The Ringer-Verse - 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' Instant Reactions | The Midnight Boys

Episode Date: December 18, 2021

The Midnight Boys are riding for the most anticipated movie event of the year and giving their spoiler-filled thoughts on 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' (07:17). They discuss the film's early reception in being the biggest and best MCU film in a long time (25:46). They also discuss their favorite moments in the film, the big Easter eggs, the massive post-credits scene, and much more. Spoilers ahead, and enjoy the extra-large episode! Hosts: Van Lathan, Charles Holmes Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: TD St. Matthew-Daniel and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twice a week, Van Lathen and Rachel Lindsay dissect the biggest topics in black culture, politics, and sports on their show, Higher Learning. They discuss the most important and timely conversations while also frequently inviting guests on the podcast and occasionally debating each other. Check out Higher Learning on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Trimphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required.

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Into the ringerverse. This is of course the ringers nexus podcast feed for all things. We are Old Van Van, he of the receding hairline. We are Coke Baby Chuck, the 24-carried closer. We are Jomey, the explainer, Adirond. We are Steve Almond Joy, the oh-so-cuttally Christmas bear. Together, we are known as of the Midnight Boys. Programming Reminders. the House of R will give you a deep dive into Spider-Man,

no way home, bring a lunch pail. Because Joe and Mal are going at it. You might be there. Clear the calendars. Call out of work, okay? Use some PTO. All right? You're going to need the day.

It's a Monday. You don't have anything better to do. But hang out with Joe and Mal for 16 hours as they attempt to deep dive. this whale of a movie, this insane Marvel event. This buffet.

It's a buffet. It's a buffet. A little bit of everything. It's a smorgish board. You ever had a smorgas board before? Smorgas board. I've never been. A smorgish board?

Is that the ones with the accoutrements, the meats and the cheeses? Is that what that is? I don't know what a cheese board. I really don't know what a smorgish board is. I've never experienced it. I've never spent a sports board before.

Wednesday, the Midnight Boys will be back, giving you our thoughts on the Hawkeye finale. One more episode of Hawkeye left, and we know that this episode of Hawkeye is going to be 59 minutes, followed by the House of R doing a deep dive on Hawkeye the next Friday. Okay, so a lot of stuff going on. We are in the throes of fandom culture. right now. We got so much stuff to talk about.

Then, of course, there's going to be a low where there's nothing. But right now, no, there's going to be arcane because y'all keep asking us, you're going to talk about arcane. We love arcane here. It's just like, you know, you know what you've been waiting for. It's Spidey time. Come on. The people are demanding it. The people want their arcane pod. Do the people want Spider-Man no way home or do they want arcane? Let's go. Come on. We could talk about it. We got to do what we do, Jummy.

We got to do what we do. Today's show is an al-Biard. Biggie. It's just the show I used to watch it was on Univision. Don't ask me why I watched it. If you ever know the show, you know I watch it. It was called Sabado Gia Gante. Savalo gigante. Yeah, yeah, Sabadoiagante.

Don Francisco. It was a reason why I watched it. If you've ever seen the show, you know why. I think that show means Big Saturday or Big Sunday. I'm not sure which one. This is Big Friday on the Midnight Boy. Good Friday. Come on. Big Friday. Not good.

Big. This is bigger than good. This is Big Friday. We're giving you our thoughts and reactions on the long anticipated Spider-Man. No Way Home, guys. We saw this movie together as a family. And now it's time to get into what is the Super Bowl of the MCU for this year. All right. So a lot of people out there, you know, it's rough out there right now. And maybe some people aren't going to be able to see this movie into Saturday, Sunday, Monday. So we're going to do something new really quick. We are going to give our first reactions. No spoilers. It's going to be very, very quick. A couple sentences, everybody's going to go round robin about initial thoughts of what they thought. No spoilers. And then we're going to get into the movie. So, Van, you're up first. What did what did you think of the movie? No spoilers. It was great. It was one of the rare movies, any movie, but especially a Marvel movie that hits you on every single spot on the emotional spectrum. You laugh, you cry, you're wild, you're angry, all of those things. It worked completely.

It worked totally. Nothing is ever perfect, but this movie delivered on what I felt like it was going to be and should have been. Yeah, we talk a lot of shit. The Midnight Boys talk a lot of shit. I got to be real. We were up here worried about this film. We were really, really worried for a myriad of reasons about this film delivering. But let me tell you, baby, this was Amazon Prime shipping.

This was USPS, okay? This was FedEx. They delivered the package right on time for Christmas. I, like, this was an event, you know? You, Van, are you a theme, are you a theme park person? this was this was like a theme park right this was like waiting in line for the roller coaster as a kid being like is is it going to be as fun as I think it is it's going to be as fun as I think it is it's going to be it's going to be as fun as I think it is and it is it is they strap you in all the loopty loops are scary

I love this movie has there ever been a time when you got on a ride and it wasn't as fun as you thought it was going to be there's there's been times I've gotten on a ride where I'm like oh shit this is way too much for me this is this is not fun I'm freaking the fuck out like just we've never been on a bad ride once you get on the roller coasters, the roller coaster, right? It's like, you know, it's like, I've been on some rickety. I've been on some rickety roller coasters.

Jomey, Steve. One of the best movie experiences I've had in a very long time. There are moments where you'll remember where you were, you remember where you sat when you were in a theater, seeing something as monumental as a movie like this, and this one was one of them. Straight up, probably one of the best times you'll have

best event movie since Avengers Endgame. I'm going to say it. I would agree. I would agree. It's definitely one of those culmination moments that delivers on L fronts. I didn't say better, but best since. Jomi. Like everyone said,

just one of the greatest film viewing experiences. Probably, yeah, I've had since end game. It's that good. It's so much fun, so exciting. There's not much more we can say except if go see it,

go see it quickly. because it is that, it's that good and it's that fun. All right, now that we've gotten that out of the way, waxing poetic about a movie that we all enjoyed, can we get into the podcast now? Steve, can you please roll the spoiler warning? We're getting ready to talk about Spider-Man. You're listening to a reaction podcast.

The spoilers are coming. Now, final spoiler warning here. going to talk about this movie, all of the MCU, including Hawkeye, and every Spider-Man film ever made. So this is the most weighty, most bloated spoiler warning we've ever done. And it begins now as Chuck will continue in Midnight Boys tradition, giving you the need to know on Spider-Man No Way Home. It's something we like to call the Midnight Manifest. All right, guys, midnight manifest for Spider-Man No Way Home, directed by John Watts, written by Chris McKenna and Eric Summers. The movie begins right where Spider-Man far from home leaves off with Mysterio revealing Peter Parker's identity to the world.

Peter, MJ, Ned, and Aunt May are taken into custody and interrogated, but with the help of, Dun-Dun-Dun, Matt Murdoch, the charges are dropped. Van, were you surprised that Matt Murdoch showed up or? Because this was the leak. This was literally the leak photo that we've been seeing for months. I wasn't surprised at all. I was surprised that he wasn't in the interrogation room because, you know, that's kind of where people were matching up the shirt or whatever.

But no, I wasn't surprised at all if he was in the movie. As far as much as his intrigue and as fun as this movie was, one of the main bumbers was that there were really no surprises to me. I have been so much up on leaks and been up on it, like almost air. everything happened the way that I thought it would happen. Oh, it was the Leo DiCaprio pointing meme where I was just like, oh, that's the leak. But anyway, back to the Midnight Manifest. Unfortunately, Peter, MJ, and Ned are rejected from all of the colleges they planned on attending

together as a result of the news, the most important of which is MIT. The guilt-stricken Peter goes to Dr. Strains and asks if he can cast a spell to make the world forget that he's Spider-Man, but Peter distracts the former Sorcerer Supreme, Wong, takes over, who knows if he's qualified, and messes up the spell. Peter messes, fucks up the spell. After Dr. Strange realizes Peter didn't bother calling MIT to plead his case, kicks him out of the sanctum sanctum staturem, Peter tracks down an MIT administrator on the Alexander Hamilton Bridge to plead his case, but then is attacked by the Tobyverse versions of Doc Doc Doc and Green Goblin. Peter saves the day, but Dr. Strange reveals that people from across the different universes

who know that Spider-Man is Peter Parker have come to the MCU, along with Ned and MJ Pete tracks down Electro, Sandman, the Lizard, and lastly, Norman Osborne, who was hanging with Aunt May at feast. Aunt May convinces Peter to help cure all the villains against Dr. Strange's wishes.

A fight ensues, which Peter somehow wins, trapping Strange in the mere dimension, predictably the plan to cure the villains go awry and Aunt May is killed by Green Goblin. My man Van Lathan is going to go in on. this plan. You don't have to go in on it now, but then you have thoughts about, you have thoughts about it. I do. We're going to get into it. But anyway, MJ and Ned in a scene we'll discuss later, accidentally sling ring Andrew Garfield and Toby McGuire to his apartment in an

effort to help their Peter. Ned sling rings like this is the easiest shit ever, like it's breathing. We'll bring this up later, okay? Toby and Andrew and Jomi's about to, we have a lot of fucking smoke for Jomey. Okay. Stay tuned. Anyway, Toby and Andrew give Tom a pep talk, a team up to cure their villains with the final showdown at the new Statue of Liberty. The three Spider-Man are successful, but Tom makes the ultimate sacrifice and tells Dr. Strange to make sure the whole world forgets who he is,

including MJ and Ned. Despite telling MJ, he'll remind her of who he is. Peter decides he can't do it when he sees his friends living their new lives and planning to go to MIT in the fall. A newly broke Tom goes to his rundown apartment, fashions himself a suit out of cloth, and embarks on a new life as Spider-Man. And last, but certainly not least, we have Comic Book Corner.

Guys, how surprised were you that we got the three Spider-Men pointing at each other meme at the high school? I wasn't really surprised. I was surprised how it happened. Like, it wasn't like they were all wearing the Spider-Man suit. So when it happened, I was just like, whoa, was that the meme? It just came out of nowhere. I was like, oh, okay, cool, cool, cool. I was more, wow, that's super cool, than I was.

like really surprised by it. I was surprised I pulled it off. Like it could have been corny and I was like, oh, this guy's like... They always pull it off, man. They always get it. Crack it. Otmey works at Feast, which serves the less fortunate, which in the comics is run by the villain, Mr. Negative. Electro mentions that there must be a black Spider-Man somewhere in the universe,

which is the second time in the Hollandverse. They have teased, Miles Morales, at this point, stop being a tease. And last was certainly not least, Toby and Andrews back in four. It's a couple of Easter eggs, including Toby calling Andrew Amazing in reference to Spider-Man debuting an amazing fantasy number 15 and his eventual solo comic Amazing Spider-Man. And this one, shout out to Screen Crush, strout to Game Radar. I wanted to talk to you about this van. I didn't realize that the whole cracking the back scene was a call back to Toby having a messed up

back during the original Spider-Man. I totally forgot that happened. So they almost cast Jake Gyllenhaal because he messed up his back. Sea Biscuit, I think he messed up his back. We're falling off a horse or riding a horse or something like that. I remember it's a huge deal. They were always going to have to go to Jake Gyllenhaal. I remember they made fun of it during the movie where he fell and he heard his back in the movie.

But this is a callback to that. And let's face it, he's a little bit longer in the tooth. He's more of my generation. And so sometimes I'll box all day or do something. or even a really long walk and come back and I'll tell Kalika, I'd be like, yo, my McBakian hurts. I call it my McBakian whenever it's hurting. So, yeah, it's a funny thing.

That is, the Midnight Manifest. We didn't even touch everything that happened in this movie. I tried to condense this movie into a short plot and probably failed, but that's a Midnight Manifest. That is the Midnight Manifest. I think you did a fantastic job. Okay, midnight manifest being what it is, we got something other midnight to talk about.

Before we get to our gigantic questions on the film, we, of course, would be the Midnight Boys if we did not rank it on the Midnight Meter. The time when they're going to kill us, every episode, they kill us. Stop being self-conscious about it. Let's just go in. Let's go on to the Midnight Meter with confidence, Charles.

