Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is pretty good.

I know what you’re saying… “that’s it Pat… that’s the best you can do for an opening?”

I’m with you. It's is a simpleton’s yawner of a lead sentence. But from me, reviewing another MCU film, “pretty good” is eloquent high praise. 

Thirty-eight previous “Marvel Cinematic Universe" (MCU) films, three solo Spider-Man MCU movies (all with Tom Holland as Spidey #1)—that’s a lot of “Whammm”, “Powww” CGI. And after three MCU Spideys and numerous pre-MCU Spider-Man efforts, it’s a lot of Spider-Man. Hard to find something “brand new”, something fresh to tweak our summer heat-soaked minds… and it’s hard to be great.   

I understand that the decades of Marvel Comic-Book storytelling, beginning with Stan Lee and the crew back in the day, provides a large amount of fodder for superhero film making. But it’s often the same thing over again. There’s been a lot of truly average films among the 38, and some real sleepwalkers too (Ant-Man: Quantumania… stick to your lane Ant-Man). But Spider-Man has always been a bit different… a level better. And Tom Holland’s Spidey has consistently paid out. He does once more in Brand New Day.  

We left Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) having erased himself (with help from Doctor Strange) from the planet’s memory to avoid impending universal destruction.  Now we find him in New Day, several years later, fighting New York crime and rebuilding and advancing his Spidey tech from a dank apartment. He is a lone wolf and a lonely spider. Although the world remembers Spider-Man they do not remember Peter Parker. Aunt May is gone (at least in this universe) and he has chosen not to re-introduce himself to his best buddies, MJ (much more than a friend before the memory spell) and Ned Leeds, to keep them safe from those who mean to do him harm. He is a ghost with no friends, no legal identity, and no past connections.

The forced lifestyle is clearly wearing on him. He wants to continue to be guided by his uncle’s now-ancient credo… “with great power…” yada, yada, but to what end? Something is changing. His small-potatoes crime fighting encounters a new perplexing power. He continues his internal wrestle with whether to reunite with the people he loves but does not want to endanger. His Spidey DNA has unexplainably jumped into an overdrive evolution of sorts with some confusing side effects. This brand-new day spawns numerous and sometimes muddled story themes – loneliness, friendship, prudence in the face of change, fear of the different vs. its embrace. 

The journey through New Day’s labyrinth of motifs includes both the derivative and the spectacular. The film can’t avoid giving us several too-common overblown CGI melees – who is fighting whom becomes impossible to discern. But the confrontations with The Hand, a group of mystical red-clad ninja assassins (featured on the movie poster and prominently in the trailer with good reason), are sights to behold. There are also seeds planted for the introduction of other Marvel Comic groups into the already burgeoning MCU, and an organically advanced Spidey that may push himself well beyond his Bronx roots and boundaries. 

All of this makes for a long experience—New Day runs ~2.5 hours. Such length gives its creators time to get themselves into trouble with a criss-cross of story paths that threaten any clear direction. But Holland and his extremely likable gang manage to hit the landing somehow—finding a satisfactory place for the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man to leap off from next time around. New Day, in the end, is a pretty good movie for 38 and counting. 7 out of 10. 

The Odyssey is don't-miss cinematic art

 

Odysseus the Cunning, King of Ithaca, hero of the Trojan War. The legend and the tales of Odysseus’ trickery at the walls of Troy had traveled back to Ithaca and beyond. But his, as many of us already know, was a longer, slower journey.      

The Odyssey is an epic story of wandering and reckoning. A tale as old as time, almost. The multiple story makers, orators and performers the world labels as “Homer” brought about Director Christoper Nolan’s source text millennia ago. The narrative endures that time. Now Nolan imagines it for us again and we applaud (I did… many of the audience did). Because the result is a new visual, mental, and emotional spectacle that should be seen by any enjoyer of the art of cinema. 

