Spider-Man: Brand New Day (MAJOR spoilers)

[Crazedwraith]

So I saw this yesterday. Major spoilers and a lot of fanboys gripes under the warning

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synopsis mixed with thoughts
So five years later, we're getting a new Tom Holland spider-man movie, with a new director (Shang-Chi's Destin Daniel Cretton) and in fairness a very different feel. They've aged in real time, and Ned and MJ are just back in New York after graduating MIT. Peter meanwhile has been stalking Ned on insta and pretty much spider-manning 24/7 to the point we have no idea how he's earning money to survive. (And he has an loft lair full of super tech that needs funding)

The film is full of MCU Cameos but none of them fill a Tony Stark/Mysterio/Dr Strange adult mentor role (if Strange can even be said to be a mentor in NWH), Petes goes to Yelena and Bruce for specific advice and information and has a weird vitrolic best buds relationship with Punisher that has developed between films.

He's also buddy-buddy with a police officer Jean DeWolffe, this and the whole set up and opening montage reminds me strongly on the PS4 Spider-Man game. This is not a bad thing.

So the plot goes with a mysterious force attacking Damage Control that is able to possess people and is looking for information on 'V-Max'. When Peter interferes it immediately starts gunning for MJ to get him to back off. Peter takes MJ to Punisher for protection.

It turns out the possesser is in fact... Jean Grey. But this is a Jean Grey with an entirely different background and thus personality. My first reaction was it was Jean in name only but I've since read some defences of how this works and might lead into MCU's X-Men.

Meanwhile peter is also going through spider-puberty or something and developing advance powers like bio-webs. He goes to Bruce Banner for help with a power suppressor.

Jean attacks Damage control by removing the inhibitor and unleashing savage hulk. (Not how the inhibitor worked in she-hulk, he was still smart hulk there but fighting punisher and spider-man and Jean's telepathy seems to have unleashed savage again). He's defeated and carried off to asylum, pleading to know, unanswered if he hurt anyone and that's the last we see of him.

Peter then uses this power suppressor to knock down his powers to his base lever and also display Jean Grey's powers. That's right folks! Peter inadvertently invent the tech for things like genoshan mutant slave collars. Whoops. Hope that never gets out and is misused.

It's only then we learn Jean's backstory. There are no X-Men, she had no parents and was raised in foster care who abandoned her when her powers developed and was mentored by an also telepathic older sister, Sarah. Who was captured by Damage Control and experimented on.

While being experimented on herself, Jean realised the macguffin she'd been searching for was simply a label on an air conditioner, the last thing her sister saw as she was dying under experimentation.

She goes absolutely mental, understandable. Spidey fights his way through her mind-controlled ninja army (the hand in fact) by embracing his power upgrade rather than supressing it and then lets use read her mind and to hear words of comfort Aunt May had once given him (a clever cameo from Marisa Tomei) and takes a bullet from punisher for her. Punisher whisks him to hospital, Jean escapes on a bus upstate.

Peter gets out of hospital and despite MJ not being able to remember, doing the handshake with Ned is implied to bring all his memories back the end.

bad analysis and thoughts
I've not even covered everything that happens in the plot. It is densely plotted and the plots are all well interwoven and complimentary. It's very slick.

I'm not sure I liked the MCU cameos. Yelena's was weird, taking place in a poolhouse. Bruce's well i mentioned even before he got mentally controlled his attitude towards the inhibitor doesn't tally with She-Hulk but does work as foreshadowing for the film.

Punisher is big part of the movie, but his relationship with Spidey is from a noodle incident and is already full established before the film. Unlike Daredevil S2, it only humourously touches on their philosophical differences. I've never been a huge punisher fan even with Jon Bernthal but he's fine.

The movie really does shine in that Holland, Zendaya and Batalon still have a lot of chemistry and the scenes were they talk about the memories or just hang really are the strongest in the film. It's great they have MJ acknowledge that all through she likes Pete and Spider-man, those memories are genuinely completely gone and without them, she doesn't love him and he accepts this.

Boomerang was only scene in the opening montage, scorpion was in barely more than that. the primary antagonists are Jean and a Damage Control guy who I believe is named for a mutant-hater for the comics? Kind of feels like spidey got shafted for future of the mcu stuff.

