Around Christmas time, the newest Spider-man movie was released and received a wave of millions flocking– or swinging– to the theaters to see it. Avoiding spoilers, this new movie is about Peter Parker (Tom Holland) after his identity was revealed at the end of the last movie. In dealing with the aftermath of his exposure, Parker and his friends (played by Zendaya and Jacob Batalon) find challenge after challenge being thrown at them, pressuring Spider-man to go to Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to fix it.

When the spell goes wrong, the three teenagers work to fix the problems caused that become increasingly worse as the movie goes on. Though the premise sounds like a run-of-the-mill– albeit good– movie, there is much more going on that would spoil it for those who haven’t seen it yet. My summarizing skills may not be the best, so I will say plain and simple: it’s really, really good. 

So good, in fact, that Spider-man has broken records both at home and abroad, including becoming the first movie released during the pandemic to break $1 billion in the global box office– in only 12 days, making it the third-fastest film to reach that benchmark, tied with Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Thousands of theaters have played sold-out showings, with 38 million tickets sold as of December 26th. Though this is great news Spider-man, many other movies have been forced into Marvel’s shadow as a result. Movies such as Sing 2, the newest Matrix Installment, and King Richard have faced decent profit at best, very un-decent at worst. It seems like many are passing over new movies for  No Way Home as their first choice… and their second… and usually their third. Honestly, I don’t think we can blame them.

I saw the movie pretty early on in its release, and can personally confirm that it’s worth all of the talk. I think one of the best parts of the movie (no spoilers I promise) is the way Sony and the actors themselves were able to portray actual teenagers– it seems like many other movies and TV shows (ie: Euphoria) make it seem like high school and its students are glittery, saccharine, and as mature as the 20 somethings getting paid to pretend to be us.

All this does is make the actual teenagers feel like they’re missing out on a true high school experience, which is really just (A) a fabrication conjured by people whose memories of this time in their lives has been glorified in their subconscious, or (B) movies playing on high schoolers’ “FOMO” to draw them in and get more views. Even as they swing from buildings with in-human ability and fight villains in situations no teenager will ever find themselves in, Peter, MJ, and Ned embody our age group in all of our awkward, sarcastic, adolescent glory. It’s kind of refreshing in an acne-covered, hormonal, second-hand-embarrassment way.

I have seen quite a few movies this year, whether they were background noise for homework or a way to hang out with my family, and still found No Way Home to be one of my favorites. Be ready to laugh, cry, maybe cry some more, and then laugh again. If you haven’t seen it yet, make sure to stay for the end credits (and know everything there is to know about your friendly neighborhood Spider-man).