Spider-Man: No Way Home Review - 7 Ups & 3 Downs

2. Jon Watts' Inconsistent Direction

Jon Watts was a fascinatingly left-field choice when he was hired to helm Spider-Man: Homecoming, an indie filmmaker who nevertheless proved himself capable of handling a blockbuster-scale project with that movie.

He isn't the flashiest or most stylish of directors, but for Tom Holland's proper coming-out party in the MCU, he turned in solid work.

Watts then stepped up his game for Far From Home, delivering one of the MCU's most visually stunning sequences to date with Mysterio's (Jake Gyllenhaal) illusion battle.

But No Way Home certainly represents Watts' overall weakest direction in the entire trilogy.

There are undeniably eye-popping images and entertaining action sequences, but Watts seems out of his depth with the gargantuan scale of it all, and so it feels like such a heightened concept really needed a more confident and expressive filmmaker like, say, a Sam Raimi.

Some of the movie's biggest and most impactful moments fall a little flatter than they should because Watts chooses weirdly underwhelming framing or focuses on the wrong subject.

It's not a bad directorial job by any means, but for such a massive movie it might've made sense to pass the reins off to somebody with a keener eye for iconic imagery.