'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' Is A Breath Of Fresh Air For The Comic Book Movie Genre
Giphy Images.
A forgotten Peter Parker lives alone as a full-time Spider-Man until mounting pressure triggers a dangerous change and a powerful new enemy emerges
I've ranted a ton about the problems facing the Comic Book movie landscape. Over-saturation, focus on quantity over quality and lack of care lead to people just not caring as much. One hero that has been seemingly immune to this fatigue, though, is Spider-man. Over the years, he has slowly started to replace Superman as the reliable, go-to Superhero for the regular guy. And i think the box office has reflected that not only for this movie, which just set the record for thursday night previews (topping 'Avengers: Endgame'), but in previous iterations as well. What it really comes down to, I think, is that you are always rooting for this kid.
'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' is no different. The big changeup here was the shift in director, Jon Watts, who directed the first three movies, exited and Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed 'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings' and 'Wonderman' took over. And while I liked Watts and think the online revisionist history regarding the quality of his trilogy is extremely lame, I really like what Cretton did with this movie.
He crafted this story around two storylines. "The hero who sacrifices his happiness for the safety of others" and "Misunderstood good guy doing bad things for the right reasons". Neither of these general ideas are unique to the genre at all. But the way Cretton weaves them together makes it feel fresh and helps land some great emotional punches throughout the movie. By simplifying these stories, he gave Tom Holland a shot to shine and this is the best he has performed the character in my opinion. Zendaya, who is typically in sort of a window dressing role in these, is also given a chance and crushes it. The biggest takeaway to me, though, is that Sadie Sink is destined to be a star. Not that it's a deep field, but she's already the best iteration of her character I've ever seen. Like with Shang-Chi, Cretton also did a fantastic job infusing some new camerawork and action styles to the genre which feel incredibly refreshing vs what we've been getting lately.
This is all to say that this feels like the correct path for the MCU. Instead of bombarding us with content, make a few very good things a year. You can see this in practice with their current slate. After 'Avengers: Doomsday' later this year, they don't have another movie on the schedule until 2028. Their only misstep so far has been canceling 'Wonderman' which came down yesterday. Another DDC entry, it was their best series outside of 'Loki' in my opinion.