I often feel less inclined to write an actual review for these big blockbuster fandom films. Not because I don’t like them – I loved Spider-Man: Brand New Day – but because it’s often not as interesting to review with how much attention these films get. These films are big and bombastic and generally by the numbers.
This film felt different. I really felt like this iteration had a lot more to say than any of the previous three Tom Holland entries. Homecoming was a fun reboot with a proper high school adaptation that really established this younger Spider-Man (sorry Tobey, you weren’t fooling anyone that you were in high school in the first Spider-Man). The second one was again a fun romp across Europe with Jake Gyllenhaal really eating up the scenery as a fun take on Mysterio. The third one, in my opinion, just got too bogged down by the MCU weight that it tried to carry and the multiverse stuff. None of them felt like they were going for anything specific despite definitely hitting all the typical Spider-Man things.
Destin Daniel Crettin breathes some new life into this franchise by finally making a Spider-Man film that rises above the trappings of what it is on the surface. I feel like sometimes it’s asking too much of people these days, but there is so much to peel off and break down and simmer in the themes and nuances built into every fiber of this story.
To me, this film thrives due to the little things rather than the big things. This article is not a review of the film, but rather my thoughts on all the little things that differentiates this entry from the ones before, with some grab bag elements at the end of things that didn’t fit neatly into my other thoughts. These are all spoilers though, so don’t read if you care about that!
Loneliness and Depression
I would be remiss to not mention that these themes HAVE been explored before in the MCU, most notably in Thunderbolts*. But that film also made less than half in its full run than Brand New Day has made in a weekend, so you’ll have to excuse me for having to write this like it’s the first time many audiences will really get a taste of these topics. That said, if you haven’t watched Thunderbolts*, I strongly recommend you do.
Something that grates on me is when films employ the least subtle needle drop. The worst offender of this is the laughable Suicide Squad. Well, BND does that as well, but maybe I just hate it when the movie is bad… When Loser by Tame Impala comes on, at first that iconic riff gets you moving in your seat immediately, but then the lyrics just nail every facet of Peter we’ve seen so far.
“Man, it’s a crisis, I’m never like this
That’s how my life is, you couldn’t write this”
I don’t want to get into the whole “male loneliness” stuff. It’s really not that relevant here. Peter, through his own actions and decisions, isolates himself in order to protect others. This in and of itself is not a novel concept for superheroes, and especially Peter Parker. However, the movie takes it upon itself to make that its emotional throughline from beginning to end. It starts with Peter but touches both other major characters along the way too in Frank Castle and Jean Grey.
For different reasons, all of these characters have isolated themselves from the world and relationships, not realizing that the things that are ailing them the most are due to that decision. While Peter undergoes physical manifestations of the mental stress that his isolation has caused him, Jean and Frank also reach breaking points of their own. It feels so silly to be praising a film for basically sending the message of “friendships are important”, but in today’s day and age, it feels so necessary to impart this on young people.
Bringing Thunderbolts* back into this conversation, Yelena’s presence in this movie is perfect, and goes to show that these MCU cameos were well thought out. Her journey in Thunderbolts* followed her and the other characters rising past their solo outlook on life to become better as a team that supports each other emotionally. She immediately calls out Peter as being sad and alone to make him realize that the path he is going down leads to the wrong place.
In a more literal sense too, Peter struggling to control himself, his physical and mental aggressiveness as his depression gets worse are all real things that happen to everyone in deep depression. Even when he has an opportunity to connect with someone on his floor, he balks at it immediately and moves because he is so intent on wallowing in his misery.
Sure it’s great to see him connecting back with Ned by the end of the movie, but his connection with this also depressed and miserable middle aged man in Frank really brings together his emotional vulnerability and acknowledgement that we can’t go at it alone. The Punisher, much like Yelena, has gone down the path emotionally in some of the TV shows, but given everything that is associated with him, this felt like such a poignant choice for a character that has to grow and embrace friendship and caring for others.
All in all, this overarching theme really elevates what could have been just another fun Spider-Man movie to one that really reaches deeper to address a social issue all too prevalent today. My biggest hope is that it gets at least a few people going through the same issues to take the step to climb out of their situation.
Redemption
That’s where I’ll transition to Jean Grey. Although that main theme of loneliness and finding friendship applies just as much to her by the end of the film, I thought the commitment to showing someone blinded by grief and the extent they will go to was a great introduction for a character that has always skirted the morally grey areas. Brand New Day challenges you after she does plenty of bad things throughout the first half of the movie to still see her side of things and appeals to your ability to forgive and allow for a character to redeem themselves.
