By Makayla Flenoury
After waiting four years, Spider-Man finally hit theaters on July 31. We’ve all been waiting for this movie since “No Way Home”, or at least I have— rather impatiently, not that I had any choice.
Most Spider-Man fans were eager to see his story continue after the tragic events in “Spider-Man: No Way Home”. Peter’s life flipped upside down after Mysterio revealed his identity to the world, making him a public enemy, putting his loved ones in danger and even fracturing the multiverse. These events force him to make everyone forget who Peter Parker is, leaving him completely alone.
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” was a fantastic movie, and I don’t think “Brand New Day” missed the bar. I actually think it’s hard to compare the two movies because “No Way Home” ended a chapter and “Brand New Day” started a new one.
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” starts with acknowledging the time skip and establishing how lonely and sad Peter is. He’s constantly watching Ned’s social media just to get a glimpse of Ned and MJ’s life and drowning himself in crime-fighting. This is his life now, until a new threat appears.
Peter gets word of an armored tank barreling straight towards a Damage Control building holding dangerous criminals. Of course, Peter rushes to stop it, but someone else arrived before him— Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), aka The Punisher.
I’ve only watched one season of Punisher’s show (I’m working on the second), but I think they changed his character to make him more comedic. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I think it downplays the Punisher a lot, especially with a comment made later in the movie.
Peter doesn’t stop the tank in time, and it crashes into the Damage Control Center. The driver is revealed to be an elderly woman, who has no idea how she got there. That’s when a seemingly strange entity jumps into a different person’s mind and takes control of their actions.
Fast forward, and the mysterious entity is revealed to be none other than Jean Grey, a powerful telepath searching the Damage Control Centers for something called V-Max. It was the last message she got from her sister (who is also a telepath). Spider-Man struggles to figure out how to stop Jean. She’s everywhere and nowhere; how does anyone fight a telepath?
Not only that, but Peter’s emotional trauma from being overworked, exhausted and alone is causing his arachnid DNA to spiral out of control, causing intense sensory sensitivity, loss of consciousness and organic webbing that he can’t control.
Peter ignores his need for rest and goes after Jean. After searching for ways to contain her (and his own) abilities, Peter meets her at the main Damage Control building (not the same one that was destroyed). Unfortunately for Peter and Punisher, who tagged along, the Hulk was there under Jean’s control.
Peter sent Punisher after Jean and stayed back to fight Hulk. Punisher ended up being easily overtaken by Jean, and once in his mind, she said: “Whoa, this guy has issues,” Which is the comment that I think shrinks Punisher’s character.
Jean continues her search for V-Max but is unable to find it as the employees still claim to have no idea what she is talking about. Peter was able to attach the power dampener, rendering Jean defenseless, and Damage Control takes her into custody.
You might think this is the end, but no. We see Jean locked into a chair in a staged room with the Director of Damage Control, William Metzger (Tramell Tillman; he’s seen throughout the movie, by the way). He goes on about how her power could change the world in the right hands. Metzger and his team begin forcing Jean to use her abilities through a machine while recording her brainwaves.
A short break leaves Jean exhausted, throwing her head back— and we finally find out what V-Max is. The vent above features a worn-out sticker spelling out V-Max. The thing she searched for. The thing that was supposed to lead her to her sister–was nothing but a vent sticker.
Jean finally put the pieces together— They did the same thing to her sister, but she was overloaded and died in that very room.
The V-Max reveal was absolutely devastating for Jean’s character. It was extremely well written, and it took me by surprise. Peter does end up realizing the Metzger was lying to him and goes back to rescue Jean. She didn’t really need saving, but she did need comforting, and I think Peter did too. While I think this movie was more action-oriented, there was a lot of emotional depth. I didn’t even touch on MJ and Ned; they were another layer of Peter’s emotional overload.
I have two small critiques for this movie— one, being Frank Castle. I don’t think they should’ve diminished his character for comedic relief. There are plenty of other comedic characters, and Spider-Man is very comedic himself.
Two, during Jean’s search, she put a lot of innocent people in danger for what seemed to be for nothing or just because. I mean, she made an elderly man get hit by a car just to taunt Peter. If she was just looking for her sister, there wasn’t a need for her to hurt people just for fun. Or maybe that added to the plot and the reveal that she isn’t necessarily a villain. She’s just a sad girl wanting to get her sister back.
I did really enjoy the action in this movie, and the shock I got from when Peter’s arachnid DNA got out of control. He started pulling out video game finishers. I was expecting a little more from his fight with Hulk. I mean, it was the Hulk— though it was still an enjoyable fight.
With everything considered, I would give this movie a 9/10.