(no subject)

[lakeeffectgirl]

I have generally enjoyed the Holland-era movies (allowing for the fact that so many of the adults seem to overlook that Peter is just a child - same for the other Spidey movies) but No Way Home was on another level completely. It picked a wild premise and fuckin' ran with it all the way, and it worked.

Basically, as best as I can remember the order things happened in:

Everyone in the world now knows Peter is Spiderman, but this causes so much drama that he, MJ, and Ned all get arrested and Aunt May hires Matt Murdock to be their lawyer. But they don't get charged with anything, so Charlie Cox is only there for one scene. Peter, MJ, and Ned all get rejected from all the colleges they've applied to.

Hating that his no-longer-a-secret secret has ruined his friends' lives, Peter asks Strange to make everyone forget he's Spiderman, but keeps changing the spell as Strange is trying to cast it, and it goes haywire. Five out of six of the Sinister Six arrive (so all the villains from the Tobey and Andrew movies). Using a magic-enhanced gauntlet, Peter captures four of them - Norman goes to May's shelter looking for help, and Peter picks him up from there - but that leads to the question of what to do with them once it's realized that returning them to their respective universes means they'll die (since they're pulled over before their deaths in the various other 'verses).

Strange manages to contain the spell, finally, and then he and Peter have a big battle over the box it's in, since Strange wants to just send all the villains back to their universes. Peter traps Steven in the Mirrorverse for a while. The villains seem to be on board with Peter's plans to help them, but this goes awry one by one. Norman reveals himself to be taken over by the Green Goblin completely, and kills Aunt May, who as she's dying convinces Peter to cure the villains instead of condemning them to death. Ned and MJ, in an attempt to find Peter, open a bunch of the sorcerer portals (Ned has Strange's ring and has magic?) and this is where Andrew and Tobey come through. People in the theater clapped! I knew it was happening and it was still a delight! It is hard to express what it feels like to watch Andrew Garfield in something that isn't soul-crushingly sad after you have seen both Never Let Me Go and Silence at the theater. His hair is still full of secrets!!

The Spideys figure out cures for the villains (they're all in the high school's lab and it's great), lure them to the Statue of Liberty (where a Captain America shield is being added to her) and fight and then cure them one by one. Osborne shows up last and MJ falls off the scaffolding, but Andrew's Peter saves her (it's a very poignant moment, since he couldn't save Gwen). Strange gets free of the Mirrorverse and arrives looking for the spell box, and something something rips in time start appearing in the sky. To stop even more villains (?) from coming through, Peter asks Strange to cast a spell making everyone forget Peter Parker. It works, and the universe rip things close, Andrew and Tobey return to their universes (the three Spideys hug and it's grrrrrreat), but no one remembers Peter anymore. :(

Ned and MJ get into MIT. Peter goes to MJ's workplace intending to explain who he is, but changes his mind. He rents an apartment and sews a new Spidey-suit.

The mid-credits scene: You see that Venom and Eddie were pulled into the MCU as well (this happens in the mid-credits scene in LTBC), but since they're in Mexico or somewhere and not NYC, they just go to a bar and get drunk while Dani from Ted Lasso tells them about the Snap.

I loved it so much and I want to watch it one million more times.