Cinema is back in town, and Spiderman is swinging his way in. Tom Holland and Zendaya star in the new action-packed flick Spiderman: No Way Home, bringing with them a slew of exhilarating scenes and famous faces that will have diehard fans and newcomers alike racing for more.

Though Act One of the film kicks off at a snail’s pace– perhaps director Jon Watts’ meek attempt for sophisticated melodrama– movie-watchers are soon treated to delightful and surprising plot thickenings, perhaps best in the arrivals of the other-worldly Alfred Molina and Willem Dafoe. Both actors’ portrayals of the calculated Doc Ock and unstable Norman Osborn, respectively, add a dimension of intricacy that less-experienced Holland has yet to achieve, though the latter’s gut-wrenching performance in several “tipping-point” scenes suggest the 25 year-old is maturing in stagecraft.

Acting aside (something most Marvel fans seem to lack interest in anyway), No Way Home masterfully creates special effects, fine-tuning and advancing those seen in earlier Marvel Studio films. Super heroes and villains alike practically leap from the big screen, swinging and flying about with lightning and webs that look, in a word, real. Staten Island skyscrapers topple, dimensions fold and mirror, all maintaining the illusion that such events happened far from the green screens and computers of SFX technicians. The effects particularly highlight the return of certain long-awaited characters, bridging the gap between fantasy and reality and allowing audiences to personally connect with the effects’ realism.

But it is in those long-awaited characters that best characterize the film. They (who will remain unnamed for the sake of surprise and spoilers) bring a certain light (perhaps boosting a relatively weak plot to something a bit better), but nonetheless create a solid and memorable performance that will have any fan reeling in nostalgia.

Spiderman: No Way Home is currently playing in theaters.