Spider-Man: Brand New Day

#filmreviewhaiku Manhattan rising / Genius inherited / Villains come in waves #filmreviewhaiku  

Easily the worst Tom Holland Spiderman movie. The plot is unambitious and leaves so many plot points hanging it feels like barely anything was resolved, and they were scrambling to create a third act where Spiderman has to fight anything. Why would they introduce Jean and then not resolve her plot line… At all? She starts the movie on the run, looks for her sister, realizes she’s dead, then goes back to being on the run. It didn’t really feel like we accomplished anything. It didn't feel like she had any character arc because we still don't know anything about her, other than she's mad at the people who kidnapped her sister. Also, the twist of her not being the villain is CRAZY to me because she was insanely evil and spent most of the movie messing with Spiderman, threatening to kill his girlfriend, possessing multiple people and making them attempt suicide, and causing untold damage… only for the movie to end with “actually she’s a really nice person deep down inside?” What??? She was blatantly evil and sadistic, and now she’s just cool and misunderstood? So much of Jean becoming a villain was out of convenience so there could be something for Spiderman to fight. Why would Jean run a tank through the city and plant a bomb if she wants to keep a low profile? Why did she free Scorpion? You also can't just make EVERY action scene about fighting mind-controlled villains. Oh my god, it's Scorpion... But he's mind controlled! It's Hulk but he's mind controlled! It's The Hand but they're mind controlled!!! It's a bunch of security guards but they're...! Oh nevermind, they just wanted to fight Spiderman for fun. Half of the plot is just Spiderman getting the confidence to re-introduce himself to his friends. I totally get *why* they’re doing it and it’s nice that they reconnect in a believable way… But it’s just such a boring plot idea. The whole emotional core of the movie is just “guy connects with characters he used to be friends with last movie”. It takes an entire movie to reset the status quo back to the previous movie. Imagine if they spent this time introducing any new fun characters instead of re-introducing ones we already know. The Hand is also just hanging out in New York and it’s never explained or resolved. Spiderman’s powers freaking out is never resolved but I guess it’s just implied he gets over it now that he has friends again. Jean Gray baits you into thinking they’re introducing mutants to the MCU but they never do. The director guy was supposedly left alive but we never see if anything happened to him…? Did they just let him go with zero consequences? So much wasted potential and wasted time. Everything was kinda half assed. The only thing I can really say I liked was the direction, it felt a lot more dynamic and less flat than the other Tom Holland spiderman movies. I loved the swinging scenes. Everything else? Bleh.

Not an absolute disaster, but 6.5/10 at best. It falls well short of the previous trilogy, and it baffles me how it’s breaking records and pulling top reviews. It felt like a tired, bloated movie riding purely on hype and pent-up demand for a Tom Holland outing. My biggest issue was the core supporting cast. The emotional weight of No Way Home relied on Peter's sacrifice so they could live safe lives. Bringing them back when they don't even remember him felt like a total cop-out. They served zero narrative purpose and were clearly included out of obligation. Reverting on that sacrifice undercuts the last film, and the story would've been far tighter without them taking up screen time. The pacing and stakes were just as frustrating. A weak central conflict left a 2.5-hour movie dragging with shockingly little happening. To mask the lack of momentum, shoehorned hero cameos were jammed in for fan service rather than Peter's arc, weighing the story down with broader MCU maintenance. The action and visuals were equally lacklustre. Instead of grounded, street-level acrobatics, set pieces felt generic and CGI-heavy, with a rushed third act trading emotional payoff for a noisy climax. Overall, a mediocre effort. It's fine for a casual evening out, but as a flagship release, it’s underwhelming. Fans expecting a sharp follow-up will feel the franchise is running on fumes. It should have cut ties with the past to stand alone or start a fresh trilogy. Admittedly a tough task, but it would’ve made a far better fourth film.

"Peter Parker" (Tom Holland) is pining. After having to sacrifice everyone's memory of him to save the world in the last film, he now has to swing from building to building in his red and blue kevlar stopping crimes whilst the biggest of all - his loss of "MJ" (Zendaya) remains unsolvable. The poor fella is lonely and so is putting all his efforts into his work to the extent that his police pal "DeWolff" (Liza Colón-Zayes) is starting to worry about his wellbeing. Well it isn't long before he is too - his spidey-senses are all over the shop. What's occurring? Well a chat with the sauna-dwelling "Black Widow" (Florence Pugh) following an Azazel-like experience with an ostensibly malevolent creature that can jump from person to person to person - but that can't use him as a conduit - starts to really get him confused. On the personal level, he has learned that spiders have three stages to their lives, so perhaps this is just a natural readjustment? He reckons a chat with "Banner" (Mark Ruffalo) might help - incognito, of course, but that only seems to make matters even worse. Might he, too, need an inhibitor to stop himself turning into something altogether more dangerous as his internal symbiosis between human and arachnid looks compromised? Meantime, he does make progress in identifying his ruthless and powerful new nemesis, but that doesn't help him explain why she is so bent on destroying the city's enforcement bureau and exacting her vengeance on it's boss "Metzger" (Tramell Tillman). Can he sort this out before he is subsumed by his new-found nature and, of course, what can he do about "MJ"? It's ten years since Holland first donned the red mask and as much as with watching the actor, we can also watch how his characterisation of "Spider-Man" has evolved. There are certainly plenty of set-piece action scenes - usually in tandem with Jon Bernthal's entertaining "Punisher", but there is also a little more soul to this film. It's much more of a characterful look at the man behind the eyes, of a troubled soul - but not in any sort of melodramatic fashion; more a study of just how loneliness can effect a person, any person, and of how difficult it can be for them to admit the problem let alone reach out to anyone. Zendaya is anything but the damsel in distress here too. There's no high-pitched squealing or "save-me, save-me" tied to a scaffold by the baddie sort of stuff. Indeed there's actually a distinct lack of the traditional baddie here and as the story unfolds the messy carnage starts to look like someone else's manifestation of solitude, too. This is certainly a piece in the puzzle of the MCU - with "Avengers" and "X-Men" related threads, but it doesn't mess about with it's timelines and so we are presented with something enjoyable and quickly paced, but just a little more substantial too - quite an achievement for a man who can't get his sponsors to make him red and blue spidey-pants too!