It's hard to imagine, that with all the trailers and leaks for Spider-Man: No Way Home that there were any surprises left to see in theatres. Fortunately the movie still manages to deliver even more than I was expecting. As a result, I had a great time and didn't leave the theatre feeling like I'd seen it all already in the trailers. This is, arguably, one of the best live action Spider-Man films (potentially even comic book superhero films) you'll ever see.
That said, there's still much to question and discuss, about the plot, with things that kind of, but probably don't make sense upon further reflection, but there's so much good here, you'll cut the writers some slack (probably).
The film picks up almost exactly where Spider-Man, Far From Home, left off, with Spider-Man's identity as Peter Parker being outed. This becomes a major issue for Peter, who seeks out Doctor Strange to see what he can do to reverse time to a point before his identity became known.
As you see in the trailers, Doctor Strange casts a spell that is slightly tweaked a few times by Peter on the fly with some unexpected outcomes. Cue villains from the multiverse of past Spider-Man movies.
Kudos goes to Sony's Producers, Writers, and director, Jon Watts, for coming up with a story that not only is one of the best in the MCU but also making their entire back catalogue of Spider-Man live action films culturally relevant again. Not that they weren't relevant but who isn't going to watch or rewatch Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man films again now they're basically MCU cannon. Even the Venom movies are essentially MCU cannon.
Also Kudos again to director Jon Watts who somehow managed to give all the major players just the right amount of screen time. At no point did I feel anyone was getting too much screen time, needed more screen time, or were overshadowing Tom Holland as the star of the movie.
As mentioned the story is far from perfect. There are a number of scenes that I felt just flat out wouldn't happen or were 'movie logic' - for example things along the lines of how magic works. Generally things that have very little basis in reality but, if you try to apply logical rationale to them, they're head scratchers at best.For example, during the spell that starts it all, Peter keeps asking Doctor Strange to make exceptions about who remembers his identity... I mean, I guess you can edit spells on the fly as you cast them? Which is a very minor example. The bigger question is the overall solution that resolves the movie... would that work and could they have just done that at any point? Plenty of room for discussion about something that has no basis in reality.
To properly tell you how fun this film is I would have to talk about some serious spoilers, so I won't. However I can say, non of the returning villains have minor cameo roles along the lines of one or two scenes and they're done. They all get a decent amount of screen time, dialogue, and even humorous moments. It's worth going to see just to watch how they deal with suddenly finding themselves in a whole new universe where each has some familiarity with particular villains from their own universes.
It's so good. Go see it in a theatre if you can. It's, without a doubt, the most 'Spider-Manny' of live action Spider-Man films to date, that ends in an interesting place, with plenty of potential moving forward to future films.