REVIEW:
Somehow, once again, the newest Tom Holland movie turns out to be pretty great. That’s kind of amazing when you consider the Marvel track record, which has not been very good over the past number of years, with them turning out about as many clunkers as they have good movies. And yet all four of these Tom Holland films have been good, with them keep finding ways to make the movies fresh and creative, despite the fact that this is now the ninth stand alone Spider-Man movie (fourth one in the MCU, but three before it with Tobey Maguire and then two with Andrew Garfield.)
To be clear, this is not the best Tom Holland Spider-Man movie. In fact, it is probably the third best, following Homecoming and No Way Home. And even the last one on this informal ranking list, Far From Home, is very good. What makes these movies work, among other things, is that each one has a very different feel to it, and kind of plays in its own subgenre, much like the Captain America movies did before this. With those films, it was Captain America the First Avenger (the historical, old fashioned one,) Captain America the Winter Soldier, (the seventies conspiracy one,) and Captain America Civil War (the Avengers fighting each other one.) Here, with the Spider Man films, the way each movie is distinctively defined takes on a similar approach. There’s Spider-Man Homecoming, (the grounded, street-level, high school one,) Spider-Man Far From Home, (the European Adventure travel one,) Spider Man Far From Home (the magic spell- multiverse one,) and now Spider Man Brand New Day, (the psychological one.)
And that brings us to this movie, Spider-Man Brand New Day. One thing I love about these MCU movies is that they remember their past and keep up with their promises. When it came to Black Panther, they made sure to remember that Klau had already been established (played by Andy Serkis,) and made sure to bring him into that movie. Here, with this Spider-Man film, they remember that Scorpion had been promised to us back in Spider-Man Homecoming, and we finally get to see his character fully realized, (played by Michael Mando from Better Call Saul.) Up until now, Scorpion was the one main Spider-Man villain who had never been brought to the big screen (Hob Goblin still remains, but he’s hardly as important of a villain as Scorpion.)
So Scorpion is in here, but he’s only here for a few scenes, which is a shame. It would have been cool to see more about him, including where he got his suit, and how the character went from where we left him, in Homecoming, to where he is today. And if you think that’s bad, (how underused he is here,) don’t even get me started on Tombstone, a character who is totally wasted. Tombstone appears here in the opening montage, where you only see him in still shots, which are basically photographs to show Spidey’s past accomplishments. Why put a main villain in this kind of pointless situation? These are some of the only missteps of the movie, and we barely notice because they are combined with a montage that shows all kinds of classic Spider-Man comic book covers brought to real life. It’s pretty awesome.
From there, we get into the story, which continues where the last movie left off, with nobody knowing who Peter Parker is. He has embraced the Spider-Man lifestyle, while leaving the Peter Parker lifestyle behind, which in this movie leads to him becoming more Spider than Man, and therefore developing more spider-like powers. This includes organic webbing that comes from his actual skin instead of from a mechanical shooter he made himself, like in the past films. Peter Parker follows Ned and MJ on social media, (his friends from the earlier films, who have now forgotten he even exists after the spell that ended the last movie.) He even sneaks into a party at their shared apartment, and meets them, introducing himself as a neighbor from across the hall.
Meanwhile, there’s an unseen villain doing all kinds of damage and destruction around New York. Whoever it is, he or she is using a power like in the Denzel Washington movie Fallen, where he / she can control a person’s mind and actions, and then can pass the possession off to the next person nearby. So the villain basically jumps from body to body, controlling whoever he/she wants for as long as he/she wants. It gets really intense when the villain possesses the Hulk, and we get an action scene that features the Hulk against Spider-Man and the Punisher, together. This is by far the best scene in the movie. In fact, it is the best we have ever seen the Hulk, with a fight that feels right out of the Marvel trading cards of most famous team-up fights ever. I also love that Hulk does all of his signature moves here, including the thunder clap and the feet stomping, ground flying up ripple effect.
This movie does a great job of connecting to other MCU projects and films. There’s the Hulk and the Punisher. Then there’s also Scorpion and Yelena Belova. That’s right. Despite having an actor / character from the MCU (Hulk,) and from the Disney Plus Marvel entries (The Punisher,) they also have a second MCU character on hand here as Belova (calling herself the Black Widow,) shows up to help connect this movie even more. That’a a good thing for a bunch of reasons including that Belova will be a major part of Avengers Doomsday later on this year (as the leader of the Thunderbolt or the New Avengers. Here, in case anyone hasn’t seen Thunderbolts, they are getting the message out about the new Avengers and Yelena Belova to the general public (a lot more people are going to see this movie than saw Thunderbolts,) just in time before Avengers Doomsday.