Who cares if they kill us? Who cares? These are our thoughts, confident. Okay. The Midnight Meter is where we, the Midnight Boys, rate a film on the scale of 1 to 12. Now, it's a normal skill. of 1 to 10.

But if a movie goes to the next level, it can earn extra points. Dark Knight is a 12? Dark Night is a 12. Infinity War is a 12. I say endgame is a 12th. Charles says 11. I say Winter Soldier is a 12.

TD says it's an 11 because it didn't have the crazy box office, right? But anything that is game changing, it goes above 10 in the midnight meter. all that being said, started with Charles. No, I'm going less. I'm going less. I'm going less.

Why? I'm going less. Can I not go last? But why do you want to go last? Because I have a reason I want to go last. I have a reason I want to go last. Fine. Can y'all let me live?

That's fine. All that being said, we'll start with fucking Steve now. What do you guys rate No Way Home on the Midnight meter? I want to give this an 11. I do. I thought about it. I was like, oh, this is probably like a nine. This was really good. This was fun. And I'm like, wait a minute. Come on. This brought in all three Spider-Men in one movie. And it gave us probably some of the most electrifying moments that I've ever been in the theater. This is absolutely an 11. I can't think of a movie that's going to probably top this in the next five or 10 years that'll make me this excited again. Like this is one of the best movie-going experiences I've ever had and it deserves it. Come, me.

Ooh. Okay. So I've put a lot of thought into this. Like so much thought, right? And I want, I want to give it a 12, right? I want to give it a 12. Don't you pull that trigger, Joe. I can't do it.

It's an 11. It's an 11. We'll talk about it later in the pod, but it's an 11. It's that good. It just needs a little, just a little war, little nitpicky stuff. But it's definitely 11. It's so much fun. Like Steve said,

like I don't know the next time I'll go into a theater and leave the way I felt leaving that movie. It was that electric. I'm going with nine. I give the movie a nine out of ten. Now, I'll tell you about it. This is the deal.

There are a lot of different metrics that go into the midnight meter. And one of them is reception. It's box office is how big the movie. is we don't we don't currently know to what degree this movie is going to be right now as a film as a film as an experience it's a nine out of ten for me a nine out of ten for me nine out of ten nine out of ten uh as a marvel moment it can easily get to ten or eleven in the coming weeks but just me having seen the movie as a film i give it a nine out of ten charles what about you

All right, guys. I'm having a crisis of conscience because I've been debating it internally. I was going to give it an 8 out of 10. Still a good score. 80%. But as the days have gone on, I'm floating in 9.

I think it deserves a 9. I think if I was being a complete nerd about it, it would be an 11 or it would be around that area competing with end game. But I have to factor in the movie. So, suck between, And are we saying that we can't give half scores? No, we cannot give half scores.

No half scores. No half scores. No half scores. And no half stepping. No. All right. You know, I'm going to pull the shirt. I'm going to give it a nine out of ten. Nine out of ten.

90% love this movie. Delivered on everything. Nine out of ten, I'm sticking to it. And that's what you wanted us to wait for? That's what I was just, I was a big deal. I thought you had something. No. I thought you had something that was going to be transcendent in some way as

so you can give it the same score. I gave it, Charles. Charles, Chuck Wagon, come on. So I have a question, right? I have a question for Van and Charles specifically. We have established that anything above a 10 is reserved only for timeless game-changing films.

Was this movie not timeless and or game-changing? I'll be honest with you, not to me. Because it depends on what you mean by game-changing, right? So when you say, so Winter Soldier, obviously, like Winter Soldier ushered in a whole new era of Marvel filmmaking, right? Whole new era of it, Marvel filmmaking, Winter Soldier ushered in, okay? Black Panther, which you guys have as 11s and 12s, like I don't have as an 11 or 12. I have Black Panther as a 9, maybe even 8. we've discussed this.

Like we've discussed this before, right? Wow. But even though to that point, Black Panther cannot be denied was one of the biggest cultural moments in film history. Okay. Then when you go with movies like Endgame,

which is the culmination of eight, nine years of story, the biggest on-screen battle we've ever seen before is a complete reset. Then yeah, Infinity War, which might be a superior, movie to end game, but still brings in all of these elements. It's the first time you're packing all of these heroes into one movie.

This movie to me is a game changer for Spider-Man, but for the overall MCU, it's really not. You know what I mean? It's for the character of Spider-Man itself. For as big as this movie is, it has more to do specifically with Spider-Man than any other other movies really have, which is a strength, a big strength of it, because it's not It's not tying into the rest of the MCU so, so directly, right? But to me, because of that, I don't look at this movie. I look at this movie as being the biggest Spider-Man event it can be.

But I don't look at the movie as being a game changer for the MCU. And I also say this. This movie still, like, in-game and Infinity War, those are the best Avengers movies, right? Those are the best movies with the Avengers in them. I don't think this is the best Spider-Man movie. As great as this movie is, we're going to do that later, but I don't think this is the best Spider-Man movie.

I think there's still two Spider-Man movies, maybe even three, that are better than this movie. I mean, similar to Van's point, I think that this movie delivers. I love this movie. It was an event. I was cheering. I was like, oh, my gosh, they did this thing.

But it's in the shadow of two movies. this movie, I don't think, would be possible without Avengers Infinity War and Endgame as those type of movies that you look towards as all superhero movies are going to be compared to them in terms of spectacle. Did they deliver on this years and years and years promise? And that's where you get something like Spider-Man No Way Home

where you're like, oh, this is delivering on decades and decades of Spider-Man movies and it succeeds. But the other movie, and I'll ask you guys this, that it's in the shadow of, is Spider-Ver. Joe me, Steve, be honest, do you think that this movie is better than Spider-Verse? Because it does a very similar thing. No, and I think that it's both a fair and unfair comparison. Fair in the sense that it's clearly a Spider-Man movie that we all loved and adored

and probably would put a, if not at the top of any Spider-Man movie list close to it. I think that this is in a different league in terms of live-action Spider-Man films because it directly reflects on the oldest and most treasured parts of pop culture Spider-Man lore that we have known on screen ever since. While Into the Spider-Verse's a magnificent collage of pretty much everything that we know about Spider-Man, this is about Spider-Man in our cultural moments and relevance as we knew him for decades prior. But here's the thing. The reason I bring up Spider-Verse is because in Endgame and Infinity War is that for it to get to that 11 or 12 range,

it would have to be as good if not better than those movies. And it's not. And that's not me trying to say that it's bad because it's not. That's just me saying that it doesn't have that last like 10% that makes me think of those movies as like perfect artifacts of superhero storytelling. And that's fine. It's still a great movie.

Most fun you're going to have in theater. Also, I would caution people not to kind of use that now when it's, the strength of Spider-verse, the strength of it, was that people would always say it's the best Spider-Man movie ever. And I would say, sometimes when people would say that,

I would say, well, you know, animated movies can do things differently. It's almost not fair to compare those movies to some of the movies we're getting now. And they'd be like, no, we're not talking about that.

I'm talking about the fact that it's the best Spider-Man movie ever made. Just on its face, the moments that happened, the stuff that goes, and now we can't say because we got something

and let's face it, it was going to be hard for this movie to be as good as I've said this more. Comparing a film, like animation is a cheat code to me. Animation is a cheat code. It's easy to pull out emotions from animation. It reminds you of when you were a kid. You can do more things in an animated movie. You can get away with more things in an animated movie.

You can make a fair statement that if Into the Spider-Verse were a live-action movie, that it wouldn't even work. To me, now that that's been set, the question then remains when you're talking about game-changing Spider-Man movies, does this movie meet that standard? And I don't think there are very many people

that would say that it did. You know what I mean? And I think the Spider-Man 2 is better than Spider-Man-No way home. So it's not that this is not the movie that we wanted or needed at all. But if we're talking about comparisons in terms of every...

And I'd say that maybe even Spider-Man one still, it's still very close. You know what I mean? And we'll talk about some reasons why I might feel that way later on. But we're just being honest about it in a very sanitized way, appreciating and celebrating this film as much as we are. But at the same time, talking about it the way the Midnight Boys talk about it. I think that's a fair way to assess the movie and its place in not only the MCU, but in Spider-Man culture.

Can I say really it's hilarious that we're defending the fact that we both thought that this movie was a 90%? I feel like we're qualifying the fact that we just really, really liked this movie too much. Because we're going to be gushing in like five seconds about all the amazing things that were put on screen before us right now. Like in my person, it's pretty good. Right. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable Internet means everything for your business.

And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with Internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust. Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Service is not available in all areas. Let's get into it right now. Huge movie. Huge movie. We were worried about it, right? Made it work. 95% critic score. 99% audience score. 99% audience score.

This is now currently, and we don't know where it will dip. This is currently now, the second well, second best review movie on Rotten Tomatoes. The only one that's above it is Black Panther. Are you surprised, Van,

that right out of the gate, this is like, people are like, all right, this is the best thing ever. Now. Because right now it's above, it's above end game.

And I was like, oh, man, this is, wow, okay. No, I don't think, I'm not surprised at all. I think the reason, I'm not surprised is because,

like you watch something and you review it but a lot of times when you watch something and you review it's about feelings right? Yeah. And I think people have recency bias, right? So nobody remembers everybody now remembers Avatar as a movie that was pretty good, whatever. I remember how people felt when they just came out of Avatar.

Oh. Their heads were knocked off. Yeah. When they just came out of Avatar, now that there's been some time from Avatar, right? You've seen Avatar over and over again. It's very long. When people just had came out of Avatar, they were floored. I remember they were floored.

Oh, my God. It's a wild to think that we were, like, Avatar was like our movie crack. Everybody was just like, have you seen? Have you seen Avatar? Now nobody even. What is done? Now nobody even really. talks about the movie, right? And so

for me, looking at the situation now, there's been some time between this movie and in game, and people haven't felt this way in a movie in a long time. They haven't had that feeling. And so if they look back on it now,

they're going to forget some of the moments in end game that made them go, wow, oh my God, because the last thing that they had was Spider-Man, Toby, like, Toby, Andrew, and Tom Holland all in the same room. Big huge moments, big huge losses,

all these villains together. It's just the way that it goes. I think over time as people, this movie isn't as good as in game. It's not to me. But I think over time, as people get a chance to get a little further away from the film,

they'll look at it and understand that it's really, really fantastic and as the most fun you've had since in game. What about you? Oh, it's just, I'm not surprising. and I do think that recency bias plays a lot into it because the whole question we had going into this movie, can they pull it off? Can they pull off this many villains?

Can they pull off three Spider-Man? Is there any way that you can make a decade-spanning movie where it's not just you're getting the Avengers together? You are getting actors from different franchises together and they all work. They all have chemistry and they all deliver on the promise of in our minds what we thought seeing three Spider-Man on the screen

for the first time would feel like. And I do think that is a big emotion that we're still on that high. I'm very, very interested once that high dissipates, well, people still think that this is better than end game. Well, they think it's even better

than Infinity War. You know what I mean? I just don't know. And that's what I'm actually interested in as we go forward. Absolutely. Absolutely. So let's talk about that. How did John Watts

Kevin Feige Amy Pascal and company pulled this off with as much talk as there's been around this movie it was just much speculation as there have been around this movie they made this work

they really nailed this how in the world could they deliver to us fanboys us rabbit Marvel addicts like they did

like how do you feel like they were able to do this. I think the simple answer is they went with something universal or something that a lot of people experience, which is that moment in high school, that fear of when all of your friends are about to leave you or going away or the future is unclear, you know, for your whole life, there is a sequence of it. You go to kindergarten, elementary, middle school, then high school, and you're with a lot of the same kids, and you're all going through this experience. And then for the first time, you get that feeling of like, oh, my life might be on a different trajectory than the people that I've known for so long and the love for so long.

And that's something that's such a universal feeling. And I think it was so smart making this movie being about that moment. Like, this movie is about three Spider-Man. But it really, with Peter, people forgetting at the end, like MJ and Ned, forgetting who he is, that's thematically the feeling of going to college for first time. Are these people in my hometown going to forget who I am?

