Spider-Man: Brand New Day
You might remember from Spider-Man: No Way Home1 that nobody can remember who Spider-Man is now (it’s Tom Holland). Without his friends or girlfriend (Zendaya), he’s just a full-time crimefighter and is starting to suffer from burnout. Fortunately a new threat appears on the scene to take his mind off it.
All over the cinema there were signs to not give out spoilers after the film (surely a given??), what’s more someone came in and physically told us to keep quiet upon exiting the room for fear of spoiling it for others. Is it a spoiler to say that there isn’t much to spoil?
Anyway this film wants to do a bit of a reset, with Spidey rediscovering his friends but also his powers and his place in the world. For a film of this run time it’s weird that it doesn’t explore all the themes it sets up. You don’t even get a strong sense of any stakes or motivations. It’s all let’s swing here, beat this guy up, let’s swing there, ok now we’re off to the big bad smashy place. It does pause to take a breath a few times but it is keen to stay on a surface level.
I did enjoy the stunts though. Yes it all looks like a video game but Destin Daniel Cretton seems to have found new ways of making swinging around New York fun again, and when the shit hits the fan his action set pieces are pretty good. It was a hoot on the big screen and I worry it’s going to suck when it hits Disney plus and people are watching it on their walkmans or whatever.
This genre is pretty clapped out now and it’s hard to give a shit about the story, the characters or the cameos. I guess the ‘multiverse’ idea means death has no meaning in this world, and it turns out ‘not dying’ is actually quite a good motivator in an action film.