And now, it’s time to talk about spoilers. Read no further if you don’t want them. It’s time to talk about the villain of the movie. It’s Jean Grey. Kind of. Certainly it is Jean Grey, of X-Men fame, who is doing all the mind-control / body possession. There’s one amazing scene where she even controls MJ and gets MJ to say that she remembers Peter Parker and is still in love with him. This twist moment is on par with Michael Keaton as the Vulture, confronting Peter Parker in the car, in Spider-Man Homecoming, as one of the creepiest and best reveals in a Spider-Man movie.
Now, the movie playa with Jean Grey as a villain. By that I mean, she’s basically a villain until we realize who is possessing all these people (until we actually meet her,) and then suddenly she’s got real motivation and a just cause, and it isn’t her who is the bad guy anymore. Now, that would be fine, as long as there was another villain to replace her. And there kind of is, in the ways of the man in charge of the Department of Damage Control, a man named Metzger. Only he isn’t really much of a villain either. At least not in terms of a threat.
Let me backtrack here. The story of Jean Grey here is great. The way both she and Peter are hunting down whatever “V-Max,” is, trying to find out what it is, and really only having this term to go off of, is very reminicisent of Citizen Kane and the words “Rosebud.”” And like in that movie, it doesn’t mean anything like you would expect. It’s not some secret government project or enemy or weapon or anything like that (like say Weapon X in X-Men being the name for them developing Wolverine.) What it actually is, and what it reveals is pretty cool (I won’t spoil absolutely everything here, so I’ll at least leave that one behind.)
I also like how the real villain turns out to be someone we weren’t expecting, and how we get a new twist out of that. It reminds me of the misdirect in Iron Man 3 with the Mandarin swapping places in a sense, with Aldrich Killian (played by Guy Pearce.) But what if that movie just ended with finding out Killian was behind the Mandarin, and that was the end of the threat? That’s basically what happens here. Metzger is revealed to be the true villain and then we never find out what happens to him. I’m sure we’ll find out in a later film, and that this story is not over yet, but the movie is. Once Metzger was revealed to be the villain, he should have gotten into some kind of super powered suit, (like the giant robots in Avatar or like Obadiah Stain does at the end of the first Iron Man.) Instead, he just sticks the Hand, a group of Ninjas dressed in red, on Spider-Man and that’s it.
So we needed more for the climax with the big bad when he is finally revealed, but other than that, this is a pretty great movie. What they did with Peter Parker’s story involving MJ and Ned was very clever (there’s a terrific scene toward the end where MJ tells Parker, after reading his letter, that she’s not the girl who was in love with him. It’s a smart move, even if it does feel out of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 with Peter Quill and Gamora, and another story of memory loss and lost love. But it works here, and so does most of this movie. Including the Hulk and the Punisher both was terrific. Featuring Scorpion was great, although I wish he had been in it more. Really, I wish there was a clear big bad. A clear villain. It’s like this unknown entity in the first half, then Jean Grey for a little of the second half, and then this guy Metzger for the very end of the film. I have no problem with the villain changing or evolving during the course of the movie (Batman Begins did that brilliantly with Carmine Falcone leading to the Scarecrow leading to Rhas Al Ghul,) but by the end of that film, we did get a climactic final fight against Rhas Al Ghul. It’s the fact that there’s no real final fight here that leaves the movie lacking a little toward the end (much like the Thunderbolts, which also doesn’t feature a clear villain in the end, but instead a character who they need to go inside the head of – like how Jean Grey goes insider Parker’s head at the end here – only to try to redeem, like they do to Jean Grey here.)
So as creative as this movie might try to present itself, it does takes parts of other movies that we’ve seen before. It takes parts of Fallen, Guardians 3 and Thunderbolts and tries to cobble these parts together. And for the most part, it works. If not for the villain problem at the end, this would have been an absolutely terrific film. As it is, it’s pretty good, and gets a ton of help from featuring the Punisher and Hulk. This movie definitely goes in unexpected directions, and is another solid entry in the series.