Is the world going to forget who I am? If I'm not centered in where I was born and where I was raised. And when you get Andrew and Toby coming in as older, more grizzled versions of Tom, that thematically too works. It's not just, hey,

we need to think of a plot reason to get these other two Spider-Men in there. There's a story reason of them being like, hey, we're older, life is going to get harder, we're all going to lose something, but you're still going to be who you are. You're still going to be Spider-Man.

Whether the world knows who you are, whether your loved ones know who you are, you're still Spider-Man, great power with great responsibility. That's still a truth. And I think if they didn't get that right, none of this movie works. What about you, Van?

The brilliance of the movie doesn't try to separate itself from us. For all the criticisms that I've had of Tom Holland, Spider-Man, I think the one thing that they really do in his movie as well is they just make him one of us, right? And this movie really does that. So let's talk about it for a second. A couple of moments where I feel like this movie, so this movie knows in each Spider-Man what the audience feels about them.

Even with Toby McGuire, Toby McGuire comes across like he did in the original movie, but even more so, he comes across gentle. He comes across wide. he comes across, like, completely antithetical to his reputation in Hollywood in the last 10 to 15 years. Seriously. Seriously, they know what we want to see from Toby McGuire. They know that Toby McGuire we fell in love with. It's played up on here with Andrew Garfield. He has the most charisma in Spider-Man.

He has the, he's been the most charismatic Spider-Man. And it's been hard because he was almost like a, I don't know. would say, I would compare him. He was almost like the Grant Hill of Spider-Men. People don't remember this. People don't remember the fact that like when Michael Jordan was leaving the league, they were saying that Grant Hill was going to be the next Michael Jordan.

You guys don't remember that. Like they laid, like before Kobe got there, before Kobe actually took it, they were like, Grant Hill can do all of these things. And then things unforeseen to Grant just derailed his trajectory. as the next guy. So people kind of forget now how good Grant Hill actually is, how actually was during that time.

People forget now for that moment in time how dominant and amazing a player he was because his run and his claim to that mantle ended so abruptly. And then you had somebody come behind him who embodied that a little bit better than what he did and became a generational player. If you ever take the time to actually go back and look at him and watch him,

or if you see what he's able to do in his career, you remember, hey, that guy was great. That's kind of how Andrew Garfield is. Andrew Garfield came along, and I remember going to see the Amazing Spider-Man and going, hey, that was pretty good. But it wasn't really what I wanted. I wasn't really ready at that point to pass the mantle on for somebody else.

I wasn't ready for there to be a new Spider-Man. It seemed rush. It seemed kind of thrown together. And then in the second movie, let's face it, he tweaked his ankle. So the movie itself tweaked its ankle, didn't know what it wanted to be, right? So now because of the way things ended and because the run of excellence was very short, we forgot that the guy at the point was actually really good at it. He was actually really good.

And this was almost like putting him back in the league, letting him cook, and putting him up against two other Spider-Man, not up against, but on the screen as two other Spider-Men. and we get a chance to appreciate him. The movie is bringing us back in. It's letting us re-evaluate something. And then with Tom Holland, some of the other things that it did was like, like you said, the problems are very relatable.

They're very human. They're not problems that a billionaire would have. They're not problems that a God would have. They're not problems that a guy who has an unstoppable beast living inside of him would have. They're very human problems. And he has to go through extraordinary, measures, superhuman measures to solve human problems.

And that is so relatable because sometimes us as people, we feel like we have to be superhuman just to pay the rent. We have to be superhuman just to get our kids to school, to get them home, to get them back safe. We feel like that takes superhuman efforts. And a lot of times it does. So watching him essentially put the entire multiverse in danger for his. friends and what he believes in, it's just very, very whole.

It's a very whole theme to the film. And I feel like in the end, with everyone, that's why it works. I mean, let's be real, too. It's a bold choice. You spent three movies at this point building up Peter as the successor of Iron Man. He has the technological suit. He has the good job. He has this life that we've criticized a lot for.

not being the essence of Peter. His life for a while seems great. And then they pull that switch of like, oh, it means more now when he makes the ultimate sacrifice that he has to go back alone to a shitty apartment. He doesn't have Aunt May. He doesn't have a high-tech suit. He has to sew his own suit.

That emotionally worked for me because we've seen for so many movies. Tom just kind of be this plucky kid who has it all. And when it's ripped away, you're like, oh, how dare you? you, how dare you make our Spider-Man one of the pores like us? Like, a little shed a tear. His apartment, by the way, is very, very bad. Like, come on, Tom, Tom. Go on Street Easy.

Go on Street Easy. Go on Zillow. Like, come on, man. We could get you a little nicer apartment. He got no money. He don't got anything saved? Saved from what? He's in high school.

This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows Winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer. unless you hit the beach or go camping, then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips.

Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. So Peter One is still the main focus of this movie, Peter One,

who is of course Tom Hollins, Peter Parker. Charles, review Tom Holland's performance and growth as Spider-Man. We've been critical. What do you think now that Spider-Man No Way at Home finishes his three-picture arc? My man got a little hair on his chest, okay?

Without Iron Man, like, I know Iron Man's not far from home, but I still feel like the thing that's so hard about that movie for me to wrap my mind around is it's still kind of an Iron Man movie. And this is kind of the first Spider-Man movie where we get to see Tom have to deal with a bunch of problems almost by himself. And I think that's how you get, at least in the first half of the movie, it shines because he has to deal with beating Doc

Doc Locke and capturing all these villains before Toby and before Andrew come on. So seeing him get his ass beat by Green Goblin was night. I was just like, all right, finally, like, we're taking the kiddie gloves off. Finally, like, you got to go up against some real villains. That's what we've always been asking for. And, like, emotionally, Tom brought it, bro. Tom brought it. I was proud of him.

this is what I thought about Tom Holland's character. I still felt like he was overwhelmed at times and he was certainly to me overshadowed by the other two Spitties that were in this movie at times. But I'll tell you this. Tom Holland as an actor, they did exactly what they needed to do in this movie.

They took him from being Spider-Boy to Spider-Man in this movie. And what really took him from being Spider-Boy to Spider-Man is it's not that he didn't have help in this movie because he had a lot of help throughout the whole movie, right? Like, but when it came down to the biggest decisions that he had to make, the biggest moments, he had to go it alone. He had to go it alone and make decisions that were the hardest thing that you would ever have to do.

Think about sacrificing everyone you've ever loved for their safety, the safety of the world. That's a big boy decision. that's a man's decision. Put on the underrease. That is the decision to go living that apartment we're talking about. Make your own suit. To give up all the Stark Tech.

Decision to try to cure these guys and put everyone in harm's way, which we're going to talk about later on in our nitpick section. But all of those decisions that he's making, he's making big leverage decision. He doesn't really have anybody to call. He's not texting Tony Stark, trying to say Tony's gone. Happy's in a haze because he's got his his whole mojo destroyed by Aunt May's rejection.

He's really doing his thing, along with, of course, Ned and MJ, but he's really having to be that hero and figure out how you're going to do that. And that was very important, not just for this film, but for the future of the Spider-Man franchise.

There are rumors that he's going to come back and play Spider-Man a couple of more times. I think that every Spider-Man movie Beyond this will be as good or better than No Way Home. I think that they've set clear ground rules and a clear narrative structure, a clear world for this character,

and there are so many more things they can do with him now than they could. They essentially rebooted him. And I enjoy what they've been able to do. Him out of the shadow of Iron Man works. Like it works.

Like, man, shout out Tom Holland. Really quick, you brought up something before we get into other Spidey's. Aunt May turned Happy down. What do you think Happy did to fuck this up? I don't think I don't think Amay was really into it. I think she probably saw Happy getting out to shower one day and was like, you know, this ain't for me. You know, she loves Happy. You know, she loves Happy.

Or maybe she saw Happy eating like a pastrami sandwich or something like that. She was like, that's probably not mine, you know. Amaz. Amaz, you know, and then, you know, Jamie Fox is around. She's looking at Jamie Fox later on. She's like, I made the right decision because Jamie got glow up. For real. She saw the hair line.

She saw the hair line. She's like, she saw the Tim. She's like, what my name? Jamie got a line. Jamie got the whole thing like, electrocute me. All right. Utt May becomes Uncle Ben in this universe.

Spoiler alert. Upmay dies here. How powerful of a moment is this? Jomi's shout out May up in the heavens. Appreciate you, Jomey. Jomey, take a cold shower. It's been a horny week for you. An important moment is this.

And are you on board with the decision to kill May in this that they're a Spider-Man M-C-U movie? I think this is a powerful moment and I get why they needed to do it. Did I like the choice? No. I have no problem with making,

of giving Aunt May a lot of the emotional work that Uncle Ben usually has. But that, I guess, how do I put this? Now I'm kind of confused about how this Peter became because if Uncle Ben isn't the one to say with great power comes great responsibility

how, what is the inciting incident that kind of like pushes Tom to become Spider-Man? And I also just think that we bring it up. A lot of comic fans get mad that we bring it up. Here's the thing. I don't know if killing off one of the few women characters

in your movie to propel the man into the final act into having to take revenge or learn something about himself is my favorite movie choice. I was like, I was just like, I get like storywise why this is happening. I just, there had to be a better way.

Like I honestly, why couldn't have been happy? You could have gotten the same result from happy than Aunt May. It was a little weird of a choice to me. So what you're saying is you're okay with them killing happy. I'm okay with killing Abby, yeah. But you're not okay with them killing Aunt May

and it's solely because Aunt May is a woman. That's not what I'm saying. I'm asking. Because like you said, you said killing on a woman. Let's be real. You said killing off a woman to jump off your third act is something that you have a little bit of a problem with. It could have been happy.

That makes it seem like the fact that happy as a man is the sole reason why killing him is better. Is that, I'm just asking. Let's put it this way. How many women are in the Spider-Man movie with top rules. There are two. There's MJ and there is Aunt May.

And in comic books, it's brought up a lot. It happened in Green Lantern of fridging. Of Green Lantern's girlfriend was stuck in a fridge by a villain. And a trope that generally tends to happen

is that for a man, a superhero male to learn something about himself, to go through tragedy, there has to be a woman that dies. And in this movie, you only have two women in this whole thing that get top, top billing.

For it to be Aunt May, I'm just like, I don't, is that really the choice you want to make? There's a lot of men in this movie. Like, what emotionally is happy really doing at this point? Iron Man is fucking gone. Like, it's not just because Aunt May is a woman. It's also because was this set up in the other two movies?

Because in the previous movies, we kind of got in like Civil War, we got some inference that there was an Uncle Ben, that Aunt May has gone through a lot of things. I don't want to put her through anything else. Otmay was set up as one type of character as like this strong parent in his life who's gone through a lot.

Now making her Uncle Ben is a little bit of a fast pivot because she was not set up as that character in the last two movies. Fair enough. I personally hated the move. I hated it. I'll save it for nitpicks. I did like the move because of number one,

why she died and why a lot of this stuff happens. I don't think it's very logical. And then number two, I personally think that at the end, putting Peter in a world where he is all by himself, like totally by himself, where he doesn't have anyone, even Aunt May, let's be a little tougher on him than I thought that they would be as writers. Now, I enjoy the fact that, you know, he's starting from scratch, but I personally feel like Aunt May, the character of Aunt May is a lot more useful alive,

course they've played with her death and things like that in the comics. I think she's a lot more useful alive. I think she represents a reprieve. She represents some wisdom. She represents a sense of safety and normalcy for Peter. And I'm wondering who they're going to bring in to be that now that she's gone. But once again, it's still, we both have to admit, was an incredibly emotionally effective scene when they killed her.

When the glider hit her, I just felt she was dead. I was like, something's happening here. Something like they're going to get rid of her men here. And then finally, when she died, it was an amazing scene. When I thought about it, I was actually very bummed out that she died. Very, very bummed out that she died. But to be honest with you, even if she didn't die with Strangest Spell at the end of the movie, she wasn't going to know him anyway.

I will ask you this. If we get another solo Tom movie, it does put us in this weird place where Spider-Man more so than any other superhero, you learn about his morals and who he is by his cast.

