Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Film
For the past decade Tom Holland has been serving as our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Captain America: Civil War in 2016 was his first on-screen introduction, back then, as the happy-go-lucky high schooler moonlighting as a superhero. Now with the latest Spider-Man: Brand New Day there's been a shift in tone, a maturation of the character. After Holland's solo trilogy (if we can even call them solo films) and a couple of Avengers films, it's evident beyond Peter Parker graduating High School, that this is an older, wiser, and more grounded version of the web slinger. A welcome temperament adjustment to be sure, the more serious tilt to Holland's role makes for a much more interesting turn in Brand New Day, but, and I know this will be chalked up to me being an MCU-curmudgeon, this movie was absolutely pointless. Maybe pointless is too harsh? It will almost certainly gross a disgusting amount of money, so maybe I'll call it a business savvy production, but sadly Brand New Day did nothing for me but dangle some MCU characters in front of my face, tease me with a more interesting Spider-Man, and then immediately undercut it by making this movie absolutely not at all about Spider-Man.
After the effects of Doctor Strange's (Benedict Cumberbatch) spell in No Way Home cause everyone in the world to forget who Peter Parker is, Brand New Day focuses on Parker's reclusive existence. Sinking his whole being into fighting crime, an opening montage shows an isolated and depressed Parker watching his friends Ned (Jacob Batalon) and ex-lover MJ (Zendaya) living their best lives at MIT over live streams, while also showing his increasingly bruised and beaten body from his insatiable drive to fight crime. Director Destin Daniel Cretton sets up the emotion of Brand New Day and its more somber Spider-Man in these brief flashes but what really stands out are a few clear homages to classic Spider-Man comic book covers. Flashes of web swinging, fighting Scorpion, Tarantula, Tombstone, and The Hand are exciting little callbacks to the comics that started this whole MCU empire and are sure to be appreciated by hardcore and casual fans alike.
Where Brand New Day really sets itself apart from prior Holland Spider-Man films though is its mature exploration of Parker's identity. With the consequences of No Way Home erasing Parker's identity from public memory, and Parker himself leaning more and more into being only Spider-Man, the erasure of his own being creates biological imbalances. Physical manifestations of him literally becoming more of a spider create a Spider-Man with pitch-black eyes and a wrath like no other. Directly conflicting with the whole friendly neighborhood Spider-Man thing. It's a fantastic change of course for Holland's Spider-Man and gives Holland a lot more emotional depth to work with, which I thought made this one of the best performances of the webslinger in all of his appearances.
Even though Zendaya's MJ gets absolute scraps to work with on her own, the shared scenes between Parker as the embattled ex-lover who can't seem to move on and MJ who has no clue who Peter Parker is, are tremendous. The whole parasocial, meta relationship idea aside, Holland and Zendaya are terrific when sharing the screen. Speaking of sharing the screen, it seems as though writers Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna are allergic to giving Holland a proper solo Spider-Man film. Homecoming was practically an Iron Man movie with how prominent Robert Downey Jr.'s role was, Far From Home was ruined with its incredibly strange Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) skrull roundabout bullshit that led to nothing, and while No Way Home was entertaining with all of its nostalgia-baiting, it was a nauseating mosaic of anything and everything to distract from Holland's Parker. Brand New Day is sadly no exception, and even though Holland's Parker and Jon Bernthal's Punisher share some phenomenal chemistry (seriously, I'd settle for a buddy cop film with these two) the inclusion of Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner/Hulk is devoid of purpose. His presence, along with Yelena's (Florence Pugh) for that matter, are nothing but MacGuffins for Sommers and McKenna's terribly contrived and predictable story.
This brings me to my final secret point, the inclusion of Sadie Sink. I won't divulge who she plays, admittedly the reveal was a fun theatrical experience, but just note that her character is a complete nothing-burger in the context of this film. Which, as prominently as she is featured here, makes me believe that this film's entire purpose was twisted into a launchpad for the future of the MCU not to showcase a wonderful maturation of Marvel's featured character, Spider-Man. I found it to be not only incredibly disappointing, but confounding in how Kevin Feige continues to try and undercut one of the most compelling characters and popular actors in the MCU to date. Tom Holland is absolutely devouring crumbs here, and the baseline premise of Peter Parker's identity in Brand New Day should have been way more featured than it was. Holland has time and time again shown his physical abilities as a performer, gymnast, acrobat, whatever you want to call it, so imagine him having an extended fight scene with The Hand in this film. It should be epic! Yet the editing and choreography is overly choppy, incoherent, and once again works to cover Holland's capabilities more than emphasize them.
I'm certainly more down on this film than the general public appears to be. Not to be a contrarian or anti-MCU guy, because I do thoroughly enjoy Marvel movies when they're done well. Sadly I found Brand New Day to really miss the mark. It's incapable of capitalizing on Holland, Zendaya, and Bernthal, can't seem to figure out what tone it wants, and most importantly works overtime to make this not about Spider-Man. There's enough in the performance of Holland and the idea of Spider-Man that kept me entertained, albeit for an outrageously overlong 145 minutes, and it will definitely appeal to swaths of people. Who am I kidding? I'm just yelling into the void at this point, this movie will make a billion dollars.
Froth
Since the identity related storyline is my favorite (underexplored) storyline here, I'm going with a West Coast IPA from Georgetown Brewing called, More Me, Less You. Pretty slick huh?
This hoppy little rascal is a smooth drinker, with a solidly sweet malty base. Built on top of that comes a delightful trio of orange, pineapple, and mango, making for a really nice juicy-forward appeal. But it isn't all sweet as there's a grassy aroma flittering around, along with a piney backbone alongside a hoppy bitterness that proves its still a West Coast IPA. Weighing in at 6.4% makes this a little easier to handle than Georgetown's Bodhizafa (those little bastards can really getcha) but it's booziness doesn't factor into the enjoyment at all, making for one delicious West Coast IPA.
