Spider-Man: No Way Home First Reactions Are A Big Surprise

The first Spider-Man: No Way Home reactions are in and they are a bit surprising. This highly-anticipated movie has massive expectations

By Doug Norrie | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

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It’s safe to say that Spider-Man: No Way Home is one of the most-anticipated movies we’ve had in some time, and that’s really saying something considering what the Marvel Universe has put out over the last decade. But the expectations around this flick are massive with Tom Holland and company set to break new cinematic ground as they work previous iterations of the franchise into this new story. So with these heightened expectations, it stands to reason we’d want to know how the critics are reacting to early screeners. To say they’ve been impressed is an understatement. The early reviews are completely knocking it out of the Multiverse. 

Spider-Man: No Way Home is currently sitting at a cool 100% on Rotten Tomatoes through 47 reviews. While it is unlikely to stay there once everyone’s opinion is filed, is an unbelievably great start for a film that is clearly juggling a ton of different stories and plot points. Considering the interwoven aspect of the story, there are many ways this concept could have gone off the rails. But it sure seems like Tom Holland and director Jon Watts have pulled it off. Some critics are calling it the best movie ever in the Spider-Man franchise with others feeling like they took a high concept and still gave it significant weight and emotion. For a Marvel movie, one about a superhero in tights (at its base level), this is no small feat. 

Another theme of the early reviews for Spider-Man: No Way Home is the idea that the film works within a number of different lanes depending on the viewer. Most agreed it stands on its own and new viewers won’t have to be web-slinging experts to enjoy what’s happening on the big screen. Then a layer down, there seems to be an agreement that this film is the best of the current Tom Holland trilogy, a worthy wrap-up to the current storyline. And finally, within the context of the larger Spider-Man franchise that’s now in its third iteration, it acts as a culminating point for all of those stories. To pull something like this off could be nothing short of a masterpiece. 

spider-man no way home

Spider-Man: No Way Home is set to release this week, on Wednesday, December 15th. It follows the events of Far From Home which, in the end, saw Tom Holland’s Peter Parker outed as the web-slinger and now dealing with the fallout of that disaster. In trying to “fix” the problem, he and Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) accidentally open up the Multiverse and that’s where the villains of the past make their way into the story. There’s Willem Dafoe as Green Goblin, Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus, Jamie Foxx as Electro, Rhys Ifans as Lizard, and Thomas Haden Church as Sandman. And there are sure to be other surprises in there as well. 

The weight of expectation can sometimes be too much for a movie, especially one that’s this big and has been this long coming. By early accounts, it sure seems like they’ve pulled off the near-impossible with Spider-Man: No Way Home. We’ve been waiting for what seems like forever, but it appears we can now head to the theaters with confidence that this movie lives up to the hype.