Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Bluesky

If the records I keep are to be believed I can with some accuracy state that I've seen 59.6% of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's television series, and with this fresh outing for Spider-Man all 38 of the feature releases. If that seems a lot of numbers then that's part and parcel of coverage of the film, whose box office seems to be drawing more attention than much else.

That's not to say it isn't enjoyable, though audiences not au fait with the requirements of crossover might be as surprised to see as much of The Punisher as audiences for Yesterday were to see as much of Ed Sheeran. Though if the Thinking Out Loud troubador had been equipped with as much high-powered weaponry as Jon Bernthal's Frank Castle he might have had more impact. Yesterday had a whole sequence where our protagonist searched for artists variously influenced by the Fab Four, but Spider-Man's forgetting (remember, from No Way Home?) means we could have been searching for antagonists variously influenced by the Sinister Six.

Except, and I won't go into the web of rights issues behind it, this film's search for a villain is hamstrung by the fact that most of Spider-Man's are busy elsewhere, often in their own movies, and instead he's aided by a cast of characters from elsewhere in Marvel. While Tom Holland reprises his MCU role so does Mark Ruffalo (Hulk), Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova (aka Black Widow II)), and there's a début for someone who is only an antagonist here because there was an equation that needed solving and most values of 'X' were cup-tied.

This reads like I didn't enjoy it, and I feel obligated to say that I did... but that it was at once so lumbered with references and what seemed a desperate need to return to something like a status quo ante (Marisa Tomei notwithstanding) that I had to step aside to try to enjoy it as a thing itself and I'm not convinced I succeeded. With great power comes great responsibility, but seeking coherence in a canon this mixed isn't as much a laser-focus as a diffuse use of energy. The film suffers from the usual Marvel pacing issues, and I'd make a joke about the profusion of references but will instead remind you of the Thor villain Wrecker who variously has an enchanted crowbar.

It's put, metaphorically I stress, to good use here, as we've got Avengers (old and new) and street level folks like The Punisher, and swinging between them Peter Parker himself. Though in attempting to create a more adult arachnid there are shades of Reeves' The Batman. The grind of comic books rewarded folk like Frank Miller, but sometimes what results is a thin gruel with good marketing.

Those feeling their oats will enjoy a few chases, a corridor fight (or at least an atrium fracas), a fair bit of hand to hand to Hand, some quips, some slips, and some measure of emotion. There are a fair few bits of Glasgow. It turns out to be cheaper to pick a street with relatively generic restaurant names already on it than underpay another special effects firm to change them. There's a 'tank', which is built around a Saracen armoured car but those have been cosplaying in comic book movies since at least Judge Dredd. There's a scene after the credits that is more about location than character.

There's also a goober (hat-tip to Peter B Parker) and some neat sequences that variously show range. There's also a gap. A void, if you will, the same one that Venom suffers from - though it's been established that a creature without a reflection might be as soulless as Morbius - and Spider-Man bears that burden too.

The Joker's Folie A Deux had to create an opposite of an opposite and to mix multidimensional geometries with various axes to grind the funhouse mirror can end up lacking. Which is in part because this is a Spider-Man film that keeps reminding us of better ones. It doesn't help that director Destin Daniel Cretton's Shang-Chi was more fun, and that the writing team of Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers managed to make a genuinely brilliant metatextual comic adaptation in The LEGO Batman Movie. Maybe it was the restriction of only working in black and very very dark grey that helped them there, but perhaps it was the freedom of penning the second film playing with a character that dates back to 1939 rather than the seventh (and by extension 38th) film featuring a character that dates back to 1962 (and by exclusion 2008).

It's too many numbers, and that's maybe my problem. I can't unsee what's gone before, and even deleting the tracking of my consumption wouldn't erase the fact that I'd found and fulfilled that need. Spider-man might be of the Empire State but exposure hasn't so much granted me superpowers as reduced what's still somewhat magic to empty stat. Brand New Day might signal a fresh start, but I've seen too many yesterdays.

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