RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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I feel like just about everyone is comfortably sitting in one camp or the other for the Marvel Cinematic Universe at this point. Whether you’re still a diehard or are pretty much over the comic-book movie craze, Spider-Man is a character so ubiquitously loved that people usually lock in for his movies, even when they’re disinterested in whatever is going on with Robert Downey Jr. playing Doctor Doom or the fact that Ryan Gosling is joining the MCU 20 years into its run . Spider-Man: Brand New Day , directed by Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton , is the fourth Tom Holland-led Spidey movie, and some critics are praising it as one of the best webslinger flicks, while others are less convinced of its greatness.
The split seems to stem from an issue that many Marvel movies suffer from right now, specifically that they spend a lot of time building the broader MCU world, and that makes a bunch of other movies and TV shows required reading to grasp everything that’s going on. And with the multiverse being at the center of the MCU these days, even a supposedly neighborhood-level Spider-Man movie is caught up in this tangled web.
Outside of the usual MCU problems, though, it sounds like Holland and the crew are still in top form after playing these characters for years, and Sadie Sink’s secret (or maybe not-so-secret anymore ) character had a lot of reviewers impressed.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day doesn’t have three Spider-Men all fighting together to save the multiverse, but it does have this Spider-Man, our Spider-Man, struggling with himself and his past to keep a city safe from a mysterious evil. What it lacks in narrative surprise it more than makes up for in emotional ambition. Plus, don’t worry, there are some very fun MCU connections woven into the complex tapestry as well. Five years felt like a long time between Spider-Man movies, but once you watch Brand New Day , you’ll realize why it took so long. It’s a whole lot of movie, but it works incredibly well and was worth the wait.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day lacks soul. It lacks conviction and a narratively contained specific point. We care because the script manipulates us to, not because it truly earns it. While there are individual moments that stand out, and I’d be a liar to say I was bored, the fact is this: Marvel is no longer in the business of making movies. Maybe they never were. But they certainly were better at lying about it, once upon a time. And the spectacle, the portal in the sky in the battle for New York, felt epic and new and like the culmination of laid out plans. Now it all feels perfunctory. Another piece in an endless puzzle.
Brand New Day is a fantastic film about Peter Parker and his ongoing, often disastrous attempts to be a good person, no matter how much it hurts him personally. It’s even a fantastic movie about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in which other superheroes and supervillains show up, contribute to the story and meaningfully relate to its themes, but never outstay their welcome or hog the spotlight. We don’t get many great MCU movies anymore. That this is one of the highlights of the whole franchise feels amazing. And spectacular. And sensational.
Restless throughout, I didn’t get really mad at Brand New Day until near the end, when it comes into focus just how little this sequel has moved the ball down the field in regard to Peter Parker’s story. This could have been a vertical short. Much like Spider-Man, the Marvel Cinematic Universe knows that it can’t go back to the way things were, but it’s also absolutely clueless about how to push forward.
While Peter Parker has come to embody that uncomfortable stasis better than any other character in Kevin Feige’s domain, he has also come to suffer its consequences worse than any of his fellow Avengers (New and not). By the end of his latest “solo” adventure, the MCU’s prevailing need to stall for time has forced Spider-Man into a situation that feels miles removed from the wrenching predicament he faced at the start — a situation relatable only to that small portion of the audience who’ve quite literally had to choose between mechanical web shooters and organic wrist jizz.
Holland, more winsome than Tobey Maguire and sweetly naive than Andrew Garfield, does as much as he can with the job before him, even if that ends up not being enough to carry this non-event of a film. Don’t worry, he’ll emerge unscathed, so long as he can keep convincing the Christopher Nolans of the world that he’s a box-office draw unto himself.
There's a sense that, for the first time in a long time, this is a Spider-Man movie that's been made for the right reasons, with its long-term legacy in mind, not just Friday night audience reactions. Brand New Day is all the better for it.
Sadie Sink is in the movie playing a role the studio has gone to great lengths to keep secret. It is no spoiler to say that no drama would have been ruined by saying "Sadie Sink is playing this character." When a role depends on secrecy, that is not drama. The Holland Spider-Mans have made billions, not to mention the value he adds to Avengers team ups. They're not going to change the formula, even if maintaining it sacrifices a more compelling story that could be told with more focus.
The action sequences are also the best in the series, largely because Cretton treats them as a joy and not a necessity, drawing from both comics history and the beloved Insomniac Spider-Man games to create striking, slowed tableaux shot in 420 frames per second. It’s striking how much Cretton’s approach allows us to feel the power of these characters on a sensory, immersive level… It’s hard to guess what the future will hold for the franchise after Brand New Day , considering the supposed universe-imploding implications of this year’s Avengers: Doomsday . But with Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige recently swearing that his studio would, from this point on, be putting quality first, you have to hope he’ll be giv...
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