So you're going to have a really, really tough time without MJ, without an Ed, without an Aunt May showing us who this new Spider-Man is because we learn about him in like the original Toby movies because he's worried about Aunt May, because he's worried about her having a better life,

paying for her bills, all of these things. Not that that's not there. I'm very interested in how you write yourself out of that, out of that emotional box. But the movie, it was an emotional part. I get why they did. Absolutely, absolutely. More battle-ready Spider-Man here.

You see Spider-Man using the Spidersenses a lot, and you see Spider-Man pulling off a lot of victories on the solo tip that maybe, you know, he shouldn't, We haven't talked at all about Dr. Strange's role in this movie yet. But Spider-Man best Dr. Strange, I would argue twice. I'd argue with Dr. Strange separated his physical, you know, the plain thing where he puts you out and he takes you in the other realm. And he could not grab the ruin from him. That was Spider-Man's, an innate show of Spider-Man's power, because I believe it was the Spider-Sense in that situation that was keeping the ruin away from him.

And of course, when they get to the rear dimension, Spider-Man out thinks Dr. Strange and beats him. So this is a Spider-Man that is up against the lot. It's him, essentially, for the first part of it, it's him, Ned, and MJ, and they are not only facing off against all of these villains, but he also, in a way, has to face off against Dr. Strange. He pulls it off.

So do you feel like this was probably the most battle-tested, the most ready for the act? ready for the fight Spider-Man that we've gotten in these last three movies? Hell yeah. I was ready for it. I was ready for it. Tom pulled it off. In the movie, there's a, there's a joke where Aunt May and Happy Walk In on MJ and Tom without a shirt on. They think they're having sex. We're getting ready to. Tom looks ripped. He got buff for this. I think a lot of people were always like, man, Tom looked like a little boy. We'd be like he's a spider boy. Man, my man was was getting it in. I guess my only.

thing, and we talk about power scaling a lot, is like, I don't think you had this many issues with it, but I'm just like, I don't know if Dr. Strange is going out this sad. Like, Dr. Strange is going up against Ebony Ma. Like, Dr. Strange is like the sorcerer Supreme, one of the best sorcerers in the world.

And for Spider-Man to kind of get the best of him, I'm just like, I get it. It's Spidey's movie, but a little cheap, but hey. We talked a little bit about the best Spider-Man. We actually lost, thanks to me, a midnight court about this. How was this performance from Tom Holland solidified him as Spider-Man to you?

Has this performance by Tom Holland solidified him as Spider-Man to you? Especially being that he shared screen time with the other two Spider-Man. Do you feel like he took Spider-Man by the reins in this movie? If I'm going to be real, if I'm going to be real, Andrew Garfield ate his launch. Like, Andrew Garfield came in as the lowest-ranked Spider-Man, like as the one that When we were debating best Spider-Man, we were talking about Toby. We were talking about Tom. We ain't even think about Andrew Garfield.

And my man came off the bench drop 40. He was just like, nah, this is my movie now, Tom. He's like, I'm the captain now, Tom. That to me, like, I get it. Like, Tom, for now, is the Spider-Man. He's going to have the biggest movie of all the Spider-Man. He's going to be in more movies than all of them. For a generation, he is Spider-Man.

But if I'm saying in my heart, you can't let, you can't let somebody else come on, your court, the court that was fashioned for you, and outplayed. Like, let's be real. I want to get Joe Me and Steve on this one. Just, just, I want to get Joe me and Steve on this. I want to start with Steve. There's been some faces made. I'm looking at it now.

Steve, do you feel like Spider-Man was out Spider-Man in this movie? No. I think if we talk about balance, I think if we talk about the things that we want to see from all three, Tom Holland played his role to perfection here. Because a lot of the choices that he made, You're going to talk about in nitpicks where essentially the entire world and universe has to be sacrificed for the sake of Peter to save these three villains. And it came at the cost of this. Tom Holland is, we keep forgetting, is probably the most young and naive teenager of these three Peters.

And I think that the lessons that he's learned because of these three is probably the biggest thing that looms on this movie. And it's to the benefit of it. And I think that's why to me, he's probably ascended in the ranks of Spider-Man, probably eclipsing Toby, in my opinion, of the lessons learned because of what it costs to be Spider-Man. But this is story. I'm talking about performance. I'm talking about somebody coming in with one-third of the time. Andrew has one-third of the time.

And, like, we thought nothing of him. We are just like, we want to see all of them together. But Andrew is like, all right, it's cool. He's tagging along. And by the end of it, I was like, oh, no, like, if we're just talking. about in a vacuum, you are probably the best Peter Parker. In a vacuum, you didn't have the best movies. But if we're talking about performance, you are probably the best Peter Parker.

I push back on that diner scene at the end of the movie when he's debating whether or not to tell Ned and MJ who he is. The emotions that go through Tom Holland's face, very gut-wrenching. And that's somebody that can handle that. And I could definitely think that Tom Holland's earned his spot for sure. I'm not saying he hasn't. I'm just saying I'm big in up my man, Andrew Jomey. I compare it to game seven of the 2016 NBA finals. LeBron, Kyrie, Kevin Love, your big three per se, right?

Dobie is Kevin Love, you know, he's there. He's doing his thing, you know what I'm saying? We like, we respect him enough. Be like, all right, he's out here doing his thing. Andrew is Kyrie in the sense of that. Like, he hit the big shot. In terms of performances, his performance was great. you know, we came in, when we look,

we think about like all the Three Spider-Man, their conversations were like, man, Andrew was so funny, da-da-da. But who was the finals MVP? Who had the block? It's Tom.

You know? And he was great. I mean, throughout the entire film, like Steve said, just him being like so vulnerable with his emotions, with Aunt May and with his friends,

you know, forgetting about him. That scene with Zendaya at the, like, toward the end of the movie where she's like, Like, you'll tell me I love you again.

And he's just like, that's not. All right. So I'm going to raise you one point from the movie. You're saying that part was better than Andrew saving MJ and looking at her and finally getting to complete that arc of life. I don't know, man. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. That's what he's got the shot, right?

I don't know. I don't know, man. I'll be honest with you. This is why this is an interesting conversation. Was he overshadowed? Yes. of course he was overshadowed because Andrew Garfield's a better actor than Tom Holliday

Like he He is Andrew Garfield's a better actor than Tom Holland is He's funnier He's got a little bit But still though It was still his movie I'm not debating that It is still Tom's movie

Yeah it was still his movie and there's still enough there For you to appreciate the fact That he has he has taken Spider-Man Like as much shit as I've given him, he has taken Spider-Man. He is Spider-Man. Like, he is Spider-Man. Now, I'll tell you one thing. I left this movie wanting another Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movie almost as much as I want a Tom Holland sequel to Spider-Man.

Like Tom, I want another Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movie. I think Andrew Garfield, even at 38, I think he's vending. indicated his Spider-Man run, and I want to see him with these creatives around him, with a better understanding of the character, with a more established universe with the rules and the villains, and everything is woven together a little bit more. I want to see him as Spider-Man now. Toby, he was great. Not so much. Andrew Garfield, though, I don't know if he'll do it because Tick-Tick-Bomb is going to be a big deal next year or whatever, but I would love for you. to see him as Spider-Man again.

Wait, can I just be real? Because I think we all agree. Like, Tom Holland is the number one Spider-Man. It's just like after this movie, what it does, what it says about the character, him being able to play it for so long. Yes. But what I will say is, I want to shout out Andrew Garfield because Andrew Garfield was in a shitty situation.

He was like an amazing player going to like the last team on the NBA. Like, yeah, you're going to put up a lot of numbers, but nobody gives a fuck. So him being able to prove that, like, a lot of Tom Holland shit is luck. And that's not me taking anything away from his talent. But he's like him being a part of the MCU and being able to work with Figuke and all of these filmmakers that understand how to make superhero movies now is works for his benefit. You know what I mean? Whereas like Andrew Garfield does it have to be as good.

Yeah. And he's still good. But it's like, like what we say about everything. It's like the MCU works because it's not always about the actors. You can plug in so many different people. And because you have a system working, they're going to make sure you succeed. You're not going to fall on your face. Oh, it's almost as if the MCU could recast really big roles.

All right. That's not this pocket. It's not a black center box. Almost as if the MCU can recast really big roles and things will be okay rather than taking some of the characters that are beloved to us away forever because of real life. Relax. Let's talk about the two new Spider-Man. We've already talked about him a little bit.

Andrew Garfield's incredible. How an all-time MCU scenes, how incredible was the reveal? I'm smiling right now even thinking about it. How incredible was the reveal of Andrew Garfield? We were all in a theater together. People were losing it, committing. all kinds of different hoops and hollers and things. Where do you rank that as far as MCU reveals?

I think it has to be top five. Like it's up there. I don't know where it ranks in terms of like cap wielding Neil and year, but it's like it's not better than that, but it's it's up there. It's top five. Okay, well, let's talk about it. Let's rank them.

I'm going to throw some things out. I'm going to, let's play a quick game of this or that, or is this better? Okay. Andrew Garfield's reveal. Is it better than bring me Thanos? Yes. This is for everyone.

Is it Charles? Yes. Jomey? No. Steve? Yes. Okay. Is it better than cap-wielding meal near?

No. No. Steve. No. Is it better than Avengers Asimble? Okay. I'm asking, these are the moments.

Ooh, I'm going to go with, yes. Interesting. Because I knew what the Avengers were going to assemble. It's like, in terms of like surprise wow factor, like Avengers Assemble is up there, but like you knew it was coming. Like there was a point in this movie where I was just like, this shit, we're weird hour over. Like, what the fuck are these Spider-Man going to be here?

And then it happens. I'm like, oh shit. Also, to be noticing, all three Spider-Man are in this movie for a shocking amount of A long time. But like a third of this film is all three Spider-Man, at the very least, if not half. So in terms of shock, you don't think that this was more shocking than Avengers Asimple. Well, not shock. I'm talking about shock.

I'm talking about is it as big of a moment since we're compared movie to endgame. What do you think? I'm going to still go yes. This is a recent C-bias, but I'm going to go with you. Jomey? No, it's not. It's not. Steve?

Yes. Yes. Okay. All right. You're trying to trip us up, Van. You're trying to trip us up. How am I tripping you up? These are the biggest moments in MCU history.

I'm asking you about them. Here's my thing. I don't think I'm going to say yes to a lot of these things because in the moments you're mentioning specifically, like, it's hype, right? For example, Avengers Assemble, they're getting ready to fight, right? When Thor or when Thor says, bring me Thanos, he comes in and he's like chopping people up. You know what I'm saying? even and I was thinking back to the original Avengers

when they first circle around that first time. That's what I was about to ask about that one too. Like they putting it together. For this one, Andrew just like shows up. It's a great moment, right? But I don't think like, when I like think back at all the times where I sit at the end, I'm like, let's go!

I don't think Andrew, like, as exciting as that is, is better than like a lot of those moments. I'm trying to think of non-fight moments then. All right. is it better than Nick Fury's reveal in the post credits of Iron Man 1? Yes.

Yes. It is. It's better than Nick Fury's reveal than the post credits of Iron Man 1. All right. Think of some other non-battle. That's a good point, Jumby. Think of some other non-battle moments

that are just amazing. Is it the best non-battle moment in the history of the MCU? It's definitely up there. It would have to be. All right, another spidey moment better than Tom Holland disintegrating

in Iron Man's arms. I was just about to bring that up. I would say no. I would say no too. I cried. Like I cried. Yeah, I would say no too. I would say no to that.

Different swings in the emotional spectrum, but yeah, yeah. Having said that, when he looked into the portal with the sling ring, he's looking, I don't know. I'm such a fucking child, man. I'm sorry, bro.

He's looking. I'm like, oh, shit. They did it. We are losing it. It's time to G. E, U.A.X. Let's go. Power hour L.S.

Can I ask something? Because, like, again, this is probably the worst kept secret in pop culture that we've ever seen right now. Like, we knew that all three of these Spider-Men were going to be in this movie. And as it's unfolded, in front of us, it's still like a 10 out of 10 moment. Execution. I agree.

