Spider-Man No Way Home is like a thrilling theme park ride filled with references, action, and the one or other heartfelt moment that will resonate with not just MCU but just overall Marvel fans alike and sees Tom Holland fully come into his role in this third installment that somehow feels like an origin story.

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2021 Ranked

Welcome to this non-spoiler review of Spider-Man No Way Home. No worries, I will try my best to refrain from spoiling anything specific that happens in this film. However, everything that was shown in trailers already is fair game, so warning for those who really don’t wanna know anything before going in. But what are you doing listening to this review? Go see it! It’s literally out now.

Anyways, this third or in some ways 8th installment in the Spider-Man saga comes from director Jon Watts who previously directed the first and second installment with Tom Holland as Peter Parker.

Taking place right after the end of Spider-Man Far From Home, which saw Peter being unmasked as Spider-Man by J. Jonah Jamerson, No Way Home wastes no time to get into its jam package adventure story.
With an abundance of characters - new and old - to focus on, No Way Home can feel quite full at times, but it never runs into the issues that other overcrowded Spider-Man films like Spider-Man 3 or the Amazing Spider-Man 2.

At its core, No Way Home is a huge fan service that packs an endless amount of references into 2 and a half-hour-long runtime, which makes for a very entertaining watch overall.
How you value and maybe appreciate these references and the all-too-familiar quippy comedic style of these MCU films is - as always - in the eye of the beholder.
To me, although this is probably the first real Tom Holland, Peper Parker as Spider-Man centered story we get, when previously Tony Stark was quite a big preference in the first two - as an actual presence or in his legacy - it still felt like to me that we were slowly going down the list of things that needed to happen to this character.

This might be my own mistake for hoping to be presented with a movie that throws me for a few more loops and surprises than it actually did or maybe I’m just burned out from all the MCU and Marvel superhero content that I don’t care as much when Jamie Foxx’s Electro and Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin are standing in the same room.

Willem Dafoe - as always in whatever movie he’s in - steals the show with his performance and I was quite glad about his overall presence in the film. Apart from Tom Holland, he’s probably the person who manages to get the most depth out of their character, and with this story getting into the weeds of what it means to stand on your own two feet for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, there are numerous moments where Tom Holland gets to shine as well.

MJ and Ned are also firmly implemented into the story overall and feel very involved in the over-arching story at large. The decision to focus so much on the high school lives of those characters and the attempt to ground them with their relatable and - in this world - smaller aspirations sometimes comes off a bit forced and unimaginative and lacks the scope of what I believe people would behave like in a world like this. Regardless, the dynamic of this trio is on point and even though I’m not a big fan of that quippy humor, they stick the landing more than not.

Another bigger character appearing in the film, Doc Ock, was heavily CGI-ed, not just in his physicality facially but also with his arms now being fully CGI instead of puppeteers like in Spider-Man 2. No Way Home has overall a bit of a gloss problem, where - I assume partly due to COVID restrictions but also just cause it’s easier now - practically every set feels very CGI. Even moments that are not action-heavy - which arguably aren’t that many, this movie is jam-packed with action - background feel weirdly fake and even some of the motion of characters in action scenes felt quite off.

Another complaint I had was the frequent Deus Ex Machina way of solving hard problems, which are nit-picky in a sci-fi superhero universe, but still, a bit distracting from a narrative standpoint and are quite apparent ever since Tony Stark figured out time travel REAL FAST in Endgame.

I would love to get more into detail of moments that happen after the inciting incident, but those would definitely be spoilers but they are rather impactful for what’s to come in the near future of the MCU. If you want to hear my spoiler thoughts on No Way Home check out next week's episode on the Quiet On Set Podcast, where Lachlan and I will talk full of spoilers about the friendly neighborhood spiderman.

7/10

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CHERRY is the feature film adaption of Nico Walker’s 2018 novel of the same name. The drama about an Army medic turned drug addict and bank robber is brought to your AppleTV+ screen from the director duo behind the latest two Avengers films. Tom Holland stars as Cherry, a college dropout who impulsively joins the Army after his girlfriend breaks up with him. Cherry swiftly gets back together with his ex, but it’s already too late to back out of his commitment to the Army. He returns riddled with the traumatic experience of the war in Iraq and rapidly develops an addiction to opioids and struggles to keep afloat as a war vet in his mid-20s.

Joe and Anthony Russo return to a Non-MCU-film after seven years and four movies over at the big mouse. Backed with fewer dollars in the budget but stacked with notable star power as Tom Holland once again tries his hardest to drop his London accent for an American one. Holland’s performance is quite solid and from what I can tell - being Swiss - also on point with his American accent. Cherry also stars Ciara Bravo in her biggest role to date. Whereas Holland left an overall good impression Bravo missed more often than not, resulting in a moderate amount of unconvincing scenes.

Arguably, this is less on her and more on the overcrammed narrative that repeatedly falls short in selling rather abrupt character developments. At almost two and a half hours of runtime Cherry is certainly not a short film and quite honestly might have been better served in the form of a mini-series. However, the long run-time would probably be shortened by over 15 minutes if the overuse of slow-motion sequences were less frequent. The sudden shifts in aspect ratios and fourth wall break alongside the few and far between Wes Anderson-like staging and framing add up to an overall tonal mess that is structured into five chapters, which I assume was taken from the novel, for no apparent reason other than those cool red title cards.

On the whole, Cherry tries to tell an engaging narrative whilst poking fun and highlighting some of the flawed systems in the US. Although the attempt is very much noted and respected, there is not enough substance to let the narrative flow fittingly. What we get is a Coming-of-Age love story, war drama, cheeky fourth-wall-breaking character study on PTSD and drug addiction in addition to a Scorsese-esce rise and fall of a bank robber. It's just a bit much.

Conclusively, Cherry tackles PTSD and opioid addiction from a narrow field of view and rests a bit too comfortably on its bankable lead and directors creating a ball bath of cinematic ideas for them to play in to leave more to be desired. Nonetheless, it’s a big win for Apple TV+. One that will hopefully bring some new subscribers to the streaming service.

Cherry is entertaining, easy to look at and its sweeping camera movements and charismatic lead will probably be enough to please most audiences. It uses its lack of character depth in the form of a rather fast-paced plot.