My feelings of Jean I think really do depend on the next few films she's in. As antagonist, she's really sadistic towards Peter before the reveal and after that becomes much more sympathetic, if the X-Men films build on that and let her grow to be more compassionate and like the regular Jean, cool I guess. If Secret Wars reboots it all and we get a traditional X-Men set up and Sadie Sink then plays a different Jean, then this film would be awkwardly standalone.

I honestly think from previews and leaks and things, I was too up in my own head and expectations about the film and need another watch to give it a chance on it's own terms, if it comes to streaming then maybe I will but as it is. There's some stuff i like about it but I couldn't really let go and have fun with it.

[Bedlam]

I found it an ok film but not really meeting up to the hype that surrounded it (if that was even possible).

It was a little light on action for what I was hoping for deciding to mainly focus on the fall out of the 'forget me' spell and Peter deciding to only be Spiderman (yeah again the money problem is brushed over) mostly in the standard 'he must live in angsty pain' to be a hero way.

For the various plot threads they ran together fairly well. I think the Spider taking over issue seemed to be shrugged off easily, he just 'accepted his inner spider' and despite not actually changing his behavior at all just got a power boost.

Not explained but I liked that it at least appeared that the platonic relationship with his best friend could overcome the power of the spell better than the romantic one with his girlfriend, after all he knew Ned for longer than MJ, they even built a Lego death star together!

Going with the standard Superhero plot once again the organization tasked with controlling supers goes corrupt and decides to experiment on them and try to make super soldiers out of them. While I guess this is possibly realistic it also doesn't really cover what would you do with people with powers who can just choose to victimize people whenever they want i.e. the scene with Jean and her sister lazing around in the park casually mind controlling / possessing dozens of people.

I haven't see any of the TV based Marvel shows so I did feel a bit out of the loop for some things, mostly it took me a while to figure out who Damage Control actually were but I don't think it was that bad.

Yelena's cameo was I agree strange, its not entirely clear to me how the current Avengers actually fit into the world. She had her small and big potatoes speech but the current Avengers line up seems to be a fairly small potatoes thing anyway. They all have the 'low level super strength, guns and spycraft' skill set at best, it doesn't really feel like they're up to a save the world mission in most cases. Although I could see them looking down on Spiderman, he's probably actually more powerful than most of them.

[Crazedwraith]

I found it an ok film but not really meeting up to the hype that surrounded it (if that was even possible).

It was a little light on action for what I was hoping for deciding to mainly focus on the fall out of the 'forget me' spell and Peter deciding to only be Spiderman (yeah again the money problem is brushed over) mostly in the standard 'he must live in angsty pain' to be a hero way.

For the various plot threads they ran together fairly well. I think the Spider taking over issue seemed to be shrugged off easily, he just 'accepted his inner spider' and despite not actually changing his behavior at all just got a power boost.

Yeah I agreewith all this.

Not explained but I liked that it at least appeared that the platonic relationship with his best friend could overcome the power of the spell better than the romantic one with his girlfriend, after all he knew Ned for longer than MJ, they even built a Lego death star together!

That is a nice theory! Another one I've seen going around that it's because Ned's magic as per NWH but I prefer them just having a connection.

I haven't see any of the TV based Marvel shows so I did feel a bit out of the loop for some things, mostly it took me a while to figure out who Damage Control actually were but I don't think it was that bad.

To be honest, there's not that much from the TV shows. Damage control was introduced in Homecoming and became a SHIELD replacement in No Way Home. They have harassed Ms Marvel and Wonder Man in their respective shows though. Hulk's wrist thing was from She-Hulk and the Hand was in the netflix shows but both of them I felt were reintroduced okay and pretty different from their show incarnations anyway.

Yelena's cameo was I agree strange, its not entirely clear to me how the current Avengers actually fit into the world. She had her small and big potatoes speech but the current Avengers line up seems to be a fairly small potatoes thing anyway. They all have the 'low level super strength, guns and spycraft' skill set at best, it doesn't really feel like they're up to a save the world mission in most cases. Although I could see them looking down on Spiderman, he's probably actually more powerful than most of them.

My guess is Yelena's attritude is more to do with insecurity about the Thunderbolts and what Avengers should be doing rather than an accurate assessment of what they can handle.