It's execution. It's execution. Like, it doesn't, don't matter. Don't matter. But here's the thing, like, how much of Avengers Endgame did we kind of know that this shit was going to happen? I knew. I didn't know as much as I knew about this movie. I'm going to be honest. When I watched Avengers Endgame,

like, I knew all the heroes are going to come through those portals and shit like that. I knew everybody was going to get their moment against these people. And it didn't fucking matter. It just does it. Like, sometimes, I'm like the surprise of it is that you're seeing it on screen because you know how easy it is to fuck this shit up and the fact that they just didn't mess it up

and it happened and it's emotional like oh like I will say it probably wasn't as affecting for you guys but like when Andrew saves MJ it just hit me and I was like damn like he got I'll be honest with you

I was way more affected than I thought I would be but I was way they telegraphed it you know that they showed her falling in the trailer. I felt like I knew that he would be the one to catch her. But it just meant way more than I. But once again, I'll tell you why. He played that with such a quiet desperation and a sense of accomplishment. There was this mixture of I did it. There was this mixture of grief and anger. agony and anguish and of also peace that he was able to.

It's literally one second on his face. It's literally like just, it just happens one second and you just get it all. Just perfectly played by Andrew Garfield. Like perfectly. It's a meta moment where it felt like to me, all right, like this ex sale of, you see Andrew for so much of this movie and you get this feeling of like he's finally getting his moment. He's finally getting to prove to us as an audience. He got a raw deal. And he's doing such a good job. And when he catches MJ, that's the final like cherry on top.

You're like, oh, shit, he was always a good, Peter. It was us who wrote him off. He was always good in this role. We just fucking forgot. And like, you just love to see it. And I have one question because it comes to like the back and forth that he has between himself and Toby and Tom when he's talking about how the loss of Gwen kind of led him down a path of anger and resentment and rage that's continued on of him being Spider-Man and

throwing it into Toby the Toby conversation of it all. He and MJ worked it out and he had to know how to let that go that anger and rage of like, you know, getting revenge from his uncle. I understand. I want to see Angry Spider-Man.

I wanted to see, we've already gotten the amazing Spider-Man. I want to get the angry Spider-Man. I want to see it. They robbed us of Angry Spider-Man. Now he's not going to be angry. They're going to go back. They're going to do an old movie.

Maybe Andrew Garfield will come in and be Spider-Man Avengers for this universe. Who knows what happens. But I wanted to see him angry. I wanted to see him. I stopped pulling my punches. I love it. Punch the shit out of somebody. These people always take you to play with Spider-Man.

They fucking over you. They come into your crib. They harassing your aunt. They don't mean? doing all kinds of kick somebody in their chest and then don't web them when they fall over and hear you. I got you. No.

Kick them off a building. They do it too much. And we're going to get to this in a second. But also to Steve's point, like when I talk about the meta effect of this, when he's taught, when Toby's talking to like Andrew and giving him a pep talk, he's like, no, no, no. You're amazing. You're amazing, dude. I love that moment.

When like Andrew kind of like, it's like this kind of inside joke. He's like, all right. He's like, Tom's Spider-Man one. Toby Spider-Man 2 He's like, all right, I'll be Spider-Man 3. It's just like, it's such a smart way of writing the character. And Andrew has to be in on the joke.

Andrew has to be like, you know what, it's fine. I'm going to wear it. I'm going to do my best. And that's why I love him so much in this movie. He's just very self-aware. And just like a very, just an actor who's not afraid of it. You know, even the fact that he was introduced first.

Yeah. You wouldn't think that he, you'd think that Toby would come through first. No, but he comes through first. and he has to hold that scene down and he does an amazing job of it. Let's talk a little bit about Toby McGuire. Toby McGuire comes back and he is the Spider-Man

that's not as top of mind on our memories both in the fact that his movies were the oldest and both in the fact that we haven't seen Toby McGuire as much this decade or last decade as we did in a decade previous. He's kind of been picking his spots a little bit more at 46 years old. How do you feel like Toby handled himself

as the OG Spider-Man, old spider, grizzled spider in his role, Charles. At first when I got out of the movie, I was feeling like, yo, man, I didn't get enough Toby, I didn't get enough Toby. And then I had to realize, I was just like, the Toby Spider-Man movies are arguably

one of those most important parts of this entire film. The first villain that we really, really get to see in this is Doc Ock. same thing with the villain who's propelling the story is Green Goblin. Green Goblin is the one that kills Aunt May. Green Goblin is the one that hands it to Tom Holland and who Tom Holland almost kills. And I think that it actually was smart to make Toby kind of like the wise, grizzled veteran because Toby's already done this. Toby's already fought Doc Doc. Toby has already lost people. Toby has already had to up against Green Goblin, and he's the one at the end who stops Tom from killing,

from killing Green Goblin. I think that was the moment that we're waiting for. Toby in this moment, he's teaching Andrew that let the anger go. Even though we hate Spider-Man 3 and whatever, he's the one that is able to tell Andrew, it's going to work out. It's going to work out. You're going to find love. Don't be so angry.

He's the one to tell Tom, vengeance isn't the way. He's lost Harry in this. He's lost his best friend. He's the Spider-Man that's lost the most. So I like the fact that he is the one who's like, I need to teach Andrew and Tom these things because, yo, I'm almost 50. I've been through it. I really think it works.

It was an understated performance, but I don't think I would want it any other way. What about you? I thought that at the end, it was very fitting that he was the one that stopped the glider from plunged it into the Green Goblin. Yeah. The Green Goblin. And even the look on his face,

it was steady. It was like when he looked at him, he wasn't the way he played it. He wasn't playing it with any sort of desperation or determination or anything like that. It was steady. It's like, no. No.

Uh-uh. Not going to let this happen to you. You know who you are. It was fatherly. It's like when your dad's talking to you, you talk to your dad, sometimes he's angry, but more so what he talks to you about, he goes, hey, this is going to let you know

you don't have to do this. This is the way you should do things. And there was sacrifice made on his part because he ended up getting stabbed. You know what I mean? So I thought he did a great job. And I thought it was very important role for Toby McGuire. You know, I thought it was a very important role for Toby

McGuire because seeing Toby as vulnerable, see Toby as human. And Toby reminding us the fact that he seemed like the perfect Spider-Man when he was playing Spider-Man. Yeah. He seemed completely completely, completely after the role when he was doing it. And I always wonder about

because like I couldn't imagine and this is part of my problem with Superman is I couldn't imagine Superman as being as things moved on. I saw hearing Cavill start to grow into the role a little bit more. And even the fact that you know,

Justice League was disaster. He had a better handle on Superman than he did in Man of Steel. He had a better handle on Superman than he did and Batman versus Superman. But Superman is expertly and precisely played by Christopher Reeve. He seems both, as Superman, he seems both completely human and otherworldly. He has an otherworldly grace and otherworldly charm or otherworldly charisma.

At the same time, when he's Clark, he seems like he's one of us. And Superman seems like to be one of us. It's hard for you to remove. that from Christopher Reeve. At a time, there was a time where people felt that way about Toby McGuire. There was a time

where they thought they really got this right. He really is the best Spider-Man. And it wasn't until you had more portrayals of Spider-Man that you got a chance

to understand that just as there many different Spider-Man titles, there are many different ways that you could portray a character. So to see all of these

guys with contrasting styles, it makes me remember some of the things that we didn't get to see. We never got to see a bunch of different Batman

hanging out together. We never got to see a bunch of different supermans hanging out together. You just don't get to see those worlds collide like that. And it's very, very fun to see. And it makes you not only appreciate the whole movie, but those individual

performers and those individual performances, these movies are big things. It takes a lot of people to get them right. And far too often, when a movie goes wrong, we blame it on the lead actor, as if the script, the director, the timing, the production company, and all of those things

don't matter and making them amazing experience. And so seeing those guys together and really jiving and really being like their own little Avengers was really, really fun. And I thought Toby was very, very central to that. He did not at all try to be too big. He stayed in his pocket. He stayed in his wheelhouse. And he played his Spider-Man.

He was the exact same guy that he was from the he played his Spiceroy. Spider-Man. I appreciate it for him. I appreciated that. It was also smart that they're not a good team when they start. And like that's such a good, good writing thing where Tom has been in the Avengers and they look at him. They're just like the Avengers, one of the Avengers. And the fact that you realize that Toby and Andrew were alone in their universes. They don't have other superheroes. So to see that moment of Tom having to basically as a younger version of them have to teach them how to work together in a team, that was beautiful. I was just like, oh, shit. Like, they get the center of this character. And Tom being in the Avengers actually works in this because he's the only one of them being like, no, like,

guys, here's how you do it. I thought that was a beautiful moment. It was. Definitely. Definitely. This episode is brought to by Nass Energy. Introducing new Nass Energy Grand Prix Guava. For those that want to be fueled up and fired up with a hundred-pound

hour tropical tasting power, ignite your taste, start your engine. Shift your flavor to high gear with new Nass Energy Grand Prix Guava. Hit the street. Grab a can and get after it. What was your favorite moment between the Three Peters?

Ooh. Does the back and forth on top of the new Statue of Liberty account where they're all going back and forth? Of course. Toby's like, you're amazing, you're amazing. Toby gets his back cracked. Like, anytime they're talking about

like, the Avengers, what are the Avengers? that also is such a weird thing about this movie that the action parts weren't my favorite parts. Just seeing those three actors in a room talking together, seeing them like the Spider-Man pointing meme, them just being able to bounce off each other as generational Spider-Man, like on top of the statue of liberty was the moment.

What about you? I enjoyed the action shot where they all flipped into action. That's three Spider-Man. Jesus. injected into my veins how it's me. If you want to talk about that moment being up there with Thor's Hammer or Thor's Hammer being used by Cap or Avengers Assemble.

Quick game of this or that. Quick, quick, quick, quick, was it better? Quick, was it better than the hammer? No. No. Okay. I'm not going to do this because the answer is. Jomey.

Jomey. I love that game. Jomey made me thought I think I had something but we're not going to get it. But I'm saying like if we want to talk about that moment being like in that class, I don't know if it's better but in that conversation when you talk about Thor's Hammer from this movie, you're going to talk

about the three Spider-Man landing on the crown of Statue Liberty. That's tight. Can I be honest with you guys? Interestingly, interesting, I'll just say this. We haven't talked about any of the big action set pieces in this movie. We haven't talked about the final fight at the Empire State Bill.

We haven't talked, excuse me, at the Statue of Liberty, we haven't talked about any of the big, huge fights, the Dr. Octopus fight, and the scene with the MIT administrator, and him, we haven't talked about those. Not because they're not fantastic,

they are, but because they are actually less important than the steroid-injected story and the funny, cute, wady, emotional moments of this movie. And that is what's going to let you know. That is what lets you know.

This movie's going to be a rind of people's memories for a long time. I'll tell you why. Anytime you remember a fight scene as one of the best scenes in a movie, that's not a movie that normally stands the test of time. It's the emotional moments that you always remember.

And this movie has a ton of them, man. I would argue also what works is that people might get mad at me if you're saying this. This is the least MCU film of the Tom Holland Spider-Man films. What I mean by that is this is a Spider-Man movie. He's dealing with Spider-Man problems. He's not dealing with the fallout of like Iron Man and Tony Stark and the Avengers fight from 2012.

He's dealing with small, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man problems that get out of control. So we're talking about the emotional moments because like, Dog, like, we finally get to see Tom Holland without the Avengers. looming over him. And I love that. I actually thought I was like, Sony's going to fuck this up by rebooting this and all this shit.

But I'm like, actually, should we give Sony a little bit credit for being like, yeah, we need to make Spider-Man a little bit more Spider-Man. Shit's getting that out of here.

Okay, let's get to nitpicks. Have to do it. Have to do it. Is there time going on Jemey? I've been waiting all up soon. Questions, nitpicks and issues. Anything that you were expecting,

first question, anything that you were expecting, Charles, that wasn't in the movie? The only one, I wish that there was a Miles Morales Stinger. Yeah. I think, like, it's gotten to the point where they, they tease him every single movie. And I'm just like, y'all are just like, come on.

