![]() And truth be told, Rhys Ifans’ Lizard and Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman take relative back seats. How about those other villains? They never quite made it to a Sinister Six, as in the comic books, unless you count the fleeting post-credits appearance of Tom Hardy’s Venom. The movie’s nod to the Goblin’s traditional hooded costume is another lovely touch.Ĭranking back the years … Alfred Molina as Doc Ock. His Green Goblin stakes his claim for the all-time list of movie supervillains with a bravura return of cackling insanity. Whether the same went for Dafoe is harder to tell – the 66-year-old is still so spritely that he insisted on doing all his own stunts this time around, to spectacular effect. ![]() It’s not surprising that some special effects were clearly used to restore Molina to his younger self. It’s been the over a decade since we saw Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock and Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin on the big screen, but No Way Home lets us know early on that we’re seeing them as they were just before their respective deaths in Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2. The de-ageing, the villains and the brilliance of Willem Dafoe That ultimately makes for a surprisingly original narrative that allows all three Spideys to play their part in the action, even if it also does remind us that pretty much all Sony’s bad guys followed a rather samey path towards villainy. And yet it’s May’s kindness in the face of adversity that ends up fuelling Spidey Prime’s determination to cure the supervillains rather than taking them out. Still, it felt like a dirty move to take out Marisa Tomei’s Aunt May, especially when we’ve always assumed Holland’s Spider-Man lost his Uncle Ben before first appearing on our screens. It’s the oldest trick in the book: kill off a major character and ensure your audience spends the rest of the movie panicking that other fan-favourites are set to go next. Aunt May’s death and the threat of constant sorrow We could go on about the ways in which No Way Home gives the webslingers from previous series a fitting finale, but the simple fact is that it is just nice to see Garfield, and in particular Maguire, swinging back into action once again. This is certainly the case during the scenes in which the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield incarnations of Spider-Man unite with Tom Holland’s to restore normality to the MCU and save the interlopers from instant death. While these were not always the most incisive modes of storytelling, the opportunity to see past iterations of the Doctor always upped the goosebumps factor. No Way Home reminded me of those Doctor Who specials in which multiple versions of the Time Lord played by various actors would team up to face down a greater threat. Photograph: Matt Kennedy/AP Three Spider-Men are better than one Spelling trouble … Benedict Cumberbatch (right) as Doctor Strange. At the very least, Strange’s character arc looks set to make Tony Stark’s look like an episode of Countryfile. Maybe Marvel simply used the plot device to set up the forthcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, with the former Sorcerer Supreme now a rogue agent being run down by former comrades. But for such a trusted, supposedly wise member of the Avengers to make such a bad decision almost beggars belief. ![]() Perhaps Strange is just going through a narcissistic phase a la Tony Stark in Age of Ultron. It ends up going horribly wrong and inviting supervillains and heroes from alternate realities (AKA the five Sony-owned films from 2002-14, prior to the studio striking a deal with Marvel) into the MCU. No longer Sorcerer Supreme after disappearing for five years, Strange seems bored and reckless, happily going for Parker’s rash suggestion that he cast a dangerous spell to restore Spider-Man’s secret identity. We already know there’s something pretty weird going on with Benedict Cumberbatch’s wacky wizard, and our spider-senses are only tingling more intensely by the time the credits roll on No Way Home. Doctor Strange: shonky characterisation or ingenious arc?
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