Although the gimmickry is fun from front to back, the ultimate key to the movie's success is its refusal to rest on the easy laurels of those gimmicks. The nostalgic joy of familiar faces is made resonant by the power of Aunt May's shocking death, of villains capable of both goodwill and destruction, of three perfectly unique webslingers bonding over grief, of Garfield's Spider-Man so poignantly stopping MJ's fall, and of an ending that follows "depression is rage turned inward" to its most logical conclusion. Those final moments between Peter and his friends are going to stay with me for a long, long time. Make everything okay for the people you love and then disappear completely? It's a wonderful life.