It has been funny to me to see plenty of discourse online about how she cannot be redeemed given the things she does in this movie. Although she does not outright kill anyone, there is one instance of her mind-controlling someone to walk in front of a bus and get hit, so I will definitely concede that she was okay with killing people on her warpath. However, I don’t know whether it’s more a commentary on people today or just a snap reaction without much thought, but this whole universe is built on people who have done awful things that then work towards redeeming themselves. Whether that’s either of the Black Widows (literal assassins!), the Winter Soldier who has killed many people including the inciting incident for Civil War where he killed Tony’s parents, or even the Hulk who has killed people in rampages in the past. The list goes on and on.
It seems silly to see the world in such a black and white way that a child who was abandoned by her mother due to her powers and then had her sister ripped away from her by a torturous government agency cannot be redeemed for trying to find her sister despite the violent way she goes about it. The lack of empathy towards this character is both odd, but also a great primer for where this character and her associated team will go in this universe.
In many ways, it is perfect that people seem to excuse so many other characters for the awful things they’ve done before becoming heroes, but a mutant seemingly is a harder sell. Almost like the whole mutant existence is about trying to be treated the same as others but never being able to overcome others’ bigotry and hypocrisy. Sometimes things just fall into place perfectly…
Woman Woes
This section will be a mixed bag in terms of how Spider-Man: Brand New Day dealt with women. I have only watched it once and can’t say for sure without a rewatch where I look for this, but the movie passes the Bechdel test by the skin of its teeth thanks to only one scene. I don’t think that on its own has any bearing on the quality of the film itself, but in a film where I felt the writing was one of its strongest elements, it feels like this oversight is glaring.
Don’t get me wrong, the film has plenty of strong female characters. Yelena, MJ and Jean Grey are all great. But all their interactions are with men. The only scene I can recall where two women talk to each other is in a flashback when Jean Grey is talking to her sister Sarah before she is abducted by Damage Control. As much as it’s an emotionally resonant scene, I don’t count Aunt May telling Peter, but he’s replaced by Jean Grey in the memory, about needing to rely on others.
Outside of those instances, Yelena only ever talks to Peter, MJ only ever talks to Peter or Ned, and Jean Grey mostly directly interacts with Peter and William Metzger. Perhaps I’m being unfair in laying this at the feet of those behind this film rather than it being a systemic issue of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that most of the characters are men. Regardless, it is something that was hard for me to not notice.
But now let me also give some flowers to the depiction of the three main female characters in the film because they are all well written. If you don’t think much about it, Yelena seems unnecessarily sexualized by being in a bath for her main scene, presumably naked. It seemed to me though that this was just an organic direction to take a character like her who was raised to be sexualized as a black widow in order to then kill people, but is now taking that back. Although she can’t fully dissociate herself from her past and the sexuality that was programmed into her, she is clearly not being suggestive in any way other than being comfortable in her skin in her scene. Even her talking about all the smut content she has consumed can be seen as a way that sex has become sterile to her and is just a thing. Her appearance ends up being both fun, but having more under the surface than it initially seems.
MJ is a little more complicated. Although she has pivotal scenes and impacts the overall pathos of the film, she has little screentime. There was an easy direction to go in with her once she reads the letter from Peter recounting what had happened and their connection, but I applaud the film for taking the better direction of having her acknowledge that although these things may be true, they are not true for who she is today. Despite that, she empathizes with Peter’s situation and still asks him to come over to spend time with Ned. The chemistry is immediate between Peter and Ned. The empathy and compassion shown by MJ despite feeling no actual connection to Peter is what exemplifies her as a well developed character capable of nuance.
I am a little unsure how I feel about the implication of her later getting her memories back through Jean, but I guess you couldn’t just have her never be able to acknowledge her past with Peter. At the same time, I feel like truly courageous writing could have gone in the direction of her falling in love with him all over again to truly drive home their bond. But hey, who’s got time for that?
I won’t dwell too long on Jean Grey since I gave her her own section, but I was very impressed with how she was used in the film. There were so many ways this could have gone badly and become a schlocky case of a new comic book character being dropped in. Yet they developed her in conjunction with the emotional focus of the film. They were able to make her a villain for most of the story before bringing her around. A true tour de force of introducing a new character into the world whose true stories are yet to be told, something Marvel has rarely done well.
Grab Bag
- I loved that Peter felt the need to tell MJ that they had shared a kiss while she was mind-controlled. It’s a very small moment, but it personifies how much Peter really cares about MJ. He’s not in it for his own pleasure or gratification, and it bothers him that that happened without MJ’s consent.
- Comic book movies are known for their macguffin plot devices. It seemed like this was going down that same path. I loved the misdirection of what V-Max ended up being, and the emotion associated with the reveal too. Sure, it was just the faded out label on an air vent, but it wasn’t a cheap nothingburger – it still resulted in where the final act went. A great balancing act that they managed to get right.
- These trailers are awful… I’m so happy that I’d forgotten the trailers for the most part because I came across one after seeing the film and big moments from the final act are all spoiled in there. We have to be better about this…
- Loved ending on Peter and Ned reconnecting through their handshake. Like with everything in this write up, it’s the little things that make this all click.
