Spider-Man: No Way Home

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Spider-Man: No Way Home is a 2021 superhero film directed by Jon Watts. An entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Phase 4, it is the sequel to Spider-Man: Far From Home. Tom Holland plays Peter Parker/Spider-Man, with Alfred Molina as Otto Octavius/Doc Ock, Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn/the Green Goblin, Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Stephen Strange, Zendaya as MJ, Jamie Foxx as Max Dillon/Electro, Marisa Tomei as Aunt May and Benedict Wong as Wong.

WARNING: As the Immediate Sequel to Far From Home, which was the epilogue of the Infinity Saga, as well as following from both Sam Raimi's Spider-Man Trilogy and Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man duology, expect Late Arrival Spoilers for all of said works!

At the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home, Peter learns to his horror that Mysterio has released a doctored video framing him as the perpetrator of the drone attack on London. Now hounded by a world that has turned against him overnight, he seeks Dr Strange's help to make the world forget the connection between "Peter Parker" and "Spider-Man". However, when the spell intended for this purpose goes wrong, Peter ends up having to contend with enemies of Spider-Man from other universes.

Tropes used in Spider-Man: No Way Home include:

• A God Am I: The Green Goblin tells the other villains that "Gods don't have to choose. We take." One doesn't have to be a literature major to understand what he's implying.
• Awesomeness By Analysis: When Peter and Dr Strange fight, Peter is able to determine that Dr Strange is turning the Mirror Dimension into an Archimedean spiral and use his math skills to overcome it.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The Sinister Six. Technically Five, as Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock doesn't show up until The Stinger and doesn't manage to do much before he's sent back to his own universe.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Surprising absolutely no one, Norman tries to play the sheep to Peter before inevitably trying to kill him. And his loved ones. And his alternates when they appear.
• Bittersweet Ending: The whole world has forgotten MCU!Peter, meaning he no longer has the support of his friends or access to Stark resources, and Aunt May is dead. He's all alone now and has also lost his chance to get into MIT. However, the villains were redeemed and most got depowered, giving them second chances. All three Spideys came to terms with their failures. MCU!Peter ultimately doesn't give up on himself, but continues going out in costume to fight the good fight, and while he chooses not to immediately try to rebuild his relationship with MJ and Ned, the possibility exists that it might happen in future.
• Canon Welding: The brief appearance of Charlie Cox as Peter's blind lawyer "Mr Murdock" adds further support to the recanonisation of Marvel's Daredevil, mere days after Vincent D'Onoforio's Kingpin appeared in Hawkeye.
• Curb Stomp Battle: The first fight between Spider-Man and Green Goblin. Green Goblin literally laughs off Peter's attacks, overpowers him, and slams him through multiple floors.
• Death by Adaptation: Aunt May dies thanks to the Green Goblin.
• Deus Exit Machina:
  • Talos-as-Fury, who could probably have unceremoniously shut down Mysterio's narrative and thus the issues following from it, is conveniently nowhere to be seen.
  • Even if he told Dr Strange to leave him out of it, one would think Wong would intervene after the ball gets dropped badly enough to have multiversal consequences, yet he's never seen again.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: A lot of people are quick to turn on Peter based on the doctored video that Mysterio sent J Jonah Jameson despite the dubiousness of the source. If this was supposed to be some kind of Take That at people who fall for fake news, it was awfully on the nose.
• Hope Spot: The Green Goblin crashes his glider into Aunt May as she tries to help Peter fight him, but it seems at first that all she needs is to catch her breath. Unfortunately, things are worse than that, and she dies of her injuries.
• Immediate Sequel: Directly follows from The Stinger of Far From Home.
• Internal Reveal: Peter sensibly tells Damage Control first thing that Fury can vouch for him, only to learn what the audience already has known since Far From Home's stinger that (the real) Fury has been in space the whole time.
• Last Kiss: Peter and MJ share one before the final memory-wiping spell takes effect.
• Late Arrival Spoiler:
  • Even if you've somehow managed to avoid anything from Loki or WandaVision, the trailers for this film will make it known to you that the multiverse is very much real.
  • No attempt is made to hide the fact that the villains die in their original films.
• Magic Feather: Shortly after his arrival, Norman removes and destroys the Green Goblin mask in an attempt to get rid of the Enemy Within, only to learn the hard way that it doesn't actually need the mask to manifest.
• Morality Chain: Green Goblin attempts to invoke this. He thinks Aunt May is holding Peter back from embracing his full potential and fatally wounds her.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The trailers made it seem that Wong warned Dr Strange not to go through with the memory-altering spell. In the actual film, he merely tells Dr Strange to leave him out of it.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Peter's attempt to save the villains instead of just letting Dr Strange send them back to their deaths causes him a lot of trouble.
