Steve Ditko

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

31/07/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

The Odyssey may have stopped a lot of cinematic vessels from making it safely to shore, but Ol’ Webhead is back in town and nothing is big enough to halt the new Spider-Man from having his er… Brand New Day – even if, instead of IMAX, he’s had to settle for Screen X and 4D Real 3D. Me, I’m happy to watch it on a standard screen. There are a whole lot of Marvel products that I have enjoyed in the cinema, but Spidey is the only one I keep coming back for – and I’m really not alone. At the showing I attend there’s a veritable crowd of cinema-goers eagerly awaiting their next fix.

As a teenager in the 1960s, I adored the comics of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko – and, in 2002, I went along to Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man at my local multiplex and fell in love with the character (as portrayed by Tobey Maguire) all over again. And through all the following iterations, I’ve returned for another helping, always finding new things to enjoy. Andrew Garfield? Yeah, okay, his two films were darker than what had gone before, but still perfectly watchable. And then, in 2016’s Homecoming, Tom Holland stepped confidently into the role, shepherding the series fully into the MCU and I was hooked once more. Lest we forget, somewhere in the midst of all this, there were two Spiderverse animations that were nothing short of masterpieces, but which existed alongside Holland’s films without causing a ripple. We were told that Holland’s contributions would be limited to a trilogy – but No Way Home left the story on such a cliffhanger it was clear there would have to be more.

Brand New Day finds Spidey in uncertain territory. Yes, he’s now been accepted as New York City’s friendly neighbourhood superhero and, between him and Detective Jean De Wolff (Liza Colón-Zayas), the city streets are being systematically scoured of criminals. But, as chronicled in No Way Home, a pesky mind-wipe by Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) has added a new complication. Both Peter’s girlfriend, MJ (Zendaya), and his best buddy, Ned (Jacob Lees), have completely forgotten he even exists. He feels totally alone – and to make things worse, he’s also going through a major change in his DNA, the arachnid side of his personality growing in power and threatening to completely overcome him. And that web fluid he used to shoot from specially designed gadgets? It’s now squirting directly from his wrists – sometimes at very inopportune moments!

What’s more, a new threat is beginning to assert its influence on New York City – an invisible being that is able to leap from one unsuspecting victim to another in order to achieve its mysterious goals…

There is so much packed into this film that, even with a running time of 2 hours and 25 minutes, it seems to positively race by. (Some may argue that it could be cut back to two hours, but I would not want to be the one to decide which scenes should be considered expendable.) The characterisations of the key players have never been so astutely drawn. Nor has there been such emotional depth: there’s a real tone of sadness and regret in the early scenes, as Peter observes his former friends from a distance, as he suffers in silence.

Though several key MCU characters are afforded obligatory guest appearances – Florence Pugh’s Black Widow, Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner – none of them is allowed to overstay their welcome. Indeed, John Bernthal’s Frank Castle makes a particularly welcome addition to the story, forming an unlikely alliance with Peter, as the two former adversaries join forces to take on the aforementioned mysterious presence (I won’t reveal who or what this is, but it’s well worth the wait to find out).

Of course, there must also be action set-pieces in a film like this. New director Destin Daniel Cretton and cinematographer Brett Pawlak do not disappoint, amping up the visual flourishes with absolute control and ensuring that every single shot looks ravishing. The way the journey of the invisible ‘presence’ is shown is breathtaking, achieved simply with perfectly-timed choreography (you’ll need to see it for that line to make sense). Furthermore, an extended battle between Spidey and a whole team of red-garbed, sword-wielding martial artists is frankly jaw-dropping, one of the most accomplished special effects sequences I’ve ever seen.

What else can I tell you? Brand New Day somehow manages to locate the teenage kid lurking deep within me and offer him things that he still – after all these years – finds genuinely enthralling. Those who insist on stubbornly remaining in their seats for the inevitable post-credit sequence should be warned that this time out it simply amounts to a brief video game image and a promise that ‘Spider-Man will return.’

Don’t know about you, but I’m already looking forward to it.

4.7 stars

Philip Caveney

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) as Spider-Man in Sony Pictures Animation’s SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE.

12/12/18

That unwieldy title notwithstanding, this is a genuine treat. For those who are wary of watching yet another retread of a tired and over-familiar concept, let me assure you that this doesn’t so much as reinvent the franchise as grab it by the neck, tear it to pieces and start all over again. The result is one of the most exciting slices of animation I’ve seen in a long time.

Troubled teenager Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) is struggling to fit in to the straight laced Brooklyn high school where he has recently enrolled. His father, Jefferson (Brian Tyree Henry) is a New York cop, a disciplinarian and a vociferous Spider-Man critic. Miles finds himself gravitating towards his mysterious Uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali), who is an adventurous sort, prone to bending the rules. One night, when Miles and Aaron are indulging in a graffiti-art session in a deserted stretch of subway, Miles is bitten by a robotic spider and, shortly afterwards, begins to experience major changes to his mind and body.

Understandably confused, he returns to the subway, just in time to witness regular Spider-Man villain, Kingpin (Liev Schrieber), opening up a portal to a whole series of alternate realities and, for good measure, enacting a murder that will have all staunch web-heads shrieking ‘Noooo!’  at the screen. Kingpin’s meddling with reality is an attempt to reconnect with characters from his past, but his machinations have unwittingly invited five different personifications of Spider-Man to leave their own dimensions and head for present-day New York. I won’t list the alternate Spideys in detail but suffice to say: two of them are female and one is a cartoon pig called Peter Porker. The thing is, does Miles, still coming to terms with his new abilities, have the necessary stuff to join up with them?

Phil Lord’s plot may be bat-shit crazy, but it doesn’t matter one jot because Spider-Man: into the Spider-Verse careers along at such a breakneck pace there’s never any time to question the absurdity of it all. What’s more, the eye-popping animation is so extraordinary that it virtually dazzles the viewer into submission with levels of ingenuity and chutzpah rarely witnessed in this genre. There’s a whole riot of styles thrown into the mix, with individual frames freezing momentarily to do homage to veteran artists like Steve Ditko and John Romita, and more experimental sequences that break new ground entirely. It’s fabulous stuff. Oh, and  just wait till you see what they’ve done with Doctor Octopus!

Purists may not approve of some of the liberties that have been taken with the source material, but the fact is that the Spider-Man franchise has already been pretty thoroughly milked (yet another live action movie is due to land early next year), so if you’re going to slip into that distinctive red and blue outfit, you’d better have something different to offer. And believe me, this film has that in abundance.

Oh yes, and this features one of the best Stan Lee cameos ever (voiced by the man himself, of course), which, given his recent demise, makes it all the more poignant. Here he plays the owner of a cheap novelty shop, selling knock-off Spider-Man outfits and pointing to a sign that says ‘No refunds.’ Priceless.

There is only one other viewer at the afternoon screening I attend, and that’s a shame, because here’s one superhero movie that actually deserves closer investigation. Don’t let it swing over the horizon without giving it a spin.

4.7 stars

Philip Caveney