Going In
The trajectory of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's post-Avengers: Endgame films could be shown as a downward slope on a line graph. I recently binge-watched them in the background while working. My level of engagement, especially how often I paused work to watch, mirrored that graph, except for a few notable exceptions.
One such exception was Spider-Man: No Way Home. The Tom Holland Spidey movies are the best of all iterations, and No Way Home was a life raft in a sea of diminishing returns. The film is an exercise in fan service, to be sure, but it still manages to extract genuine emotional stakes.
The urgency to see these movies in theaters instead of at home has faded like that graph, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day didn't feel any different at first. But the positive reviews from critics and friends gave me a hint of the excitement I used to feel for these movies, so I bought a ticket and went to the theater with one question: might the MCU still have some juice left?
Review
After the events of No Way Home, a spell was cast so the world forgets who Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is, giving him the freedom to fully embrace being Spider-Man. The cost of this wish is that his now-ex-best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) and his now-ex-girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) also forget who he is. This setup leads to a fun opening montage of Spidey fighting villains from his comic's rogues' gallery, but it’s just a distraction. When he's not fighting, he's mournfully watching his friends' lives unfold without him through their social media stories. He's also carrying the grief of losing his beloved Aunt May, which drives him to lose himself as Spider-Man at the expense of being Peter Parker.
Peter's emotional turmoil begins to manifest physically as his body and powers change (out with the web-shooters, in with the organic webs), and he stops holding back his punches. We get a sense of how dangerous his powers can be when he's not in control. The arrival of a villain who can mentally hop from person to person through a kind of telepathic possession kicks this into overdrive. Unable to handle it himself, he teams up with The Punisher (John Bernthal), the epitome of neglecting your personal life for your work, and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), who knows a thing or two about how a body transforms under emotional stress.
Unfortunately, the villain who brings them all together is the movie's main problem. This new character's true identity is so important to the MCU's future that the movie stops being about Spidey and becomes her origin story for about 20 minutes near the third act. This sets up a scope for the MCU that feels completely out of step with the movie's true heart: Peter's broken relationship with his friends and whether he can move on.
Despite this, Brand New Day is an absolute blast. The action and web-swinging are the best in any of these movies, and stunt coordinator Peng Zhang's choreography is a breath of fresh air. The combination of Spider-Man's unique powers with martial-arts-style choreography seems like a no-brainer; it's a marvel (heh) that it hasn't been done before. The inclusion of The Hand, a secret ninja society borrowed from the Netflix MCU series, adds little to the story, but they serve as the perfect test of Spidey's powers. They are as lithe and quick as he is, resulting in truly creative and crowd-pleasing fight sequences.
The strongest element of the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies is the bond among Peter, Ned, and MJ. Shaking up that dynamic is a bold choice that allows Tom Holland to deliver a more mature performance than before. Real pain emerges as events pull them together despite Peter's efforts to stay apart. Jacob Batalon and Zendaya bring similar maturity as Ned and MJ. They are reluctantly drawn back into Spider-Man’s world, portrayed with both comedy and genuine heartbreak as the consequences of the forget-me spell hang over them.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day swings high when it focuses on its title character, and flails when it needs to serve the MCU machine. This is arguably the albatross of every MCU movie after Iron Man, but Destin Daniel Cretton's film remembers something the most recent films have forgotten: how to have a really fun time.
The Afterimage
The nature of the MCU, with films emulating the episodic structure of comics, means none of these movies will ever stand on their own. In all fairness, that experiment is what made me love these movies in the first place: seeing the stories I read as a kid taken seriously on the big screen. Everything I would come to regard as weaknesses (fan service, epic character reveals, etc.) felt novel and exciting. More importantly, they felt intentional. For all its improvisation, the march of the Infinity Saga felt as if all the components were operating in concert. They promised a plan and payoff that would justify any missteps along the way, which I believe they achieved with Avengers: Endgame.
Nothing good lasts forever, and almost on cue, the COVID-19 pandemic hit shortly after Endgame. It derailed the industry as a whole, let alone the MCU, and Marvel had to adjust like everyone else. Schedules fell apart, movies were shuffled, and uncontrollable events, such as the untimely passing of Chadwick Boseman, forced the franchise to pivot and improvise more than usual.
These pivots and the increasingly poor reception to the movies have made the intended march toward what is now Avengers: Doomsday (previously Avengers: The Kang Dynasty until Jonathan Majors' legal troubles) seem, at best, thin, if not completely directionless. Characters and events have been introduced as important for the future, only to never be referenced again. The fan service now feels like a cynical bid to remain king of the mountain rather than harmless nostalgia plays.
Spoiler Warning
With all this in mind, the introduction of Sadie Sink's Jean Grey into the MCU in Brand New Day threw me for a loop and has stuck with me the most since watching the movie.
As much as I liked that Jean's story arc parallels Peter's (coming to terms with new powers and struggling to cope with grief), introducing mutants to the MCU and the cultural baggage they carry undercuts an otherwise very personal story. At one point, Peter creates a power inhibitor to suppress his new powers, which is later used on Jean. Forcing the suppression of mutant powers (which mutants are born with) carries a lot of baggage, both in comics and in real life, given what the X-Men are supposed to represent. The idea is too big and important to be just a springboard for future movies, and it threatens to overwhelm the otherwise personal storyline of Brand New Day.
I fully accept this is a me problem. I'm a lifelong fan of the X-Men and Marvel lore in general, and I know casual viewers probably won't care. But the movie shifts into a completely different gear to give Jean this origin story, as if someone changed the channel, and I think that could annoy anyone who doesn't care about all that lore. On top of that, the parallels with Jean and Peter's stories feel redundant next to the inclusion of the Punisher and the Hulk. Those are already very on-the-nose "this could be you if you're not careful" warnings for Peter.
Ultimately, I know it's not a big deal. This is just me doing some nerdy complaining about things that probably won't matter, since Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars are rebooting the whole thing anyway. Everything involving Jean Grey pulled me out of the movie, and it's been at the back of my mind since.
All that said, we were almost "so back," and I'm not sure what else on the MCU's future slate is going to come close to bringing that feeling back like this did.
Projection Booth
- Peter Parker
- Just because we've lost someone, it doesn't mean we have to do this alone. I mean we can't. Trust me, I've been trying. It doesn't work.
- May Parker
- You're beautiful, and the people who love you, they love you not because you're special, we love you because you're you. Remember that even when it feels like you're totally alone. That's your deepest responsibility. Never forget that, no matter how powerful you become.
