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Spider-Man: Brand New Day– Film Review

Cast: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Sadie Sink, Tramell Tillman, Mark Ruffalo, Liza Colón-Zayas

Director: Destin Daniel Cretton

Synopsis: After everyone in his life has forgotten him, an isolated Peter Parker continues to fight crime and protect the people of New York as Spider-Man until a mysterious, powerful new threat emerges…

Review: A superhero’s life can be exciting as they are granted extraordinary superhuman abilities and strength that most of us could only dream of. However, beyond attracting dangerous enemies, it can be an unforgiving existence where the hero must protect their secret identity and sometimes make the hardest choices, even at tremendous personal cost. Never has this been truer for the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s iteration of Peter Parker/Spider-Man, who made the ultimate sacrifice to prevent the multiverse from being torn apart at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home, where he made Doctor Strange cast a spell to make everyone forget him and erase him from their lives. A decision which saw him lose the love of his life and his best friend, a perfect encapsulation of the words every Spider-Man fan will know off by heart: “With great power, there must come great responsibility”. After bringing his MCU origin story to its conclusion, one might have wondered whether this iteration of everyone’s friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man would hang up the web shooters and make way for a new wallcrawler to enter the MCU, but you can never keep a good spider down.

Set in the years after the events of No Way Home, Peter has devoted himself to being Spider-Man full-time, taking down all manner of villains and keeping the citizens of New York safe, all while living on his own in his Manhattan apartment. Spider-Man is beloved by the city, but even with that adulation, Peter lives a truly lonely existence and has to watch from afar with heartache and sorrow as his former lover MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned (Batalon) go off to MIT. He is desperate to try and somehow restore their memories of him, but remains wary that doing so could put them in harm’s way. As if that wasn’t bleak enough, Peter begins to experience strange changes in his body and powers, all while a terrifying new threat emerges, threatening to undo all of Peter’s good work and unleash absolute chaos on New York’s streets once again.

True to its title, after having a trilogy of films in which Peter was under Tony Stark’s tutelage, dealing with inherited vendettas of villains who felt they had been wronged by the late billionaire philanthropist, or encountering crazy multiverse shenanigans and teaming up with variants of himself, the slate has been totally wiped clean. It is a new dawn, and a new day for Peter, but he isn’t feeling so good. Erik Sommers’ and Chris McKenna’s script returns the character very much to his comic book roots as an unquestionably bright working-class young man who fights crime all by himself, without the vast resources of a wealthy benefactor behind him, or a single soul he can confide in. This becomes particularly problematic when his body begins to change in the worst ways, leading Peter to consult a certain scientist struggling to prevent his green alter ego from reappearing. It certainly treads familiar narrative beats to (arguably the best Spidey film to date) Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, but rest assured, this is not a retread. Even with the obligatory references and appearances of certain characters to tie it into the wider MCU, McKenna and Sommers’ script keeps the stakes deeply grounded and personal, veering into almost horror territory when Peter’s powers begin to mutate.

With this marking the seventh time he has donned Spider-Man’s mask across solo adventures and wider MCU team-ups, Holland once again excels, slipping back into the suit with effortless ease. Ever since his memorable introduction in Captain America: Civil War, Holland has grown and matured in the role before our very eyes. From a wide-eyed teenager in awe while fighting Captain America and his associates, to a battle for the fate of the universe itself, to multiversal shenanigans, and the death of his beloved aunt. It would be an understatement to say he’s been through a lot over the years, leaving a heavy emotional toll that comes through in Holland’s performance, especially when compounded by the physical upheaval he goes through. Despite his loneliness, he finds an unlikely kindred spirit in Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle/The Punisher, who also lives cut adrift from everyone else. It’s a relationship that isn’t exactly plain sailing, given Castle’s modus operandi is far more direct and brutal, but the film leans into this dynamic and makes it extremely entertaining as these polar-opposite philosophies and combat styles are left with little option but to join forces, particularly when MJ’s life is threatened.

In taking over from the Home trilogy’s director Jon Watts, Destin Daniel Cretton reinvigorates the franchise in a thoroughly refreshing and exciting manner. It’s easy to see why he was recruited to direct an Avengers film, as there’s vibrancy not only in the scenes where Spider-Man swings and thwips his way through the city, but also in the action scenes. One would strongly suspect that Cretton played the Insomniac games beforehand, as there are clear visual nods to them, along with the impressive flair he so masterfully demonstrated with Shang-Chi especially with the scenes involving The Hand and the film’s main antagonist. The identity of said antagonist shall not be divulged here, given the deliberate manner in which the film’s marketing shrouded it in secrecy. Needless to say, Marvel would do well to keep Cretton in mind should an opportunity to direct an MCU ensemble film come up in the future.