Just pull off the band-aid. Because here's my thing, actually, the only way I think that you can make the next Spider-Man movie as a feeling as this movie is if you have Spider-Man in the Iron Man role and you have Miles Morales in the Spider-Boy role. Like, that's the only way you can do it. I'm actually not, I don't have a problem waiting for Miles a little bit. Miles is rocking over in the animated universe. I don't have a problem waiting for miles. I thought that they would do some miles,

especially since they're building up all of these young versions of the characters. In Hawkeye, you have K. Bishop. You have a younger Black Widow now. We saw Patriot. A lot of this stuff is happening. I don't have a problem waiting for Miles, though. I think that they will wait for Miles to finish his arc.

And I don't know if Sony's so into sharing Miles right now. they got a good thing going with Spider-Verse and it's all theirs and this next Spider-Verse is going to be gigantic. So I don't know, I'm skeptical on when we get Miles. We know he exists in the MCU. The timing of when they would introduce Miles Morales would be interesting.

Also, to be honest with you, Peter now, Peter now has no friends. Maybe the one friend that he makes over these next three movies is Miles Morales. He doesn't have any friends. He doesn't have any friends. Nobody knows him.

So maybe he'll build more spider family right there. But yeah, so I don't think there was much that I was expecting that wasn't in the movie. But if there was one, Guarantene, it would be Miles Morales, you know. So let's move on to it. Something that we talked about exactly after the movie. And Jomey, I'm going to need you here. Okay. Get to the podiums, Jomey.

I want to set something up here. I have a running theme here that there is some laziness in the storytelling over at Marvel now. That we're seeing it more than we've ever seen it before. We talked about Kate Bishop and the quarter trick, which I was vindicated. Me were not vindicated.

We talked about Aquafina shooting the bow. In this movie, there was a major nitpick that I had almost originally, almost immediately, should I say. In the movie, Dr. Strange. Dr. Strange goes to Kermitage. Kermitaj, Kermit the Frogmataj. And when he goes there, he is learning how to use the sling ring, which is the foundation

of sorcery there. It's one of the first things you have to learn how to do. It shows him struggling with the sling ring, struggling to be able to use it. He is a guy who is going to become the sorcerer supreme because he is uniquely talented at sorcery stuff. Okay? Fast learner, uniquely talented. The scene shows another guy with no hands using the sling ring. There's stuff that you have to go through.

There's a level that you have to get through, almost like using the force or something, where you have to learn how to use the sling ring. It takes a while. Ned essentially learns how to use the sling ring. almost immediately. So all of the sorcerers up there with the ancient one who were essentially taking sling ring classes

to learn how to use it. The way they introduced Andrew Garfield was Ned picks up the sling ring and he's almost immediately, almost like innately, knows how to use it. that is lazy. Oh, wait, let's be clear.

In the original Dr. Strange, the ancient one has to almost kill Strange. Puts him on a fucking mountain and be like, you need to figure it out. He almost freezes to death to learn how to use the sling ring. Okay? And if I can set this up,

Jomi, my man Jomi, the explainer, we love Jomey. He explains so many things that we miss out on. That's his role in the show. I have so much respect. and love and admiration for Jomey. But Jomey got his big britches on. He got his big boy pants on after the movie

and he wanted to tell Van and I that no, the sling ring, like, that should be able to use it. Like in the movie, in the original Dr. Strange, let's hold on. It's the hands. It's the hands. He has broken hands so he can't use the sling ring. Let's hold on.

First of all, you're absolutely right. I was wrong about Dr. Strange not being able to use a string ring on the original movie because of his hands, right? totally whiffed. That's on me. I will own that, right? I will wear that as a badge of honor.

Okay. Now, Ned didn't use the sling ring correctly. Let's be very clear. All I'm talking about is open to the portal. That's all. Like, Jomey, come on. That's all I'm talking about, we're not talking about, we're not talking about

Sliming ring expertise. Hold on. We're not talking about sling ring expertise. This is a non, this, what you're talking about is a non point. You're talking about him opening it at all, right? Dr. Traves. could even open it. Yeah.

No, the other sorcerers because you went home that night, we all watched Dr. We saw the clip. We all saw the clip. We all saw the clip.

Yeah. And all those sorcerers are struggling just to open the portal. Not to anywhere, just to open a portal. Okay? So let's not use that,

Jomey. Come on. Here's the thing, right? It's a movie. Dr. Strange, right? Even though he was like,

wow, I kind of believe in magic, still needed that push in the film. right he's still like uh like what am i doing here like his mindset wasn't there yet so for you to say like why did it take dr strange so long it's a thematic choice why did it take all the sorcerers that long but they were still doing better than he was he couldn't he couldn't they were still struggling and they had been there it seemed like they had been there for a while this is like a lesson we don't know

we don't know that this is a daily lesson they were they were dressed and they were dressed in sorcerer garb. Yeah, we don't know how long they were there. They can they just show up. Show me. Show me. Am I wrong? I'm not wrong, no. I'm not wrong. You're going through. You're going through. Here's what I'm saying. Here's the thing. Let's agree with you. Let's talk about what really happened.

What's talking about what really happened is, for storytelling purposes, they needed somebody to be able to open a sling ring. Wong and Dr. Strange are not available. And so they rushed it. They gave Ned the ring. Ned opened the sling. open the portal and then the Spider-Man came through. Okay.

Steve. Can I have some notes to help qualify that the movie offers up that allows Ned to do this. We have a couple of, Ned expresses a lot of enthusiasm that he's been in the sanctum sanctorum before.

Big fan of Magic. Big, like big fan of Dr. Strange and everything that they've got going on there. Also, we happen to mention to Dr. Strange that, you know, my aunt tells me that I've got the gift.

I'm touched. You know, I might be magic too. horrible. You're not a fan of that. No, no, no, no, no. No, because let's, that's even more, go ahead and finish, and then I'll tell you why that's more egregious.

So I'll, so I'll tell you why that's even worse, but go ahead. If we want to talk about some, like, innate talent for magic or innate susceptibility to magic, we could think of Harry Potter before he even went to Hogwarts and he was able to talk to snakes. Granted, he was the chosen one. I'm not putting net up on that pedestal. But

to say that somebody could be theoretically inately attuned to magic a bit more so than somebody. I like the idea that Neg. He could be doing that. Granted, he's fucking around and doing this on accident and just so happens to figure out how to do it. He's thinking about Peter. He's thinking about what to do.

Is it even way too illogical to think that somebody like Ned could do this? It's not that here's my issue is that it's not that Ned uses the slingering. It's that they miss so many story beats for us to even believe it.

It wasn't in like the first two movies. They're like Ned is touched by magic. Like they're setting the seeds. It's like they say he's touched by magic. And then a couple of minutes later, like he's open in portals. Come on. So I'll give an example of this and how this happens.

This happened before. It happened in Star Wars. Who is the chosen one in the original Star Wars movies? Skywalker, right? Yeah. Not so much Anakin, but Luke. Luke is the actual chosen one, right? Luke old.

Old when he starts his Jedi training. Right? Old Winnie Stars is Jedi training. Must be taught by Kenobi and Yoda how to control the immense power that's in them. By the time we get to Force Awakens, it's no longer about telling the story anymore. It's about packaging Star Wars nostalgia

so that we can then go to the theater and watch it. So Ray doesn't need any of that stuff. Ray is going up against Kylo Ren and beating him using the Force just because she's that talented. They don't have time to develop like, I'm serious. I looked at that and I'm like,

well, if it took Skywalker a movie and a half to learn how to like, they don't have time to really do that. They don't have time to show anyone teaching her how to do it. They want to get you right to the money. And I'm telling you the same thing can happen to Marvel,

and it's a disturbing trend over these last couple of movies for just go, like, it's innate. All of these people, Tony Stark is innately, innately brilliant. It took him a movie and a half to figure out the arc reactor, right, to figure out what was going

on. He built it, then he built another one, and then the other one was killing him, and he had to have a flash of genius to build the next one. All of these people, Stephen Rogers, has an arc. You know what I mean? Like, all these characters that we love, even the smaller characters,

they're all things that be along the way, they explain to us how they get to where they're going. As an audience, if we just start accepting, that goes for shooting the arrow, that goes for the quarter thing, and that goes for this, if we, if we just start accepting, hey, they can just do it, that's letting your storytellers get lazy, and that's how things get jumbled. And by the way, that's not the only thing in this movie that's nitpicky.

That's not the only thing in this film that really kind of doesn't make sense if we're being honest. but the film was still so wildly enjoyable that we didn't mind what it was that they put together. But I'm serious about this. Not necessarily in a, like a skies falling way, but I'm just being honest, Marvel didn't used to do this.

Like they just, they really, they didn't used to do this. This was why DC was the one that introduced the Justice League in an email attachment. They, like, you know what I mean? Like, they would, they would be the ones to just be like, Oh, okay, here's the Justice League. Email attachment. Boom.

They would be the ones to do all of this stuff, and that's what kind of separated them. Like, I'm sorry. Like, they're starting to, we're starting to see little trends where they're throwing stuff together a little bit because they don't feel like, almost like DC felt,

and competing with Marvel, that they don't have the time to develop their characters. It's a little duct tape, you know, in string, with the introduction of, like, characters, what they can do and how fast that they can do, them. I don't agree with Van a lot on the show, but come on. Like, slingering, a little egregious. The other egregious moment, Van that you brought up, I've been thinking about that just, it's the spine of the movie, but if you stare at it too long, it doesn't necessarily make

sense, which is Aunt May's big, we got to cure these people. Peter, you got to, you got to cure Green Goblin. Like, come on. I'm sorry. Like, the reality is that Peter, Peter Parker said this that night. Just so we're all cool. Everybody listens to this movie. Peter Parker sacrificed Aunt May, his relationship with his aunt, MJ, Pepper Potts,

all the Avengers, all the great friends that he's made, happy, everyone he's ever known so that he could save the green goblin, lizard, Sam, and Electro. Who were wreaking, fucking havoc where they're from. Wait, wait, wait, can I just say,

By the way, the people that Peter killed, like Mysterio, he's still dead. Like, you know what I mean? Not that Peter actually killed him, but he died while Peter killed Mysterio as much as Toby killed Doc Ock, that he's still dead. He ran into Spider-Man, he's dead.

He's finished. But I just find it hard. I find that that was a tough pill for me to swallow. The entire thing is to save these villains Lizard wants to eat people. You know what I mean? Green Goblin, evil as fuck, cure him.

I get it. I understand that that's the hero's journey, but that's a lot for me. I will also say, I've watched Spider-Man, the original Spider-Man very, very recently. Defoe kills it as Goblin in this. He's so good.

But I find it very, very funny. That Green Goblin, like Norman Osborne in that original movie, before he's taken anything, is terrible. He's not a good person. He's a jerk. He's not good. Like, it is set up that he's not a good human.

So it is very funny that when we meet Norman Osborne in this movie, we're supposed to believe that there's some like good court to Norman that Tom has to save where I'm just like, I get it. Like, this is a brilliant movie. I love this movie. I had so much fun. But the fact that they want me to think that like Norman before this was some hero that society desperately needs is bullshit. Well, here's the thing about Toby. here's the thing about Peter wanting to save the villains.

That's a 100% Peter Parker thing to do. It's something he would 100% do because that's the kind of hero he is. He doesn't kill, right? He pulls his punches like they mentioned. When it comes down to saving lives, he's about saving all lives. Mysterio.

Mysterio's dead as fuck. We could talk more about nitpicks. For example, right now, nobody knows Peter everybody knows Spider-Man what happens to all the pictures of Peter you know you got a picture of Peter who is that guy

you know what I'm saying everybody all the Avengers know like what happens like how does this work like how does it work that he is that nobody knows who he is like where does he go can he go to the bank how does he get break does he have a social security number

I wait my big my big question is he's fought with the Avengers before. Do, when they're all thinking back to like civil war or like infinity war end game, what are they thinking? They're just like, oh yeah, we let we let this guy fight with us. We don't know who he is. But like, you know what I'm saying?