Commentary on this film seems ubiquitous. No news feed can be accessed without someone’s opinion appearing in a headline. Several I read described Nolan’s new work as being “loosely” based on the original text. I would disagree with the word “loosely”. Indeed, the key themes of Homer’s poem are all there in this new Odyssey: Odysseus’ departure to war, the tests against the forces of the Gods during his return, the homecoming (nostos), and the underpinning moral codes of Zeus’ law (xenia) that Odysseus negotiates along the way.  Odysseus’ long journey home from war includes encounters with the most famous of Homer’s myths and monsters: the Cyclops Polyphemus, the giant Laestrygonian warriors, Circe the witch, Calypso the nymph, the Sirens, and Hades itself with its ghosts of Odysseus’ past.  

Although this new version is clearly rooted in Homers’ epic poem (my informed opinion), it is certainly Nolan’s Odyssey. The director’s penchant for time manipulation displayed in previous films (Memento, Inception) is in place throughout the telling as he moves Odysseus back and forth from entrapment by Calypso to remembrances of Home, from Troy to the battles with supernatural beasts.  Nolan also adjusts the tenor of the hero’s evolution from the taming of his brutality to the trauma and regret caused by it. 

The awe of the film, and there is much of that, is in the tests. But its power is in the depiction of the very human experience of the leaving and the coming home. That power is made palpable in the theater, in great part, by Matt Damon’s strong performance as Odysseus. In an important monologue near the end of the film, as he explains to his wife why it took him so long to return (he is twenty years gone), he poignantly grasps the disconnect caused by inescapable change over time and the agonizing truth of the impermanence of life, relations, perspective, and belief. 

Nolan is not trying to duplicate Homer’s poem onto the screen—much to the chagrin of numerous always-angry people. Historical accuracy, whatever that means in the retelling of an ancient tale that itself spans hundreds of years in its creation, was not his priority. He has stated that his questions were "What is the best speculation and how can I use that to create a world?" What makes The Odyssey important… what makes it an amazingly impactful view, is that it very successfully allows, forces maybe, audiences to experience a marvelous fantasy in some fantastic past. A place and past that we can sense, that we can marvel at, and feel the very human story within the myth. 9 out of 10. 

Disclosure Day

The much-anticipated Steven Spielberg film, Disclosure Day has arrived—the summation (Spielberg’s own words) of the director’s life in science fiction films which began with Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Like most of the planet, I have enjoyed Spielberg’s work over the years—two of his films are in my top 100 movies: Schindler’s List and Lincoln. Others, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, and more, are permanently registered in my mind as I presume they are for many of you. There are flashes of the majesty of those past works in Disclosure Day. The film is solid and, at times, dazzling from an action and technical standpoint. But the story is plagued by incongruities and, eventually, silliness, diminishing the impact of its core theses.   

The principal themes of Disclosure Day are not new to Spielberg’s story telling. Many of his films have ruminated on the spectrum of human reaction to and treatment of the different (Schindler’s List), the mis-understood (Close Encounters), the alien (E.T.). This time Spielberg attempts to weave these themes within a run/chase conspiracy-thriller wrapper. 

The runner is Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Conner: Knives Out-Wake up the Dead), an employee of a secret government affiliate, the Wardex Corp, who has stolen government files detailing decades of events of human-alien contact. Daniel is supported in his crime by a crew of Wardex defectors convinced that the truth of alien visitors must be revealed to the world. The chaser, Wardex CEO Noah Scanlon (Collin Firth, Kingsmen: The Secret Service) is just as strongly convinced that the planet cannot handle the truth about the alien presence and rushes to track down Kellner and his associates before they can reveal those secrets.  

Concurrently, a television weather person, Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt, The Devil Wears Prada 2) has an odd encounter with a small bird in her apartment triggering latent (maybe) telepathic abilities in her. Margaret's seemingly new knowledge and periodic visions lead her toward Daniel and an awareness of their intertwining pasts with the undisclosed aliens and what might be learned from them. 

Disclosure develops some pace and shine in its early running scenes—sweeping camera pans following car chases and train v. vehicle encounters. The associated imagery is familiar and fun. 

