Yes, I realize that my previous opinion column was also all about superhero movies, but given that we are heading into awards season, the idea of a Best Picture push for Spider-Man: No Way Home seems asinine. I cannot be the only one that feels this way, but after seeing tweets in support of Sony’s For Your Consideration campaign, it sure feels like it.
Let me preface by saying that I loved No Way Home. Not the 1996 Tim Roth movie, which was filmed in my neighborhood in Staten Island, but the latest MCU flick. I should also say that it has felt as if Marvel has tried to lose me as a consumer; Black Widow was horrendous, Shang-Chi fumbled the ball in the third act, and Eternals was hot trash trying to disguise as something it wasn’t: artistic. Had my sister not gone with me to see it, I would have walked out. And the MCU shows have yet to grasp me, I saw WandaVision and was on board until the last episode, got about 10 minutes into The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, saw the first episode of Loki, and skipped any of the other shows that came and went.
But who doesn’t love Spider-Man? I even gave No Way Home a B+ in my review, which is higher than I expected going in. Was it the nostalgia? Probably; I can’t act like No Way Home had the smartest plot or anything like that, but it brought back a child-like joy that has been missing in other MCU movies. At the end of the day, there’s a reason Sony can reboot the character every five years, and that’s because Peter Parker is a universally-relatable character. Tom Holland’s iteration has been good, but I’ve always been critical of the young actor outside of his MCU work. I’m sorry, but Cherry is anything but sweet and I don’t even want to try and guess what Chaos Walking was. TheDevil All The Time was a promising start to his post-MCU career, but projects like the aforementioned Cherry and Chaos Walking leave such a bad taste in your mouth but I digress. Maybe Uncharted can be his franchise outside of the MCU, but that is yet to be seen.
What Holland was missing in his Spider-Man movies was some growth. The “Iron Boy” conversation has been talked about ad nauseam, but the criticism was fair. What happened to the “Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man” that stuck to street-level crime? Thankfully, No Way Home seemingly opens the door for that to come to fruition in the inevitable next trilogy. To his credit, Holland showed his ability to actually act emotionally for the first time outside of The Devil All The Time in No Way Home. Not that Holland’s acting in a scene with a major loss and the subsequent scene should get him Oscar gold, but it was a great step in the right direction. This is where the conversation about No Way Home and Oscars gets messy. Yes, Holland was great in the scene, but are those two scenes really good enough to bump Andrew Garfield, Denzel Washington, Will Smith, Benedict Cumberbatch, or Nicolas Cage (who should be nominated for Pig) out of the Best Actor race? I guess the campaign isn’t pushing Holland too heavily, but it felt needed to touch on.
But with all of that being said, does No Way Home even belong in the Best Picture conversation? Look, it was probably one of the best movie-going experiences of my life, even the press screening was eating it up, but favorite films and the best films need to have some separation. No Way Home is great, but it shouldn’t take away the shine from films that feel on the brink like tick, tick… BOOM!, CODA, or Drive My Car for goodness’ sake. All three of those pack just as, if not more emotion than No Way Home did with its one major death.
And on the subject of the emotional beats of No Way Home, do you really care if that character dies if you haven’t seen the previous two movies? Let alone all of the nostalgic gimmicks the film pulls out of its web. Do we really expect that Oscar voters are going to sit through the Raimi trilogy and the two Amazing Spider-Man movies just so they can understand why Alfred Molina is hilariously de-aged in No Way Home? Or why (seemingly) every other joke is a wink directly at the camera? That’s a laughable proposition.
Alfred Molina as Doc Ock in Columbia Pictures’ SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME.
We can all agree that Holland is great in No Way Home, but the whole movie is full of good performances. Marisa Tomei and Willem Dafoe are both great, especially the latter, but why can’t we just nominate Dafoe for the right movies such as The Lighthouse or Nightmare Alley? It’s the Pacino situation all over again, and it would be even worse given that Dafoe never gives an “I’m too fucking old” monologue as Pacino did in his Oscar-winning performance in Scent of a Woman. Jokes aside, Dafoe deserves an Oscar sooner than later, but No Way Home feels like the wrong movie at the right time.
“But what about the box office?” Well, it feels like a no-brainer that No Way Home did gangbusters at the box office. Is the ascent to the top six all-time domestically and top ten worldwide impressive given its time in theaters? Absolutely. That accomplishment cannot be taken away from it. But are we just going to act like Far From Home didn’t gross a billion dollars? Add in the leaks and levels of speculation going into No Way Home. Yes, the likely journey to the top five in terms of highest-grossing movies worldwide is impressive, but this isn’t the “little indie that could.”
I’m not an Oscar voter, but at the end of the day, there are more than ten films that feel more worthy of one of the ten Best Picture slots. Oscar-darlings like Belfast and King Richard may be divisive among critics, but it could be argued that both films told important stories that outweigh that of No Way Home. The Power of the Dog may seem like a “pretentious critic” movie, with the pacing of a snail, but it’s another film that handles heavy themes like toxic masculinity in a poetic way. If I had a ballot, as of now, the ten films that would fill my Best Picture category would be (in alphabetical order): Belfast, Bergman Island, CODA, Don’t Look Up, Drive My Car, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, The Mitchells vs. The Machines, The Power of the Dog, and The Worst Person in the World.
None of this is to take away from No Way Home‘s accomplishments or what it has done for theaters. When I was at Scream last night people were still flooding into the IMAX theater to see No Way Home. It’s a wonderful thing, but I also think that we are getting ahead of ourselves to think it should be worthy of Best Picture contention because, at the end of the day, it’s taking away attention from smaller, intimate movies that tell stories with equal emotion and are not contingent on knowledge of eight other movies. Don’t these tentpole movies already take enough attention away from the mid-to-small budget movies at theaters?