I ask, I, you see if it's a back to the future situation. I asked if it was a back to the future situation where it might be, it might be like a spell where they can't see pictures of him like in that movie with Matthew McConaughey, remember that joint where him and his. brother, it was Matthew McConaughey and Will Paxson, frailty, where you never saw, y'all never saw that movie? That's a good movie where Matthew McConaughey, whenever

they were people that were supposed to take out demons and whenever they got people, the camera would see them, it would turn blurry or whatever. So it's like, who knows? Whatever, you guys didn't see the movie. I think the thought process behind it is they don't know who Peter Parker is, but they remember Spider-Man. Yes, but because no one remembers Peter Parker, that would mean to Van's point, he doesn't have a social security number, he doesn't have a bank account.

It's like how is he a person in the world? I think it's just memories. I think it's just like memories. I don't know. You forget who Peter Parker is. So it's not that, wait, wait, wait, so it's not that Peter Parker doesn't exist. It's just that people forget that they know Peter Parker. Exactly.

They forget they know Peter Parker or who he is. Wait, if they forget that they know who Peter Parker is, then who knows. then who knows Peter Parker as a human. Nobody. That's the point. He has to come back and be like, so then when you go to the bank and you say,

I'm Peter Parker, they go, who is that? Yeah, but I'm sure he'll still have documentation, right? Like, I think we're overthinking

it a little bit. I think, I think we're thinking about it. Maybe. He still passed the credit check to get an apartment. Exactly, right? So, like,

he still has his documents. It's just a matter of like, oh, I exist. Nobody knows who I am. Like, I don't, you know, if you never, new Peter Parker Sisson in the first place

you wouldn't be like who's this random you know what I'm saying? What do what do and look a lot of times if you start pulling up the logic thread

this is what you get and so what happens when so what happens when they look at their TikToks and they see that is them and some guy do they see him

or do they just is it a hex on them and they just don't see him it's probably like who's this dude but here's my last question because we have to move on to the villains

if MJ and Ned don't know who Peter Parker is, like we see that he had to drop out of high school or whatever. Does that mean that Peter's history has changed? He went to a different high school. He went to a different, he went to all of these different places.

Because, like, that doesn't work for me. Like, logically, like, Peter would still have to go to a high school to drop out of one. And MJ and Ned would still have to go to the same high school to go to MIT. Well, again, I'm pretty, like, I'm sure he went. And nobody knew who he was. Like, who's this? Peter, who's this guy? Who's this new kid?

Right? Who's in our classes? Da-da-da-da-da. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's not too hard of an obstacle to, like, ruin the movie. I don't think. No, I'm not saying it ruins the movie. Yeah, but I'll be honest with you.

I'm not killing my auntie for no goddamn lizard. I mean, like, we talked about after the movie. That's not something I would do. I need to kill these villains, bet. No, no, no. You're not even killing them. You're not even killing them. He didn't have to kill nobody.

all you got to do is send them back to where they came from and they're going to kill themselves and they're still going to do it because they're still going to do it. It's still going to be shenanigans from Electro. Watch, Electro's coming back. Electro's right now, he's hooking himself up to shit. He's electrocuting himself right now. You can't stop a black man with a hairline.

He's dangerous. He's done. He's figured it out. He's like, and I look good now? My T's straight? I got these Tims on. Fuck out of year. Amazing Spider-Man 3.

Electro versus fucking Andrew Garland. Middle-Aidged edition. All right, a lot of villains in this movie. A lot of villains. Were you surprised, Charles, that it wasn't actually a sinister six and that they had no Tom Holland villains in the movie? I wasn't surprised.

I mean, I think I would have liked some Holland villains. I wouldn't have been mad if Mysterio came back. I wouldn't have been mad if we saw a little bit of vulture. But I do think that, like, I get it. If we're going to be real, this is a Doc Ock and Green Gondon. with everybody kind of just in the background. Like Sandman is a fucking pile of sand this whole movie.

Like, Lizard is in a fucking truck the whole time. Like, if we're being real, like, this wasn't as big of a sinister. And I think it works because of that. Because at a certain point, I just didn't care. I'm just like, give me the good villains. Give me the three Spider-Men. Everybody else, fine. Because Defoe, out from Melina, kill it.

They do. Lizard is by far the least power-ranked villain in Spider-Man movie history. he's almost down there. I would have liked to have seen I loved Mysterio. I really loved Vulture. It would have been nice to see Vulture like break out of jail or something like that.

Who knows? But no, I thought the villains got it right. I thought Willem Defoe was just... Willem Defoe was so evil that it kept bothering me that the goal was to save him. Yes. He was so good.

He was so evil. I'm like, hey, man, just like knock him off the chessboard. are he doing way too much you know what I'm saying so we can I also bring up something sure a lot of people get on the original Spider-Man they're like it's campy it's campy

look at William's foe look at his portrayal that portrayal still fucking works in 2021 like it was good like him you take like him using the little goblin voice I'm like guys come on don't like you you underrated my man the folk killed that shit he was amazing he was great I was scared of him

I was scared of pumpkin bombs. I've never been scared of no pumpkin bombs. I was scared of a green goblin, but I'm scared of him. He did a great job. And Doc Ock played it, Alfred Molina played Dr. Octopus with all the vulnerability. And then sometime of the menacing nature

that that character needs. And he, you know, once he was cured, he became good. He was worth saving. You know, he's still going to go back to his universe and try to build another mini son. He's not going to stop. I mean, you didn't stop them.

You're going to do it again. And she's going to take over again. Just recycle it again. I'm going to be honest with you. This is why injustice Superman has a point. I don't want to get into it. And Justice Superman was like, yo, Lois Lane got killed by the Joker. You know who killed Los Lane Batman?

You killed her. You killed her because you let this motherfucker go a million times. Whatever, but I'm not in favor of killing. I would be more like Batman, but I wouldn't get annoyed at myself. Okay. Uh, Electro, Jamie Fox as Electro. We got Electro, more comic, accurate version of Electro. What did you think?

Electro didn't work for me as much. Jamie Fox was hamming it up a little bit. I'm glad he got to shine. It's way better than he was in Amazing Spider-Man, too. Uh, just a little hard to swallow. Jamie, Jamie, he was doing a lot in this. Did you like Jamie in this? No.

No couched that shit. You was like, no. Jamie's great. This was just like, it was cool. Always cool to see Jamie, but. Electro brought nothing. Like, like,

you know, Electro, if Lizard is the last ranked power man, Electro is second to last. How come we got no Dane Dahon, hobgobb? Under no circumstance. No.

No. What happened to him? What happened to him? He was like the biggest fucking thing for a second, man, from Chronicle to that. And I haven't heard from him. He did that special movie with him and the model lady.

And I haven't heard from. Where has he been? I don't know. I'm not his agent, Van. He's supposed to know movies. Him and what's his face? Both Hobgoblins. Got your stick?

Every villain got their little moment to shine. You know, I thought that the villains were great here. I would have loved to see the shocker. I would have loved to see Vulture. I would love to see Mysterio. But once again, everybody else gets to be brought back from the dead. Mysterio suffers his own fate. Fuck him, right?

we haven't talked about any of the small bits in Easter eggs. Let's get to those real quick. Daredevil. Der Devil popped up. We got Daredevil popping up. Okay. Daredevil was in this goddamn movie. How was that?

How was that to see Daredevil pop up in this film? Oh, man, I loved it. I knew it was happening, but it was so great when a protester throws a rock through Aunt Mace apartment and he catches it. I'm like, oh, shit. This is that good shit, bro. I really wish he was in the suit. I was a little bit

like I knew we weren't going to get it How's he going to get in the suit in the movie? What are you talking about? I wanted to do the suit. He's going to show up to be their lawyer in the suit. What's he doing while New York is getting attacked? What you mean? What is he doing?

He's letting Spider-Man handle it. He only can't daredevil's there. Hawkeye's there. Daredevil and Hawkeye are both in New York at this time. They can't help my man out. They got bigger fish to fry. King Pins on the loose. You know, King Pins doing stuff.

King Pins making problems for Hawkeye. I like the fact that Dared, that Kingpin's making problems from Hawkeye and Daredevil's like, hey man, Hawkeye, you take care of that. I'm not getting involved. You know what I mean? I'm hanging out with the lady from true blood. We don't know if he's not involved.

We don't know if he should. He might be. He might be. We might see him next week. We might see Daredevil next week. So excited. But that was good. That was probably to me was the biggest Easter egg that was in the movie.

Do you think that's going to mean something for the end of Hawkeye? I just talked about it. Do you think Daredevil will pop up in the end of Hawkeye now that you've seen him in the MCU? I mean, I think we might get a team. teaser. I don't know if it would have leaked by now if he's in if he's in a lot of it. But we might get a teaser and we know how much Daredevil is, is part of the Echo story.

So Disney Plus Daredevil? Would you be, would you be into it? Of course. Of course. I will want them to retain the same sort of feel that they did. They ain't doing that shit. They ain't doing that shit on Disney Plus. You know that. The ending of the movie. How do you feel like the ending is when it pertains to the business side of this stuff, Charles. Is this a perfect write-out for Tom Holland's Spider-Man? Does he now exist only in the Sonyverse? No, because we just, we got news that Spider-Man still has a one more

MCU movie, one more appearance, at least, in another MCU movie. So I don't think this is a write-out. I just think that this was a way to untangle Spider-Man. man from the MCU to get him in a new suit that wasn't designed by Iron Man to make him his own character a little bit more. So, if

you want him to appear in a Venom movie, it's a lot easier because you don't need to explain why he's wearing a cloth suit instead of the Stark suit. You know what I'm saying? I do know what you're saying. I know exactly what you're saying. I'm on top of what you're saying. I'm all over what you're saying. Giving him

his own autonomy is a way to reboot the character and make him move forward. And maybe this is what had mine for the entire time, maybe integrating him into the MCU as a way for them to sort of get us a baseline understanding of it, but putting him through, and by the way, this goes back to what I was talking about with Spider-Man. They actually did this the right way. They gave us the journey of Spider-Man, and now they gave us a fully formed Spider-Man character, and it took years, right?

It took years for him to have learned and understood all of this, and we got to see it. That's the thing with the MCU, these developments and these things, with these characters major or minor, we get to see them. We get to see them happen. Or they give them to us in flashback, but we get to see them.

And we saw him become a self-contained Spider-Man. That's very, very important. It's very, very important. Looking ahead, time to do some more rankings. Where does No Way Home rank? This is for everyone. On everybody on this.

What is No Way Home rank in all-time Spider-Man movies to you, Charles? Top three. I think right now it's Spider-verse number one, Spider-Man 2 as number 2, and then No Way Home, number 3. Exact same way. Jummy. I have it the exact same way. I kind of also have it the exact same way. Woo! All right.

We're flirting with greatness here. But to think that this just shoots right up to the third. I mean, time will tell. It might be able to display Spider-Man 2, but I think the fact that this movie is so indebted to Spider-Man 2 means you've got to put it. one rung lower. You know what I'm saying? Like, you can't have this movie without Spider-Man. So, at the end of the day. Don't, don't, open the Scanwheres.

McGuire beats Holland. Anyway, where does Noe-Home rank in all-time MCU movies? Is this a top-five MCU movie for you, Charles? Top five? No, top ten. Black Panther? This movie is better to, this movie is better than Black Panther. No, it's not. No, it's not. No, it's not.

Yes, it is, man. This is not... Come, okay, go ahead. As a movie, as a movie or an event, because yes. No, no. Do your list. You're going to let me do my thing? Do you, do your list.

All right, this is not in order. This is not in order, but movies that I have above Spider-Man No Way Home, Black Panther, Thor Ragnarock, Infinity War, Guardians of the Galaxy, winner soldier and that's where it gets iffy. So maybe top five, that was only four. Right? That was four or five. So maybe OG Iron Man? This movie is better than OG Ironman.

So let's see, OG Iron Man. I can't think of anything else that it would be as good as. Jomey, what about you? Top five? No. It's, I think it's top eight. I'd have an eighth on my ranking. Give it to me. Avengers, Infinity War, Iron Man, the first one, Black Panthers. Winter Soldier, Thor Ragnarok, Endgame, and Black Panther are above, are above, no way home.

Yeah, I forgot Endgame 2. Yeah, we're around the same place, Jomey, where this is like, it's in the top 10. Easily. Yes, yes. Steve. We got Infinity War, End game, Winter Soldier, Civil War. Probably this. Five?

