Spider-Man spins a tangled web of plot twists: BRIAN VINER reviews Spider-Man: No Way Home

 Tom Holland’s Spider-Man swings back into town today in the nick of time, with box offices everywhere in urgent need of a festive boost. And the signs are propitious. Advance ticket sales are already said, no spoiler intended, to have left James Bond for dead.

This is the third time that Holland, still only 25, has led a movie as the web-slinging superhero. His first outing, 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, made the utmost of his boyish looks, with the New York crimebuster’s alter ego – polite high-school kid Peter Parker – at least as prominent as the guy in the famous skin-tight onesie.

The next film, Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), plunged our hero into a European vacation, arming him and everyone else with so many glib one-liners that at times it felt like a feature-length sitcom stretched, like one of his sticky abseiling ropes, almost to breaking point.

Tom Holland’s Spider-Man swings back into town today in the nick of time, with box offices everywhere in urgent need of a festive boost. And the signs are propitious

This is the third time that Holland, still only 25, has led a movie as the web-slinging superhero

So it’s a relief to report that director Jon Watts and his writers move the character forward with the right amount of wit and abundant energy. There are still gags and lots of them. But some of the more facile comedy from last time has gone to be replaced, in one surprising sequence above all, by proper dramatic oomph.

At the start, following on directly from the events of the last film, with the dying Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) having spitefully revealed Spider-Man’s real identity to the world, Peter finds himself hounded and reviled by the media. JK Simmons as vindictive editor of The Daily Bugle is the man spreading the fake news – that Peter is public enemy number one.Unfortunately, Peter’s unmasking rebounds not just on himself but also on his girlfriend, MJ (Zendaya) and best pal Ned (Jacob Batalon), all turned down by a prestigious Massachusetts college. So he appeals for help from Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch). Can Strange use his wizardry to make the whole world forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man? Then the devoted trio can go to their first choice of college and live happily ever after.

Needless to add, it’s not as simple as that. The spell is sabotaged by Peter himself when he realises that he needs some people to remember him, not least MJ, and lovely Aunt May (Marisa Tomei). It’s dangerous, tampering with cosmic reality, and soon villains from all over the ‘multiverse’ start arriving in New York City, each with an axe to grind. Preferably through Spider-Man’s neck.

Can Strange use his wizardry to make the whole world forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man?

Beguilingly for fans of previous incarnations of the spandexed superhero, some of these villains come from the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield movies, and there’s a further surprise that Marvel tried to keep up Spider-Man’s sleeve – only of course there’s not much room up there. The secret inevitably leaked out months ago, but I won’t divulge anything here.

What I can reveal is that one of the mightiest of all Marvel baddies, Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, first seen in Spider-Man (2002), is back with a thunderous vengeance. In truth the picture really needs him; he brings a fizz and crackle of villainy that Jamie Foxx’s Electro lacks – and he’s a sight more gripping than Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus.

Last night’s audience in London, the film’s first screening in the UK, obliged with hoots, whistles and applause in all the right places.

There are some terrific moments in this film, and Holland does a splendid job. It’s particularly pleasing to see the young man from Kingston-upon-Thames sharing the screen with several other Brits. They might all sound American, but Britain is notably well-represented in Spider-Man: No Way Home, positively dominating the worldwide web.

However, to me, the narrative just felt too contrived for No Way Home to qualify as a classic of the genre. Of course, superhero movies need contrivance like Spider-Man needs a head for heights but this is a greatest-hits album of a film, certain to delight fans but perhaps not the true comic-book purists.

Spider-Man: No Way Home opens in cinemas today.