Andrew is an entertainment journalist and film "critic" who has written for the likes of Above the Line, Below the Line, Collider, Film Focus Online, /Film and The Hollywood Handle among others.
Leader of the Kaitlyn Dever Fanclub.
Marvel Studios’ Loki Season 2 | Official Trailer | Disney +
The second season of the American television series Loki, based on Marvel Comics featuring the character of the same name, sees Loki working with Mobius M. Mobius, Hunter B-15, and other members of the Time Variance Authority to navigate the multiverse in order to find Sylvie, Ravonna Renslayer, and Miss Minutes.
Tom Hiddleston, Jonathan Majors, Sophia Di Martino, Owen Wilson
Plot Summary:
The second season of the American television series Loki, based on Marvel Comics featuring the character of the same name, sees Loki working with Mobius M. Mobius, Hunter B-15, and other members of the Time Variance Authority to navigate the multiverse in order to find Sylvie, Ravonna Renslayer, and Miss Minutes.
The following piece was written during the 2023 Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the television series being covered here wouldn’t exist.
Overview Of Secret Invasion
Secret Invasion is set in the present-day Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Nick Fury learns of an invasion of Earth by a faction of shapeshifting Skrulls. Fury, joined by Everett Ross, Maria Hill, and the Skrull Talos, who has made a life for himself on Earth, races against time to stop an invasion and save humanity.
Brief Summary (Contains Spoilers)
Ben Mendelsohn as Talos (Marvel)
The series starts off with Talos pursuing Everett Ross for the murder of a CIA agent, who had information about a potential Skrull rebellion. Maria Hill arrives on scene and discovers that Everett is a shapeshifting Skrull and contacts Nick Fury to request assistance. Nick returns to learn that not only has Talos been exiled from the Skrull Council, but Gravik is taking the lead with the rebellion. Fury approaches an old acquaintance by the name of Sonya Falsworth to propose an alliance, but to no avail. In the meantime, Talos reunites with his daughter, G’iah who shares with him the location of a Skrull attack in Russia. The mission to stop the attack not only end in failure, but in the death of one of Fury’s team mates. Fury and Talos is forced to escape to fight another day.
Kingsley Ben-Adir as Gravik (Marvel)
Gravik gains the support of the Skrull Council to lead them in a new war. Fury is blamed for the attack in Russia and the death of one of the team members, and is discharged of his duties. Sonya learns from another rebel that Gravik has a new weapon, a machine that can help enhance their strength with the use of powered DNA. The rebel’s next target is the Royal Navy. Their attempt to launch a missile at another aircraft is however thwarted by collective efforts from Fury, Talos, Sonya and G’iah. G’iah attempts to run away but is confronted by Gravik who shoots her and leaves her for dead.
Emilia Clarke as G’iah (Marvel)
G’iah, however, survives and lives to fight another day. We quickly learn that there is a rebel Skull Imposter posing as one of the Avengers. The rebels turn their focus on the President of the United States, and posing as Russian soldiers almost succeeds in their attempt, however, they leave behind many casualties. The rebel Skrulls tries to convince the United States President to attack one of the Skrull compounds. Gravik is willing to call off the attack in exchange for something from Nick that could potentially tip the scales in the favor of the rebels.
The last episode ends with a short but grand face-off between Fury and Gravik with a special twist…but I will leave this for you as the viewer to experience on the screen.
The summary has been written in such a way as to not spoil too much for the viewer.
Gravik as a Skrull (Marvel)
Final Views
I really enjoyed the suspense and surprises that the series brought with every episode. Even though the series was only 6 episodes long, it kept the suspense alive and it kept the golden thread going that is taking place within the broader MCU. As you may recall, Captain Marvel’s movie end where she flew off to find a new home for the Skrulls and this series continue many years later where some of the Skrulls feel the promise of a new home has been broken. Even the blip is referenced and it keeps the memory alive of a world still affected by Thanos’ snap.
The rating for this series is definitely a 4 out of 5. The story had a feel of a crime drama and spy thriller. The fight scenes were amazing and I personally felt the last episode could have been longer to give us an even longer fight. There are many questions that this television series have going through my head that I won’t list over here to limit spoiling the experience for you as the viewer. I can only hope that some of the questions will be answered in future Marvel Studios productions.
Olivia Colman as Sonya Falsworth (Marvel)
Olivia Colman’s portrayal of Sonya Falsworth was really amazing to watch and I really hope we get to see more of her in future productions. Emelia Clark and Kingsley Ben-Adir brought in a breath of fresh air as G’iah and Gravik respectively. As always, having Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury is epic to say the least, and I encourage keeping both eyes on his performance throughout the MCU.
I highly recommend watching Iron Man (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Thor (2011), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Black Panther (2018), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Captain Marvel (2019), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), WandaVision (2021), Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) before watching Secret Invasion. These movies provide the detailed backstory to most of the returning characters. These movies and television series are based on the list of recommendations made in Marvel Studios’ Legends as well.
There is no post-credits scene, so no need to wait till the end. The whole series is now available on Disney Plus so make sure to watch. This series is rumored to tie-in with both The Marvels and Armor Wars, upcoming movies in the MCU.
Kraven the Hunter | Official Red Band Trailer — Sony Pictures
Kraven the Hunter is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Russian immigrant Sergei Kravinoff is on a mission to prove that he is the greatest hunter in the world.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Russell Crowe, Ariana DeBose
Plot Summary:
Kraven the Hunter is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Russian immigrant Sergei Kravinoff is on a mission to prove that he is the greatest hunter in the world.