Those wider references to other MCU characters, while necessary, sometimes bog the story down and keep the audience from focusing on Peter’s internal struggles to balance his superhero duties, being Peter Parker, and trying to reestablish some human connection in his life. It shows that growing up is hard, even with superhuman (or spider) DNA, especially when the comforts you have relied on to get through this complicated journey we call life are taken away. You get knocked down, but you get back up, put your best webs forward and come back swinging, because a spider’s work is never done.

Building on the foundations laid by the Home trilogy, Brand New Day raises the stakes with a more mature, grounded story that delves into complex themes of isolation and growing up, with Holland never better as the titular hero.

The Whale – Film Review

Cast: Brendan Fraser, Hong Chau, Sadie Sink, Samantha Morton, Ty Simpkins

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Synopsis: A recluse English professor makes an attempt to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter…

Review: Back in the early 90s and mid-2000s, there was an immensely popular actor who was beloved in Hollywood, particularly with his leading role in The Mummy franchise. He seemed like someone who would go on to enjoy a very prolific career in Hollywood. Unfortunately, a mixture of personal tragedies and a sexual assault accusation levelled against the then President of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in 2018, led to him reportedly being blacklisted from Hollywood. Now, after many years from the limelight, Brendan Fraser is making his long overdue comeback in the most heartbreaking way possible.

Charlie (Fraser) is an English professor who, due to a deeply personal tragedy, has allowed himself to be stricken and overwhelmed by the grief which has driven the rest of his family away. Consequently, to help him cope with the emotional torment of his situation, he has eaten to such an extent he has since become obese. He holds his classes online, with his camera off to avoid being seen by his students, which enables him to remain in his flat all the time hidden away from the rest of the world. He recognises in his condition, he may not have much time left in his life and so when his estranged daughter Ellie (Sink) shows up unexpectedly one day, he makes an attempt to reestablish a relationship with her.

Based on the play of the same name by Samuel D. Hunter, there’s always a risk when a film is set in one singular location, it will find itself unable to escape the limitations of being confined to the same four walls and hold the audience’s attention. However, when you have actors putting in phenomenal performances, especially Fraser, the film can escape that confinement. Fraser’s performance is so powerful, with every word of dialogue, you can feel the raw pain and torment within him and how guilty he feels for driving his family away. Actors being buried under piles of make-up and or prosthetics can sometimes become a distraction where this becomes the singular focus and the performance is forgotten about, but this is emphatically not the case here. The process of grieving when we’ve lost someone we love affects everyone in different ways, but for Charlie, it has left such a devasting impact on him to the point where he has accepted his fate.

While Charlie is resigned to the inevitable, there are individuals in his life who do their utmost to convince him that life is worth living. The most prominent is Liz (Chau) who assists Charlie as a nurse with his medical needs and also serves as his main source of company. While she pleads, in vain, with Charlie to seek medical treatment, she remains unwavering in her commitment to care for Charlie despite her pleas falling on deaf ears. There is Charlie’s estranged daughter Ellie, who turns up on Charlie’s door out of the blue after a long time because she wants her father’s help with her studies. It is an extremely difficult role to pull off as she understandably harbours a lot of bitterness and resentment towards her father for the significant period he was absent from her life, but Sink rises to the challenge in magnificent style.

The decision to have the entire film in a 4:3 ratio is an inspired creative choice on the part of Aronofsky. as it encapsulates both Charlie’s confinement to the four walls of his flat and his refusal to venture outside of those walls. Characters in previous Aronofsky films have often found themselves either at their moment of triumph or in some cases at their utmost lowest ebb. Given the circumstances of its main character, The Whale is definitely the latter, but through the bleakness of which Charlie finds himself, come plenty of moments of touching humanity and emotional gravity. It will be a minor miracle if you’re not at least holding back the tears by the time the credits begin to roll.

A simplistic, scaled-back story of redemption told with compassion, elevated with an extremely powerful lead performance at its core. Welcome back Brendan Fraser, we have missed you.