The characters are well played by the ensemble cast with some standout supporting performances from Wyatt Russell (son of Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell), as Margaret’s boyfriend and Courtney Grace who just nails it as a news anchor in the film’s final scene. 

But Disclosure Day stumbles hard in creating a convincing connection among and purpose for its characters and all its moving parts. Disclosure's numerous ideas and theme strings are convoluted and sometimes off target, with too many gaps and questions to congeal into any impactful whole. It’s Citizen Kane-esque ending comes and goes without resonance. 

And so, my anticipation of Disclosure Day’s arrival and of a Spielberg tale, once again, leaving an indelible imprint on my psyche, was for naught. Many critics found the film “Fresh” however, as did most early viewers reporting out on Rotten Tomatoes. So, you may indeed find freshness and profundity in this new and final Spielberg sci-fi. Sadly, I didn’t. 5.5 out or 10. 

The Devil Wears Prada 2 - It's good to see old friends again

It’s been 20 years since we’ve seen the crew of Runway magazine on the big screen. The characters who sent The Devil Wears Prada into rarified levels of popularity and money-making way back in 2006 are that much older and part of our distant and unrefreshed memories. So maybe I should not have been surprised that our reunion in the sequel, The Devil Wears Prada 2, began awkwardly—clunky dialog, stilted delivery—the early scenes of reintroduction were disappointingly ungainly. But Prada 2 might be compared to an aging fashion model’s last trip down the runway; the entrance may be less crisp than in days past but once in the full light and sound of the catwalk, the strut comes back.

Prada 2’s tepid start is all about reassembling the ol’ team and then trying to make us remember how much we liked this bunch: Ann Hathaway’s optimistic but conflicted Andy returns, oddly, to the Runway after being laid off by her shrinking newspaper; Nigel (Stanley Tucci) is still playing second fiddle to Meryl Streep’s ruthless Miranda Priestly; and frenetic Emily (Emily Blunt) is now a senior exec at Dior and remains very interested in herself. The early scenes are heavy with lines from and nods to the 2006 film. Alas, I had begun to steel myself, in my theater luxury recliner, for a nigh two-hour rehash of what had come before—then the new film separated itself from the old. 

The main change in Prada 2 from Prada 1 is role reversal. Turns out there’s a new devil this go around… and it doesn’t wear Prada. Twenty years have significantly altered the Devil/Prada landscape. Print media is failing. Awareness of what style is in or out is now communicated through clicks and learned from TikTok. The old fashion-guard is being pressured and replaced by big tech and big corporations with their executive teams focused more on bottom lines than hem length. Odd tech billionaires and their suited minions are the devil now. The high-and-mighty Miranda Priestly has been defanged to a degree, forced to recognize a new power and where the new money comes from; and forced to concede that she will need the help of others to maintain the little space that is left for her.  

This switcheroo is an easy vehicle to propel the film along but it’s really not that interesting. The true fun of the film, the thing that makes it worth watching is, once again, the well-played characters—our old friends. 

The film and cast finally hit stride when we all return to Italy for Milan Fashion Week. Our posse swaggers through a grand entrance to the event looking really, really good. Madonna’s Vogue blasts forth as the party starts (the old). Then Lady Gaga appears with a new anthem (the new). The lights flash, the models walk, important people connive… and were cruising. 

Prada 2 is by no measure a great work. But it is, at last, fun. The mashing of old and new is not without kinks and stumbles and contrivances to tolerate. But the sweet reunion with old friends is worth the small sorrows that come with it. 6.5 out of 10. 

F1 is cliché... and exhilarating

F1, the new motorsport drama starring Brad Pitt, is undeniably entertaining. The race sequences are beautiful, heart-pounding works of art. Joseph Kosinski’s direction of the action is on point, as it was in Top Gun: Maverick. And Pitt’s charisma, mature but intact, gives the film’s shinny hardware a bit of heart. But the “F” for Formula in the title also describes the film’s formulaic story line. F1 is a spectacle to behold, but behind the mesmerizing speed is a well-worn tale and a very by-the-numbers telling.

