Chops

I'm back again with another Marvel release, and I'm yet again struck with a poignant dissonance between myself and the audience, that makes me feel like an alien walking among the human race. Immediately I need to address the product placement, there's some bizarre inclusions such as Tom Holland's own alcohol free beer brand which is suitably sobering, in that it totally kills any sliver of immersion created by some good cinematography and direction. A reminder that these films are still a corporate checklist of sorts. Onto immersion, the first hour functions as an act of reassurance to the audience that Spider-Man (and Marvel) is actually good now (or again for many) - and wow - *brand new*. I remember this area of the film took me out of my body, I felt as though this exact film, this idea of Spider-Man had long existed in the collective unconscious of fans. It was surreal. Weekend villains, a good skydive section, cute actually funny quippy moments!? This was it! However, then you remember, there's 2 more hours of actual movie, and this meta narrative served very little to the thing following it. This is the wider issue with modern (or I feel, postmodern) superhero movies for me, James Gunn's Superman, they're all meta text riffing with comic nerds and very little otherwise. I took my partner with me to this, who knows very little of superhero movies, and I remember her asking me during this opening section, "Why are the villains there, what are they doing?" and yes, great question! What is any of this without what came before, other than shared nostalgic psychosis, Stockholm syndrome with a studio who ruined what you loved and then made it slightly better. It's a lifelong battle for Marvel fans, that asks the viewer to focus in on whether or not Spider-Man is fulfilling their stance on how he should exist, and never whether or not Spider-Man is fulfilling a contribution against the spiritual abyss in modern cinema. As though each successful emotional beat, each tear shed, each cheer emoted at the sight of a cameo, doesn't ring with the dopaminergic uptick of an executives bank account. A ringing that undermines any humanity, as what's most important to the film's existence, is as many people thinking it's "alright" as possible, sinking deeper into the reality of mass cinematic experience residing in the vast soulless wasteland of the MCU. *Spider-Man: Brand New Day* is a decent film, the action payoff is a bit formulaic and it's quite corny (it is a comic book movie after all); however most goodwill I may have gets overturned, because it had a cheat sheet, that was accessible through a set of data that only billions of dollars could emass. (This film is also just largely lifted from the Spider-Man video game LOL)