No.374428
Spider-Man's Web of Deceit
Brand New Day offers the same old banality.
By Armond White
The amnesia conceit behind Spider-Man: Brand New Day is torturous. Peter Parker (Tom Holland) was able to save the world in the 2021 Spider-Man: No Way Home only by being erased from the memory of his sweetheart MJ (Zendaya), and now he must restore his place in her affections as well as recover his own sense of purpose.
As if a comic book hero's existential crisis wasn't hoary enough, the convoluted storyline of Brand New Day refuses to let audiences start fresh. That's the Marvel Cinematic Universe's method. Brand New Day enlists other Marvel Cinematic Universe figures (Mark Ruffalo's Hulk, Florence Pugh's Black Widow, Jon Bernthal's Punisher) and adds new ones (Sadie Sink's Jean Grey, Michael Mando's Scorpion) for future iterations. MCU weaves a web of narrative deceit that amounts to mindless consumer addiction - overstuffing fanboy memory banks with junk that will keep them coming back for more in perpetuity.
It would probably be outside the scope of criticism to mention that Brand New Day took in an estimated $360 million domestically over its opening weekend, breaking the all-time record for the biggest domestic box office debut in history - while Spider-Man: No Way Home grossed $800 million in the U.S. and $2 billion worldwide - except that the MCU enterprise is also outside the realm of aesthetics.
Director Destin Daniel Cretton, the former indie filmmaker (Room), joins the MCU team of F/X tradesmen to supply the requisite antiseptic action sequences. But, as usual with MCU, the spectacles are not just fingerprint-free but impersonal; they achieve a comic book/graphic novel idea in which visceral stimulation occurs without sensual or spiritual excitement.
Here lies the pop culture compulsion of adolescence, in the synthesis of both Spidey's never-changing story and in Brand New Day's most arresting set piece: Spidey battling The Hand, a group of ninjas in red garb that evokes the Hong Kong movie trend. It's a departure from the gimmick of Spidey swinging among skyscrapers, which has become de rigueur. It's also a reminder of how the MCU co-opts any brand of commercial entertainment that nerds can mistake for thematic consistency.