I think that's it. It's hovering around top five. top six. Closer to Steve. So Steve, right now, you're saying that No Way Home is better than Black Panther.

Yes. See, I knew. I see the agenda, Steve. Always knew, you said, you said this was better than Black Panther. I can say it.

You know, let's not, let's not have conversations about things that I can say that you can't say. All right. All right. All right.

All right. Like, I can say that. I always knew. Always knew, Steve. All right. All right. All right.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't enjoy relax. We got to relax. We just relax.

I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's right. I would say that this movie is better. So I would have Winter Soldier, Civil War is tough for me. Civil War is really the one for me. I put this movie on a Civil War level. I think it's better than Civil War.

I think it's slightly better than Civil War. But I think that as crazy as it is, I think Civil War is really one of the more under-ernerable War. appreciated Marvel movies. Kind of is. We don't talk about it enough. We don't talk about it enough. I think Civil War is... We talk about it just enough. We talk about it just enough. I think this movie is slightly better than Civil War.

I would have it. Really, probably around where Steve has it. I think that Ragnarok is better. Actually, let me think. I think Ragnarok is better. I do not think Black Panther is better. I think it's slightly better than the Civil War.

I still put the OG Iron Man above it. You just have to. I still put Iron Man 2 above it. Wait, what? I'm just, I'm just showing. I'm just playing. I'm just playing. I'm about to say, I love Iron Man 2.

Stop playing. I'm just playing. Like said, Ragnarok. Guardians of the Galaxy, maybe. And this is, Guardians of the Galaxy is better than this movie. As a movie,

not as an event, but as a movie. It's tough. You don't got sling ring moments. You don't really got as many slingering moments in Gardens of the Galaxy as you do. All right. a bow on it though. Top five-ish, top six.

Top five-ish, top six for me. Real quick. This is very important. Pitch what could be the next thing for Spidey in the MCU. They gave it to us, didn't they? It's Venom. We're getting black suit Spidey. Got to have them get the symbiote. You know what I'm saying? Fight, you know, beat the crap out of some people. Realize it's not good. Do we get Eddie Brock, you know, meets at ESU? So there's a lot of options, but I think Venom is where we're going to see Spider-M man, if we do see another solo film from Tom Holland. We're going to get Venom, man.

Well, it doesn't matter who comes into play Spider-Man. They're going to make another Spider-Man movie, and Venom will be in it. If they don't do another one with Tom Holland, they might really fuck with our brains and maybe bring Andrew Garfinum back or something like that, but they're going to do another Spider-Man movie, and Venom will be in the movie.

I would do Spider-Men type thing with Peter Parker, Miles Morales, go up against Venom and Carnage. Ooh, that works for me. Oh, I know what? You know what it? That's good journalism, Charles. That's good journalism. Do you bring, now, when you do Carnish, do you bring back Woody Harrell's in this carnage?

Hell yeah. Get that energy. Come on. Steve, what about you? Wait, really quick, really quick before we go. No, no, no. I just have a quick question. Okay. Can Carnish, can Carnish jack into the Spider-Mintz? suit. With his Ethernet port fingers? He's not put fingers. He might be able to.

It's now time to talk a little bit about the Doctor Strange trailer. So there was two stingers. One stinger, we obviously saw Venom Sambia getting dropped. The second stinger, we got a Dr. Strange trailer. Oh, my God. It's time for the multiverse of madness. It's time for the multiverse of madness. the O to the M of madness. It's time for the multi-verse of madness.

Okay. We see Dr. Strange facing the consequences of meddling in the multiverse. We get America Chavez. We get Wanda. We get Mordo in Dreds, which killed me and Jomey. He lost it.

That was ridiculous. Because it's like a frame. It's like just one shot. And you're like, excuse me? That man was getting locked up this whole time. Right. the whole time he's taking out sorceries. He's got a chance to stop by the beauty surprise story.

I have a really quick question. How long is the time frame between the original Dr. Strange and this one? Can you get locked up that quick? Yeah. Well, no. Well, I imagine he didn't get blipped. Mordo didn't get blipped. So he's from 2016 all the way to 20.

Yeah, 223. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. It's been five years. All right. You're right. You're right. Sure.

Mugorth, concern. Strange Supreme? Is that strange? This is my one question I'm going to ask. you guys. We see an evil strange in the movie. Is that strange Supreme? It's got to be, right? I don't think it ought it was. It doesn't have to be. It doesn't necessarily have to be. It doesn't necessarily have to be. The reason why I remember, but the last time we left Strange Supreme, he was working in Cahoots with the Watcher. So for him to kind of be, and he looks so evil in it, I'm wondering if it's not Strange Supreme, but some different type of strange varying. Well, so here's what I mentioned and something I was thinking about.

In the movie we see, in the trailer we see like him, Strange and Palmer get married, right? Either it's a, you know, a dream sequence or it's actually happening, whatever. But we see that. I think part of it is he's a good guy. He wants to help probably. But his motivations and what if we're trying to get to Christine, trying to get to, you know, have them be together. So with her still being alive

in our stranger's universe, that might set him off. And instead of him being like, oh, cool, I made him. It's like, oh, hold on. I see you got Christine. What's going on? Like, you know what I'm saying?

That might be the, that might be part of why, like, he's still a little bit menacing in the trailer. Were you guys surprised that they gave us so much? Like, they gave us America Chavez right in the trailer.

We got him meeting Wanda Wanda right in the trailer. The only thing we didn't get is Loki. are you guys kind of like, wow, like they're just giving it to us. Him meeting Wanda, we had to get. Him and Wanda, we had to get. It's very central to the story. America Chavez, they did not have to do that.

Yeah. That's a part of the story that I'll think as many people are, like, running out to see or know that she's as involved as she's going to be. So they didn't really have to do that. But him meeting Wanda, they kind of had to show that. That's like you're inciting incident, like you're one of your driving forces in the movie. So we had to see him meet Wanda, right? Wanda's like the big deal in this movie.

It's a strange Wanda, almost solo situation, you know, between them. I think this movie is going to be fantastic. I think this movie is going to be an amazing, amazing film. I think it could be on the level of No Way Home in just its overall scale and importance and consequential nature to the MCU. You can I throw a grenade? You guys are going to hate me for this because I can no longer bring him Mathisto. We always do.

Bifesto's done by the way. That agenda is done. Agenda is cooked. He's done. He's done until Spider-Man goes to him and ask him to either bring up Mayback or to make everybody remember again. Mephisto's done until they either get casting confirmation that someone's playing Mephisto or he see him in a film.

No more theorizing all this happened because of Mephisto. done. That's over. Guys, I'm going to ask the question that they hate me for asking. Are we going to get a house at a moment? Are we going to get mutants? Oh, the mutants are in it. I think so. I think the music are going to be able to bea. I don't know if they are. I really do.

I think the mutants are in it. I'm not a leek believer or anything like that. It just makes too much sense to introduce them now. Because really, they're running out of time to introduce a mutants if they're going to do. They're running out of time to like, because the only reason why I say that Jomey, I see Jomey with the Jomey Hedcock. The only reason why I say that is because at a certain point there's going to be so much story moving

forward that it's going to feel shoehorned in. So there are only a couple of soft spots. And since they didn't want to do it so much in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which would actually have been perfect, there's only so many soft spots where you can inject story. And once we get moving in this multiverse stuff, once we get moving with Thor, once we get moving with all of this stuff, guards in the galaxy, we're tearing that thread is not. I don't really have to do that much with what's going on on Earth. And so they need a good earthbound crazy story to kind of get the mutants into the MCU. I think this will be it.

The only reason I will push back on that is because we're getting a Fantastic Four film. And I think the reason we're getting that before we get X-Men is because of the distance between like the character, like the last time we saw those characters. But it's tough because you have to either originate them, like in universe or pull them in from somewhere else. right? Like we don't know how they're going to come to the MCU. And I think it's harder to do that for the X-Men or the Mutants than it is for the Fantastic Four, right? So that's why Fantastic Four is first. And we haven't heard any news about the mutants or X-Men.

We just know that we have the rights and eventually we're going to see them. But no idea when. Bet you're dinner. There's mutants in this movie. I know what Van is trying to push that. Van has a lock on something. I know exactly what it is. I'm not going to spoil it for y'all.

but that they maybe bring, like you mean bring actual mutants as in like the mutants here on the MCU, they exist. These are our standing mutants. No, you will see a mutant. Yeah, Van, that's like a slam dunk.

I know that. I know. But what I'm talking about is that's the way that they're going to introduce them. That's your dinner. You owe me some chicken tenders anyway, ditty. Those are my chicken tenders.

I ain't. They were mine. All right. Woo. Woo. Guys, we're at the end of a monster podcast, Steve. We're sorry. You got a lot of work to do.

You got a lot of work to do. A tight hour 45, Steve. A tight hour 45. That is a wrap. Monday, the House of R returns with their deep dive on Spider-Man. So be sure to catch the movie this weekend. Watch Spider-Man, no way home this weekend. You have to, guys.

if you think we went long, you have no idea what you're in for with Mal and Joe. They got a lot to say about this film. I want to leave off by saying this. It's our job to talk about these movies. I was delighted to be in the theater of watching Spider-Man, No Way Home.

I thought it was a lot of fun. I thought it was as big and as it was the movie that was promised. It was the movie that was promised, so I really enjoyed it. Ring of Verse is on at Facebook. Excuse me. At Ring ofverse is on Facebook.

Twitter, join it, and us questions, thoughts and ideas. Producer credits. Our producer is Steve Almond Joy. Jomi, the Explanator Adirond, hashtag free Jomey. Hashtag free Jack Ducane. It's on social media.

An additional production comes from Arjuna Ramgapal and, of course, producer T.D. Charles, please, in this most moments of podcasts, take us out. Our Peters are back in their universes. And trust me, they did.

their thing, but my man Jomi was so fucking wrong about them sling rings. Two notes about that apartment. First of all, it's not about the condition of the place. It's about the space. That's a pretty good amount of square footage for what you're getting in New York City. Also, well, I will say this. I take it all back because I forgot this is an apartment in Manhattan, which I'm just like, A, how would Tom Holland get an apartment in Manhattan? I can't get an apartment. Two swings away from 30 Rock, by the way. Two swings away. Yeah.

You're like that's that's prime real estate. I'll be honest with you. I can never be Spider-Man. For me, either you're going to be amazing or broke. I'm not going to be both. Right. You know what I mean? Either you're going to be amazing or you're going to be broke.

You want to sign a Supermax deal with the Avengers? If I'm, if I'm amazing, I'm going to go out and get this money. Like if I was Spider-Man, I would start maybe like a, couldn't Spider-Man? be a YouTuber? You know what I mean?

Could he start a YouTube based on his exploits and then like make a lot of brand? Couldn't he do something like that? I mean, he could be a TikTok influencer. TikTok or like he could be a TikTok influencer. Jason Derulo dances? Yeah, people will love that

or like have somebody else do it. That's what he should have done. He should have had Ned start TikTok or YouTube channel and then they monetize it and then Spider-Man's not thinking outside of the Spider-Box. I will say he like, shout out to the original Spider-Man Spider-D Spider-2.

Tom Holland would be the best Grubhub delivery person of all time. Of all time. Think about the technology that Toby didn't have. I mean, Spider-Man 2 proved this wrong. Yeah,

about to say, he was working for one pizzeria. He was working for one pizzeria. Don't matter. What happens if you deliver in something and then a vulture ends up attacking? You can't deliver it.

Either you're amazing or you're broke. Like, you can say that's for the police. What are you talking about? That's a clear choice. If you're on a delivery, by the way, I had the worst Uber experience

in my life a couple of nights ago, most Uber eats the experience. This guy would have had time before he braving my fucking food to go save a whole village and out. But like, but like it, if you're on the move and the police scanner chimes off, you got to go do Spider-Man things. No, no, no, no, no, no.

We dropping off this burrito to my man. And then I'll come get you. Sorry, dead people. I have to make sure that I got five stars on this delivery. You're wilding right now, Chuck. Feels like every product claims real protein these days. But real doesn't start on a label. It starts at the source.

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