 

The fact that F1’s plot is as mechanical as the film’s racing machines does not make it a bad viewing experience—I’m still strongly recommending it. I’m just saying that you’ve seen the narrative before… many times before: damaged and/or aging athlete is revived and presented with a chance (maybe a last chance) at victory, or redemption, or whatever the storyteller decides is the hero’s motivation. 

F1 has such a hero (of course) In Sunny Hayes, a once promising young Formula driver whose career has been derailed by a near fatal accident. After a string of bad decisions and relationships, Sunny has settled on a racer-for-hire existence, searching simply to continue to drive in whatever fast thing he can find. But when a friend and former Lotus teammate (played by Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men, Dune)) offers Sunny a slot on his floundering F1 APXGP racing team, the highest class of worldwide racing, he takes it, although he is not sure why. And… you can guess the rest. 

Pitt’s ah-shucks, it’s-all-good portrayal of the nomad (physically and emotionally) Hayes’ is comfortable if not compelling. Pitt can still command a scene with, what appears to be, minimal effort. Bardem is also excellent as the desperate racing team owner taking a flyer on his old teammate. The two generate a palpable chemistry with Bardem’s freneticism juxtaposed against Pitt’s what-the-heck vibe. The two eat up the screen as Hayes forges an unlikely and unconventional path toward an impossible checkered flag (maybe). They are each other’s last chances. 

But let’s not get too distracted with characters and plot and the like. Sure, the buddy thing is fun, and an obligatory love interest for Sunny gives us another thing to root for—but it’s all pretty shallow and even a little cheesy at times. No, you should see F1 for the thrill and the tension of the race, because this is the most authentic racing car movie ever made. 

It’s easy to want to compare F1 to other racing movies—the best-picture nominated Ford v Ferrari is the most obvious and highest quality comp. FvF is the better film… the better performance. But F1 is the better ride. 7.5 out of 10. 

A Quite Place - Day One

A Quiet Place-Day One is the third installment of the A Quiet Place film series and was created as a prequel to the first film. It is also the first of the three to not have John Krasinski (The Office) in the Director’s chair or as a principal script writer.  Whether it’s the change in direction (Michael Samoski (Pig) directed and wrote the script for Day One) or an intentional shift in the approach to telling this monster story, you can sense a difference in the feel of A Quiet Place-Day One right off the bat. And different doesn’t mean bad—there are good examples of action series that have changed pace or scope or purpose after their first installment and had great success—Aliens, Road Warrior, and Terminator Judgement Day come to mind. But in the case of Day One, different also doesn’t mean better. Day One is different than the first two films, but it’s not as good—it’s not as nifty, not has nuanced, not as gripping. 

Krasinski had the benefit in the first installment of having an original and cool diegesis with surprising antagonists. His monsters were sightless creatures overrunning the planet. Their origin was untold. They were simply there, and everywhere, and they were wiping out humanity. The aliens were blind but with an acute sense of hearing, creating a new-born human environment in which survival required silence. It was a good gimmick. And Krasinski used it well in the first two Quiet Place installments, playing with sight and sound and non-sound to create unnerving tension in exercises in noiseless endurance. 

Samoski, on the other hand, is challenged with spinning off a new story with a now familiar premise and players. The title of the new film portends a possible origin tale for the invaders and their prey. But Day One is not that. Day One is a race, a running of the gauntlet, with fresh-face participants simply trying to get from point A to point B under monstrous conditions.   

Samoski’s first gauntlet runner is Samira (Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave, Black Panther), a terminally ill cancer patient living in a hospice in New York City with her cat Frodo. That’s right. You heard me. Sam’s got a cat. And we all know that gauntlet runners always go back for the cat. And yes, you’ll be whispering to yourself, as you do during all such films with cats… “just leave the damn cat you idiot!” Eric (Joseph Quinn, Stranger Things) is the second runner, a stunned and frightened British law student who stumbles onto Sam, thanks to the cat of course, in a burned-out Manhattan. Sam is terminal, she is going to die regardless of how she navigates this apocalypse. She’d like one more piece of Patsy’s pizza in Harlem before it all goes away… she just wants to go home.  Eric is just there, scared and desperately in need of another human to run with. 

