Spiderman: Brand New Day (2026)
We're always thrilled and proud beyond description to add yet another of our notorious "Last Blogger On Earth To Review This Movie" postings.......
As BQ viewers well know, this way we've no need to bore you (and ourselves) to tears describing the plot, which 50,000 bloggers, critics and assorted cinema pundits have already laboriously covered in excruciating detail.
Only Taylor Swift's wedding and Inde Navarette's 'Obsession' frown received as much media attention as this movie.
Let's just zip right through the highs, lows and whatevers.......
Was this a cure for Marvel Superhero fatigue that some people claim it was?
Not as much as we thought. Tom Holland still maintains his boyish charm, even though his Peter Parker is now older, battle-hardened and pining for lost love. But even with all its high octane CGI spider-fighting, we found it the usual overlong, exhausting and clumsily organized chore to sit through.
Marvel could truly stun the fans and the world with a 90 minute superhero movie that you can finish sitting through without a powerful urge to pee......Maybe Christopher Nolan would consider doing one...(we kid, we kid....)
What about an iconic, worthy villain? Anybody see one? We didn't.
Two main adversaries here, neither one a world-beater. Sadie Sink as Jean Gray, a pissed off X-Men (X-Person?) refugee who can leapfrog from mind to mind. Then there's mundane, business suited Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman), who's been causing all the Jean Gray rage by torturing her kid sister. Metzger just wanders out of the movie with no consequences and Jean, we assume, will wander over into the next 3 hour 'Avengers' film. Yawn-worthy, both of 'em.
Together, these two come off like a Who's Who of Who cares......only serving to make us infinitely nostalgic for Alfred Molina's Dr. Octopus to once again fling about his metallic tentacles. Now there was a villain for the ages......
What's with the webbing, anyway?
Don't know why these movies can't seem to decide if Spidey should ejaculate webbing out of his own wrists or use mechanical doodads to do it for him. Don't really care much, either. If the spider DNA consumes Petey's body, then we guess the next Spiderman can be a re-boot of 'Arachnaphobia'.
Our choice for MVP here.....
Easily goes to Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, the dryly deadpan newly christened Black Widow, taking over from her late sister (Scarlet Johannsen). Conducting all her superhero business while lounging naked in a bathhouse pool. Because...why the hell not? She supplies the witty breath of fresh air this movie so desperately needed.
The filmmaking.
After 'Supergirl' and this film we're getting really, really sick of directors and cinematographers employing dark, ugly, de-saturated color schemes for comic book movies. Maybe these people would enjoy themselves more doing making remakes of "Taxi Driver" and "Se7en".
Mark Ruffalo's Hulk....
Would've loved to see someone try Robert Downey Jr. Ironman joke.....poke him with a pencil to see if you can annoy him enough to go green.....
F*** the Alternate Universes.....
Let us once again reiterate how much we loathe and despise the Marvel alternate universe bullshit with the heat of a thousand suns. We vaguely remember Dr. Strange dabbling in this mind numbing nonsense, which leaves Peter Parker's beloved MJ (Zendaya) having no memory of him. And that leads to those tedious star-crossed Peter/MJ scenes that slow down a movie that's already a half hour too long.
Once again, thoughts and prayers for those dead and injured as collateral damage....
Since nobody in the Marvel Universe ever thinks about it, we take a moment of silence to offer our sympathy and condolences to all pedestrians and motorists who end up most certainly killed or severely injured as Spidey and his opponents smash and crash their way through city streets.....
And finally......the horror....the horror...
An even longer version of 'Brand New Day' is planned for a future release in theaters....We've seen enough. Hard pass.
One last word......
We realize these opinions don't line up with the overwhelming popularity of the film, whose box office receipts total somewhere over a billion dollars. We'd credit the following people for that kind of monumental success that's allowed the Marvel corporate empire and Sony pictures to milk this cash cow for over 25 years....(including those utterly unnecessary, who-asked-for-them Andrew Garfield 'Amazing Spiderman' entries....)
We speak of Marvel masters Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, creating the teen-angsty superhero who so captured the hearts and minds of children, teens and adults.
And film director Sam Raimi, who with his first original Spiderman trilogy, brought Lee and Ditko's creations to glorious cinematic life. Thrilling, funny, heartfelt and beautifully rendered, Raimi's gifted work provided the wellspring of good will that the Marvel still uses to fatten it coffers.
For Lee, Ditko and Raimi, 5 stars (*****).
For "Spiderman: Brand New Day, 2 stars (**).
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