“Spiderman: No Way Home” **

IN 2002, David Koepp adapted several Marvel comic books (then and still to a lesser extent the great oxymoron for a story on printed paper that is neither a comedy nor a book) into a screenplay for Sam Raimi to direct.

The Spiderman franchise now lists eight feature films and a scad of TV series. I disremember which of those early features I reviewed. See one, see all. Little has changed in two decades.

Spidey movies are actioners featuring a spider-bitten adolescent who has learned to morph into a hero whose penchant is to run around the city confronting and destroying wickedness. These blokes can do anything their creators want. Credibility may be an annoyance but it isn’t a problem for Spidey. 

Some people find it easier to get their stories from pictures because understanding printed pages is difficult. In this 2021 movie, director Jon Watts has turned a screenplay by Chris McKinna and Erik Sommers into 148 minutes of expensive-looking movie with which members of that group may feel comfortable. 

The audience when I saw it giggled a lot. Why, I’ll never know. I chuckled once. 

The film is unrestrained imagination gone bonkers, actors giving every indication of having fun wreaking expensive destruction, and not one but three Spidermans all not wearing the obligatory spider head-wear. 

Tom Hollander plays the main one, supported by Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire (who in 2002 was the first actor to play Peter Parker/Spiderman). Other cast members this time include Benedict Cumberbatch, Jamie Foxx, Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina all playing weirdos and JK Simmons as Spidey’s TV newscaster nemesis JJ Jameson.

What did it all cost? The reported budget was $US160 million. When will it come into profit? Who knows? Where will profit come from? From bums on cinema seats in every country on the planet. Will one of them be yours?

At all cinemas