For the action side of this race, Day One relies heavily, with some effect, on jump scares, chases, and closeups of the film’s killer beasts to shock and frighten. The character study side of the film is more compelling, however. Sam and Eric’s odd partnership and desired finish line seem a foolish contrivance at first but slowly become a believable and even obvious goal of humans laid raw by eminent doom. Indeed, my favorite moments of the film were completely monster-less: a pre-invasion marionette play with a magical floating boy puppet that suddenly collapses in a heap—and allegory of the coming apocalypse; Eric and Sam’s silent but sanguine magic show in a deserted Harlem jazz club.  

These two sides of the film never mesh completely, however, not in a meaningful way. The obstacles that our heroes face along the track could have been anything—zombies, plague, war—their story would be the same. The blind monsters become disconnected background; their newness worn away. 

Nyong’o and Quin are good in this film, they do their best. And Day One is enough of a spectacle and story to be worth a watch in the theater. But we’ve seen this before, even though the pace and the people are different; the shininess of the whole thing is gone. 6 out of 10. 

Wonka: Not as good as we’d hoped

A lot of hype around this movie. I was excited to see it on its opening night. I was hopeful, like the young Willy Wonka I was about to meet. I knew it would be difficult—the original having set such a venerated bar. I promised myself not to give into the temptation to compare. But the new Wonka seemed to want me to do just that, nudging me, as the film started, with those three notes—C, E-flat, B-flat… “Come with me… and you’ll be”—and I was back with Charlie in the chocolate factory. There were more ties to the classic 1971 film, sprinkled throughout. Unfortunately, those old sprinkles are the best parts of Wonka, the new treats underneath are much less memorable.

Notwithstanding the clear attempts to maintain a connection to the original film’s older Wonka, this origin story presents a very different chocolate maker than Gene Wilder’s recluse. Young Willy, played enthusiastically by Timothee Chalamet, has yet to create his great chocolate factory as this tale begins. He is outgoing, generous, hopeful, whimsical. He’s a dreamer and  buoyed in his dream by a lost mother’s promise to be with him when he shares his gifts as a great chocolatier. Missing from this youthful version is the jadedness of the older Wonka; the snarkiness, and the mistrust created by years of the covetous trying to steal his genius. He has yet to learn, as his new band of downtrodden friends will try to teach him, that “the greedy hurt the needy every time”. 

There’s nothing wrong with this take on Wonka’s origin, although numerous big-media critics dislike this more-sugary Willy. It’s not the idea of this story that misses, it’s the telling of it.

At first, the stage, the music, and the story’s many characters and strong cast seem well positioned to make things interesting. Young Wonka encounters a duo of swindlers and winds up in servitude along with a small group of other unfortunates. These members of Team Wonka, however, are duller than their first impression would indicate and are given little to work from the film’s script. Their evil counterparts in the “Chocolate Cartel” are equally flat; a trio of one-gag melodrama villains. Even the excellent effort from Chalamet, who plays Wonka with great verve, is not enough to move the needle much off the half-full mark. Chalamet seems to put everything he as into his new Wonka. This includes his execution of the film's song and dance which is delightful and endearing. But the dances are minor and the tunes unmemorable. His excellent performance makes the mediocrity that surrounds it that much more frustrating.

I should make clear here that Wonka is not an unpleasant film. I suspect most of the younger patrons will give the film a thumbs up—the bones are good as they say. And all will enjoy Hugh Grant’s Oompa-Loompa (we could have used more of Hugh Grant… and a lot more Oompa-Loompas). But that magic was missing. I was patient. I kept waiting for Wonka to kick in… but it never did. 5.5 out of 10.