I think the main difference between the two cameofests is that in no way home, you get the impression that the characters have been living their lives this entire time offscreen before the movie and will continue to live their lives after, making you think what they've been upto and what they have been doing and what they will do after. Tobey continued being a hero after spiderman 3, so did garfield after 2.
By contrast, in deadpool and wolverine, the characters have not been living their lives, they've been stuck in a contextless static void this entire time before this movie and will continue to be stuck in a contextless static void after.
Let's say you're a blade fan, what does this mean mean to you? Oh ok, so after trinity blade was basically stuck in complete stasis and accomplished absolutely nothing and after this movie blade will continue to be stuck in stasis and accomplish absolutely nothing for the rest of eternity.
NWH while bad did at least provide closure to garfield's spiderman and progressed his story in some capacity, deadpool and wolverine didn't.
Well, to the benefit of Deadpool and Wolverine, there
is a little Easter Egg shown at the end of the movie that reveals that Gambit has gone back to his reality. And X-23 rejoins her reality by the end of the movie. There's definitely hope for a character like Blade.
If Marvel Studios is actually smart, they'll give Wesley Snipes' Blade a proper Logan-like sendoff like Ryan Reynolds is advocating for. His cameo has clearly been the one that's gone over most positively with the fans ... Come on Marvel ... Give us what we want!
And, personally, agree to disagree, but I liked No Way Home quite a bit ... It's actually my favorite of the MCU Spider-Man movies solely based on the fact that it's the first one that
feels like an actual Spider-Man movie rather than an MCU/Iron Man Jr. movie. It's the only one of the Tom Holland trilogy where it feels like there's actual consequences for Peter Parker (which is a vital aspect to Spider-Man in general). And, by the end of the film, I was sold on wanting to see more of Tom Holland's Spider-Man, especially if they continue to keep him separated from the MCU in his solo movies.
Also, it's one of the few MCU movies where the plot isn't "Superhero must punch bad guy in the face to beat bad guy." Instead, it's "Let's save everyone, because it's the right thing to do." That is
so in tune with what Spider-Man stands for that it makes my fangirl heart sing.
So yeah, my opinions on No Way Home are more positive than some others. I think the good stuff in that movie
far outweighs its flaws (and there are flaws, don't get me wrong). I felt like the MCU finally "got" what Spider-Man was in No Way Home. I thought that the other two movies were good, but there were multiple small things that held them back from being really good or great
Spider-Man movies.
After all of this time though, no Spider-Man movie will touch the greatness of what Sam Raimi did with Spider-Man 1 and 2. Still my favorite superhero movies of all time. When I saw Spider-Man 2 in theaters waaaay back in 2004, my reaction when the credits started rolling was, "So that's it, right? This is the best Spider-Man movie we'll ever get. It's literally everything I ever wanted from a Spider-Man movie." And ... Yeah, I still feel that way.