best made an example of in Hulk when he just threw him across the city. If it is not a vampire, then it is not his problem. Both Spider-man and the X-men suffer from similar problems, though perhaps Spider-man to a lesser extent. The Hulk issue we touched on earlier too many Spider-people. The X-men are clustered up on a island, which is not unlike the Mansion in that regard, but rather than focus on certain characters in certain books, we get a bunch of books that have no focus. 4 X books is what works best Uncanny, the main team big mutant threats. X-Force- black ops team. X-- Factor- the CSI teem and New Mutants, the training camp.

With Spider-man, it felt like we were circling the same drain. the Black Cat off shoot book at times working better. Amazing is really all we need, Spider-woman works thought Jessica Drew does not need to get mired down into other spiders, nor does Mile Morales need his own clone sage, it is like they never learn. Thor was another hit or miss book, that jumped around to Thor's past and future and forgot what makes him great. This unworthy thing, well I have talked about how if Jesus was a comic character, they would never treat him that way. Why kill off Dr. Strange? he is the least likely character to stay dead as he knows how to traverse the astral plane. Why replace Daredevil with Elektra?   

Over in DC the Bat books are overcrowded with other Bat characters so learn the lesson here. The days of big events are done, they were all anti-climactic anyway. Hopefully 2022 sees Sentry coming back and more Elsa Bloodstone. Given to how they follow the movies expect big emphasis to the point of over kill for Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, She Hulk, and the movie stars pending Thor, Dr. Strange and Capt. Marvel. Which I am fine with as two of those are two of my favorite characters. Comic books are already on life support sales wise do stick with what works and build off it rather than deconstruction and build it back into something that does not work.