My thoughts on Spider-Man: Brand New Day

FULL SPOILER WARNING!!!

This movie broke me. 

From the beginning itself, we see that Peter is starting to have problems with his webs, and he's isolating himself completely. And we can see this is a setup that is a recipe for disaster for him, but he keeps pushing through.

You know how in the first chapter of a book, there's an event that happens, and then at the end you see the same event, but it is different now. It shows the growth the character has gone through. There was a scene like that: So earlier in the film, Peter is talking to this police lady, Jean DeWolff, and she says, 'I don't know anything about you. Do you even know about my life? Do you know what my kids are called?' And he says he knows her son's name is Papi, because she had just called him that earlier on the call. And she bursts into laughter because her point is proven.

And then at the end of the movie, once he's gone through that whole arc and the whole journey, he says, "Say hello to EJ and Marley for me." And that really shows the growth he's been through, where he isn't isolating himself from everyone anymore.

One thing I absolutely loved was Peter's 'rivalry' with Frank. Their banter throughout the movie is just so amazing and so entertaining. I love listening to them both rally back and forth with their words and constantly be irritated with each other, but eventually slipping into endearment and a kind of love. And it's just so sweet to see that. Frank's like this big, burly military sergeant with greying hair, and then Peter is like this kid who's always wearing his mask because, for Frank, he's Spider-Man. If I could see just those scenes one more time, I would. I definitely would. They're adorable.

There's this one scene where MJ is in Frank's bunker and she's lying on a bunk with a curtain between her and Peter, and Peter's sitting there in his Spidey suit without his mask so that he can see what he's doing. And we see Peter's face, but MJ doesn't. And the look in Peter's eyes every time he looks at MJ is just devastating, because it is filled with so much raw love. You look at him looking at her, and you know this guy is gone. This man will do anything for this woman. His eyes are literally shining with a hint of tears, and there's just so. Much. Love. That is one of my favourite parts in the whole movie. You can tell that Tom Holland isn't acting, and he's really actually feeling it, which is just so sweet!!!

And even when he comes to the bunker before MJ knows his identity, when she's sitting there holding the letter that he wrote, and she realises that Spider-Man is Peter Parker, you can see it. She's quiet and trying to process what is happening, and she tells Peter to take his mask off, saying she deserves to have this conversation with Peter Parker and not Spider-Man. So then he does, and the parallel between the way they look at each other—he's looking at her with all of this love and pain and tears just burning in his eyes. There's nothing more beautiful.

The best part is, they could have made them kiss and go, "I remember you, oh my goodness, everything's gonna go back to the way it was, this is perfect, la la la."

They didn't.

Peter tells MJ he loves her, and you can feel it radiating out of his every pore, and she replies "I'm sorry, but I don't love you." and you can see the hope he had until she said that and the pain afterward, and the most heartbreaking part is he lets her go.

But in contrast, in the last scene of the movie, Peter sees Ned. And it's such a parallel to the beginning of the movie where he sees him and walks away, and he's about to walk away like he always does. Instead, he goes up to Ned this time and they do their secret handshake, at the end of which Ned goes "Peter?" and it's so heart-aching it's yanking my heartstrings!!

They could have easily made MJ remember Peter, but they made Ned remember him first. And that is a refreshing twist from the cliché we would usually expect like "you're my true love, we kiss, you remember, hurrah!" But no it's his best friend who remembers.

When MJ invites Peter up to meet Ned, for the first time in so long, he's not in isolation. And he's just building Legos and talking with Ned, and it's just so wholesome and heartwarming to see all three of them. And Zendaya shows Peter the drawing she's made of him and Ned and tells him, "You both look like best friends." It's so sweet. And later when Peter has to go, MJ says his name, and I started laughing so hard because literally a few scenes later, Ned is like, Spider-Man's name is Peter?

Oops.

And the other scene that really broke me was when Jean was getting experimented on, and still had no idea what V-max is. Her head is thrown back, she looks up, and sees a vent half-covered in tape, where all you can see is the "V" and the "max". That's when she realises:

"The last thing my sister saw was this room."

That utterly broke me. I was... I was just stunned, and I'm still trying to process it. The last thing her sister saw was the vent in that experimentation chamber, in that room. That's the last thing she saw before these people killed her with their experiments. I am still trying to process that. And Jean saying it again and again made it hit even harder. The last thing her sister saw before she died, was that room. She's been holding on to this hope that she'll find her sister again, she'll see her again, everything will be fine. And then she realizes that she can't ever see her again. I cannot recover from that.

Metzger deserved to die for what he did. He did not deserve the mercy he got.

After that, every single part of the ending was so emotional in different ways, and it's...I loved it.

Peter realises he can't hold himself back with the inhibitor, and he finally embraces it, and he's able to get to Jean. And then Jean is like, don't be so sure I can't get into your mind, and then Peter's like, go ahead. And he lets her in, because he knows she isn't evil. And she sees this conversation he has with his Aunt May, and she, and she finally understands what he's been through, and she knows that he can understand what she's been through, and then they reconcile.

But then all this time, Frank was outside the bubble of control, had gotten a high ground, and was gonna shoot a bullet right at Jean. He was done doing it Peter's way. He wants to save Peter, because he's grown attached to him. And then you can see in the middle of the conversation, Peter senses the bullet coming and turns to block Jean with his body, and he gets the bullet. Jean is holding him and asking if he's okay. To which this man says he's fine, then promptly collapses to the floor. Jean's crying, trying to stop the blood flow, and you briefly do think Peter might not make it.

Next scene, Frank has picked him up and is running towards the hospital. And Peter gets admitted. Jean is in his mind through the whole time, keeping him alive.

Peter wakes up and sees Frank asleep by his bed, and smiles. Then he realises he doesn't have his mask on and jumps out of bed to find it, and you can see how this fear was in him through the whole movie after what happened last time and how desperate he is not to make that mistake again. And then Frank reassures him, and Peter's relaxed after that. There's this huge crowd flooding the streets, all dressed like Spider-Man, holding posters, "We love you, Spider-Man," and there's so much support.

Peter has to go, so he just walks right out the door like a normal civilian. And the moment he steps out, everyone screams Spider-Man, Spider-Man! But they're looking towards the window of the room he had been admitted to, and they see Frank waving his arms around wearing just Spider-Man's mask.

There's this one child, the only person who even glances at Peter. They wave, and smile at each other, and then...you don't even know if the child knows it's him or not, but it's meaningful. And then he moves on.

My god, the emotional rollercoaster this was. [I did not brain dump all of this as a voice transcript and edit afterwards. Nope, who said that? Totally not me...]

P.S. Apparently I wrote this in August and then forgot about it afterward...so I'm putting it as my October blog...