Why ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Has No Business Being Nominated for Best Picture
This article contains spoilers for Spider-Man, No Way Home
In 2022, it is safe to say we are at the peak of the comic book movie wave in Hollywood. They now make up 10 of the top 30 highest-grossing movies of all time worldwide, and there are no signs of slowing down from Marvel or DC.
Marvel and even DC have also started to figure out how to make better movies. Sure, Marvel had been making movies north of 80% Rotten Tomatoes score since Iron Man, but it took the Russo Brothers to perfectly balance intensity with humor to make the best, most beloved movies of the franchise.
However, for MCU fans, it is not enough for their favorite movies to dominate the box office. They want Oscar legitimacy as well, starting with The Dark Knight, and persisting through The Avengers, Logan, and Avengers Endgame, just to name a few. Black Panther remains the lone MCU movie to be nominated for Best Picture and had a legitimate argument to win in an overall lackluster field. (It should have won, IMO)
Now fans want Spiderman No Way Home added to that list, and some serious publications have made this argument, so let me be perfectly clear:
‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ has no business being on that list, or anywhere near an Oscar nomination.
Yes, it’s #6 in all-time worldwide box office dollars. Yes, it came through titillating Spider-Man fans as expected.
It’s a great comic book movie.
It’s not a very good overall movie.
I’ll back up my thesis in a minute, but first, let’s agree that what made ‘The Dark Knight’ special and worthy of Oscar recognition is that anyone could be thrilled by it; it wasn’t made specifically for Batman fans (something Marvel should take note of in the future). The Dark Knight was a crime thriller first, and a comic book movie second (if at all).
Black Panther had stellar visuals, breath-taking action scenes (until the finale), and a provocative hero/villain construction, all of which justified its nomination
‘No Way Home’ was made specifically to make comic book fans, and especially spiderman fans, ogle at the screen for a couple hours. It’s a comic book movie, through and through.
Now, that by itself is not necessarily a deal-breaker for the Oscars. Let’s look at the movie as objectively as possible, putting aside the easter eggs and the thrill of seeing the 3 Spider-Man’s on screen that only comic book fans could truly appreciate.
1)Is there a signature acting performance in No Way Home?
The answer is an unequivocal no.
The key to The Dark Knight’s brilliance is the performance of Heath Ledger as Joker. Without Ledger being as electrifying as he was, the movie doesn’t have a chance at a billion-dollar box office or 90% rotten tomato score.
Same thing with Black Panther (with Michael B. Jordan’s special performance), Logan (Hugh Jackman AND Patrick’s Stewart’s best character performance) and even Avengers Endgame, with Robert Downey Jr getting props and some buzz that he should be nominated (I don’t agree, but there have been much weirder choices).
What was the signature performance of ‘No Way Home’?
Sure, it was fun to see Willem Dafoe play Norman Osborne again, but not nearly enough screen time to merit any consideration. Alfred Molina didn’t have much of an arc to make the voters put down their pencils to watch. Garfield or Maguire? They existed to further Tom Holland’s Spider-Man arc.
And let’s get to that arc:
2)Was the Lead Actor’s performance at least noteworthy, if not Oscar worthy?
Tom Holland makes for a great Spider-Man, but his arc in this movie is downright strange, if not contradictory.
Peter Parker learns from Uncle Ben Aunt May that with great power comes great responsibility, which is fine, except…didn’t he already learn that lesson in ‘Avengers: Civil War’ and ‘Avengers: Infinity War’? He unhesitatingly goes off to space to help Tony Stark because “he can’t be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man if there is no neighborhood”.
Sounds like “With great power comes with great responsibility” to me.
So again, what did he have to learn?
Ok, maybe the real lesson is people deserve a second chance, like when Aunt May asked him to give to Norman Osborne before he went bad and killed her.
Buuuuuut, didn’t we watch him give Vulture a second chance in Homecoming? Ok, it might be more difficult seeing his Aunt May die, but now we’re talking degrees of a character arc instead of the arc itself.
His arc wasn’t rooted in any real experience even on the movie’s own terms, never mind the trilogy’s own terms.