• Non-Fatal Explosions: Zig-zagged to heartbreaking effect. Peter tries and fails to deflect a Goblin bomb and it goes off almost in his face. Being a superhuman and wearing a protective suit, he's more or less fine. Aunt May initially seems fine too except for some shortness of breath, until it turns out that she was fatally injured internally after all, and she dies not realising the true extent of her injuries.
• The Obi-Wan: Doctor Strange takes this role from Talos. Except not really, because he and Peter end up clashing over the latter's determination to save the villains instead of just sending them back as is to die, and ends up getting Put on a Bus until much later. Aunt May ends up taking on the mentor role instead, at least until her death when it goes to the two alternate Spideys.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • Murdock clears Peter of all legal charges offscreen.
  • The Lizard has already been caught by Dr Strange by the time Peter first deals with Doc Ock.
• Only Bad Guys Call Their Lawyers: Both MJ and Aunt May tell Peter not to say anything about the accusations he's facing until he gets a lawyer. A Damage Control agent tries pulling this on MJ to get her to talk, but she calls him out on it.
• Psycho Electro: Electro.
• Real After All: In Far From Home, Mysterio fed Peter a lie about the multiverse while crafting his heroic persona. Peter is understandably surprised to learn that the multiverse really does exist.
• Reality Ensues:
  • Murdock clears Peter of all legal charges, but warns him that the court of public opinion won't necessarily be swayed. Unfortunately, he's proven right.
  • Wong got promoted to Sorcerer Supreme over Dr Strange because, superior talent or no, the former has five years of seniority thanks to the latter getting Snapped.
  • The scene where Peter screws up the spell Dr Strange was casting to make the world forget the "Peter Parker is Spider-Man" thing has such a moment for both parties. Repeatedly distracting a guy with requests for changes in the middle of a delicate procedure is not going to end well. On the other hand, rushing into said delicate procedure without carefully hashing out the parameters and intended result with the client and clarifying potential problems is also not going to end well either.
  • The three Spideys don't immediately become a well-coordinated team just because they're Alternate Selves.
• Reverse Mole: Electro fries the new inhibitor chip for Dr Ock, and when the latter returns in the final battle by attacking the Spideys, he seems like he's still on the villains' side. Then he grabs the device for depowering Electro and uses it, taking said villain out of the fight and showing that he's back on the side of good.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: The person who throws a brick into the Parkers' apartment has a good throwing arm. His spelling? Not so much.
• Sacrificial Lion: Aunt May is fatally wounded by the Green Goblin about halfway through the film, establishing beyond reasonable doubt his menace and how bad things are getting.
• Sealed Good in a Can: Peter imprisons Strange in an alternate dimension to prevent him from sending the villains back to their deaths. He doesn't get out till later.
• Sequel Gap: As well as being a sequel to 2019's Far From Home, the film also acts as a sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (a seven year gap), and Spiderman 3 (a fourteen year gap).
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Stephen and Peter not working out the details of the spell before Strange activated results in a lot of carnage.
• Truer to the Text:
  • While Electro is still Race Lifted to be played by black Jamie Foxx like in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, unlike that film, Electro now wears yellow and green like in the comics, and the flashing of his lightning over his face has a star shape similar to his classical mask.
  • After the previous two film adaptations used the Common Knowledge version of the Comes Great Responsibility quote, this film is finally the MCU's turn to say it comics-accurate: "With great power, there must also come great responsibility".
  • Flash dyed his hair blonde offscreen at some point between the end of Far From Home and his first onscreen appearance here, now better resembling his comics self.
• Unperson: With the artifact to contain the botched spell destroyed by the Green Goblin, the only way to close the rifts between universes before the multiversal invaders can come through is for the spell to be redone without any conditions, i.e. Peter will be completely forgotten even by those he had hoped to leave out of it.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: May Parker ends up causing the second act conflict by playing on Peter's guilt and making him want to cure the villains who died fighting their versions of Spider-Man.
• We Will Not Use Photoshop in the Future: The significant plurality of people who believe Mysterio's lies don't seem to consider the possibility that the video might have been doctored to defame Spidey.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Dr Strange believes that the villains are fated to die. Peter's refusal to believe that drives their conflict.