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Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
Fun! But it's missing Spider-Man
This franchise so far has been about Peter learning to understand the role he plays in the world, learning about his own self-worth. This idea that this universe's Peter has already learned responsibility but has yet to understand his power was what made me love the previous Tom Holland Spiderman films; however, No Way Home in no way addresses this crucial part of Peter's character development. Instead, this whole film is a lot of fun, thrilling filler that brings in nostalgia instead of a story for the characters.
Don't get me wrong, I think the idea of having the most popular live-action Spider-Men come back into action is really cool, and it was! But it seems like this film abandoned the important parts of its characters in order to make it so. Tom Holland expresses a lot of emotion on the screen, but we don't get to see Peter develop anything out of that emotion; there's too little of an internal conflict (and too little of inter-personal conflict within the main cast) to justify the expansion of each character's arc. It feels like a mimicry of what the real story would have been, what Peter's development could have been. In the first film, we see him only as Spider-Man at first because that's how he sees himself: a hero responsible for saving the whole world. But his character develops and realises his worth as Peter Parker, and he then genuinely is able to save the day. The main conflict of the second film (that being with Mysterio) stems from believing that he isn't enough to be Spider-Man anymore; after all, he's just gotten used to being Peter Parker again. However, through his mistakes, he learns that he can be his own Spider-Man and Peter Parker, that he has the power he needs to do so, that he's worthy.
It's fun to see that reverse realisation of learning about your power, your worth through knowing your true responsibility. No Way Home does not go through with any essential development of Spider-Man, however, and leaves this character arc to be continued. They do this with almost all of the characters, actually, including the other Spider-Men, leaving them feeling static and just not at all like Spider-Man. Toby Maguire's Spider-Man is the only thing that stopped Tom Holland's from acting out of rage, and only because that was a mistake Maguire's had already made, not out of any vital character moment. This robbed Tom Holland's from having that character moment himself, leaving his character no different from when the film started.
Overall, despite the lack of character development, I still enjoyed this film quite a bit. I love the idea of a bunch of alternate versions of Spider-Man coming together to go on an epic quest to save their realities, especially when they're all versions of the character that I know and love...which is why I will be opting to re-watch Into the Spider-Verse instead.
Ninjago (2019)
Pretty Decent; Episodes are Mixed Up!
This page has episodes from both "Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu" (2011) and the newer "Ninjago". Please fix this! As for the actual "Ninjago" show, the short runtime episodes hurt the story's pacing and the writing has really taken a turn for the worse, especially in the first season. You'll have moments where characters summarise the plot of a whole previous episode followed by several quick cuts to different parts of a sort-of complex story. It feels like it's imitating the structure of Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu without the time needed to actually have it work. Honestly, aside from a few callbacks to old villains and plot points, this could be its own show entirely separate from Ninjago's brand. There are barely any ties to Masters of Spinjitzu and nothing that's really built upon from its conflicts. The characters are shown to be the "same" but share very little traits with their older counterparts, and this show seems to be heading in its own direction in terms of building upon what they do have. Losing the connection to Masters of Spinjitzu, this show is actually pretty decent. Though the first season feels like plot all crammed into an eleven-minute runtime, the remaining seasons seem to find a nice groove that can be quite charming; in fact, I would have probably enjoyed it very much as a kid. LEGO Ninjago will always hold a special place in my heart, so I hope this series can do it justice moving forward.