His most interesting mini-arc came with the realization that with his great powers comes great dangers to his friends, and wiping their memories was ultimately for the best, even though it was terrible for him.
But again, that arc occurs in the very beginning and very end of the movie; it’s simply not enough to merit serious Oscar consideration.
For me, the arc isn’t central to my enjoyment of the movie for what it’s trying to do. But it should be central to an Oscar nomination.
3)Is it even a good action movie?
The answer to me is no. It has good action scenes, but to be a good action movie, there needs to be a certain kinetic energy that drives the protagonists AND antagonists throughout the movie.
Both Spider-Man and the Sinister Five are mostly going through the motions during Act 2, with no real sense of urgency driving either side. For Spider-Man, Dr. Strange being stuck in the Mirror Dimension could have been the metaphorical ticking clock that created tension in figuring out solutions. Sure the three Spider-Mans are working together, but pretty much taking their time figuring out their plans and grieving over their family losses.
To be fair, this mostly worked if you bought in; the much bigger grievance is with the villains, so let’s get right to it:
“What the heck are the villains doing while the 3 Spider-Mans are meeting?”
Good action movies have both the hero and the villain actively engaging in the plot to heighten the stakes. ‘The Dark Knight’ featured Joker constantly moving around, creating and executing new threats against Gotham. Even Logan, the villains movement is mostly offscreen and not actively discussed, it becomes a chase movie for Logan, with stakes that are actively discussed.
In ‘No Way Home,’ the villains are trapped by Dr. Strange in a makeshift prison (which by itself is fine), in Happy Hogan’s apartment (which again, by itself is fine), but once they escape, and are free, what exactly are they doing? Getting coffee at Starbucks? Eating shawarma like the Avengers?
It’s nonsensical that they wouldn’t be up to SOMETHING, and plus, from a script POV, it doesn’t add any tension to the 3 Spider-Mans’ meeting and collaboration since they are not under the gun to stop anything.
If you’re too distracted picking your jaw off the floor watching the three Spider-Mans, you won’t care; but as a movie, it means something.
To be a good action movie, never mind a good movie, you can’t ignore the other side of the plot; it would be like if an NFL head coach completely ignored the defense heading into the Super Bowl and only cared about play-calling. You need both offense and defense to win the big game.
But wait, I’m not done yet evaluating it as an action movie:
For all the stakes the movie created, it sure wasn’t interested in exploring the ramifications of it.
Take, for example, Dr. Strange messing up his curse and allowing people from the multiverse inside this world. We saw the ramifications of 6 key Spider-Man villains entering this new world, as well as other spidermen.
Did anybody else come in? How many others? Is the world, or at least New York City in chaos because of this? It sure didn’t seem so according to the movie. Did people from the Tom Holland universe go off to other multiverses? If not, why not?
This is going to seem like nitpicking, but a good action movie at least attempts answers. That by itself isn’t a big deal because every single movie asks the audience to buy into the conceit of the premise to enjoy it, and if this is the conceit, that’s ok. But coupled with all the other issues listed, it is hard to ignore.
Let’s get to the last crucial point, which is, this movie existed for fan service (and possibly to introduce more elements of character crossovers, we’ll see).
When you think of this movie, you don’t walk away from it thinking of the excellent directing, acting, themes, or anything you typically think of when you see a Best Picture nominee.
It was designed as a sugar rush, and celebrated as a sugar rush. Any overarching theme was either recycled, redundant, or contradictory. If you want to evaluate it in terms of how a movie fan pleasers like ‘The Fugitive’ or ‘Toy Story 3’, you have to be about something more than fan service.
It’s not sufficient to generate billions of box office dollars and be well-liked by your fans. You have to make yourself more than just a movie; if you devote yourself to an ideal and commit to it, then you become something else entirely: an Oscar nominee.
The Dark Knight accomplished it.
So did Black Panther.
And you can make a case for Logan too.
It falls well short for ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’.
But don’t worry fans, based on this success, we’re going to get a whole lot of fan service MCU movies to come, and frankly, that means more to fans than winning an Oscar.