Spider-Man - Brand New Day

 

Spider-Man - Brand New Day

★★★★☆

    Almost good enough to make me forget it was a giant ad for Flock cameras. Almost. 

    I really enjoyed this movie! I feel like the MCU has been on a really good run lately. This was the first Spider-Man movie that felt like a Spider-Man movie, not an Avengers movie about Spider-Man. Tom Holland Spideys characteristic naivete felt more world weary and I enjoyed seeing how he's been adapting to adult life. 

    The product placement was a bit heavy handed. The ones that pissed me off the most in theaters was the random car and the Little Cesears. Also, I'm sorry, that many people do not use Androids. It felt a little weird for Peter Parker to be living in his struggle apartment but also have a fancy ass flip phone. 

The thing I was most excited for about this movie was the villain, Jean Grey. We haven't even gotten to the whole Phoenix thing and she's still strong enough to freeze part of New York, which is very exciting. It inspired an X-Men rewatch and reread, which should be fun. The X-Men have so much potential and they have really been done dirty in most renditions. I'm hoping that a reboot (fingers crossed!) would take advantage of all their story has to offer, particularly in this day and age. At this moment in time, a story about a group of people being demeaned and viewed as lesser-then simply for how they were born holds a lot of weight, and I hope the MCU is good enough to tell it. 

    Of course, I have to mention the inept and overt attempt at normalizing surveillance cameras. It felt every other sentence Peter was reminding us that he had every camera in the city running facial recognition scans. If this was an attempt to normalize or encourage appreciation for a surveillance police state, it missed its mark. I move to college in a month or so, and my college town is rife with Flock surveillance cameras and it is something I am quite nervous about. If you don't know, Flock cameras are a private company that contracts with local governments as, ostensibly, a traffic camera to help monitor licence plates and traffic patterns. In practice, there's a growing number of stories of law enforcement officers using Flock camera databases to stalk wives, girlfriends, or random women they want to meet. While we are experiencing a cultural erosion of privacy, it felt odd to have the hero of the movie participating for his own purposes. 

    I don't mean to get too thought daughter over here. Spider-Man has long been one of my favorite franchises and this movie did him justice. I enjoyed seeing his relationship with Frank Castle, the Punisher, and how their opposing characters worked together. I hope we get to see more of the Punisher on the big screen. I liked seeing Spider-Man interact with another hero in a less

    And of course: the ending. I've seen a thousand theories about what it means, if Ned remembers Peter and why MJ was on the roof. My two cents is Ned doesn't remember Peter; not entirely. He might remember something missing from his memories but I think the handshake was muscle memory thanks to the sorcerer lineage mentioned in No Way Home and the second "Peter" was remembering what MJ had said about Spider-Man being named Peter. As much as I want to believe they both remember him and things can go back to how they were, I think it's unlikely. But a girl can dream. 

Love always, 

Ellie