For decades, TV soap operas have relied on outrageous plot contrivances like faked deaths and evil twins, while in Hallmark Christmas movies, Santa Claus can make miracles happen. Marvel movies get more respect in popular culture, but they have their own have nutty narrative devices — there’s a handy multiverse of parallel dimensions, and instead of Santa, we get the magic-spell–casting Dr. Strange.
These pop-culture staples might seem worlds apart, but with “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the MCU happily (and, mostly, following its own internal logic) careens into kookiness, as it encompasses the previous big-screen manifestations of its web-slinging hero into a single narrative.