Crisis of Heroism: Peter Parker is Looking for Himself in Spider-Man: A New Day
The next chapter of the Marvel cinematic universe is at the global box office: Spider-Man: A New Day. In Russia, the pirate rental of the film was postponed to August 20 for the premiere of the fairy tale "The Last Hero. Kolobok". In the new Peter Parker movie, Marvel brings back one of the most beloved characters to earthiness and humanity. This is not another attraction about a masked superhero, but a story about a teenager experiencing an existential crisis of loneliness.
What "Spider-Man: A New Day" is about
After the events of the previous part of "No Way Home," no one remembers that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. The guy lives alone, renting a small room in New York. In his free time from depression, he fights criminals and watches ex—close friends MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon) from a safe distance for them.
After the world has forgotten about him, Parker must earn the right to exist again, first of all in front of himself. Director Destin Daniel Cretton, who previously worked on "Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," made not an action movie about a friendly neighbor, but a film about the burnout of a teenager who was hit by a concrete slab of responsibility.
This is a completely different Peter Parker. He no longer feels like a mini-hero against the backdrop of the great Avengers team, nor does he fawn over Happy (Jon Favreau), who acts as a liaison between Spider and Iron Man. Parker saves New York without any hope of glory, because he doesn't know how to do anything else. When he is confronted by the duplicitous Damage Control Department in the person of its head (Tramell Tillman), the hero has to make a fateful choice — either disappear forever or regain his name.
Silence and fatigue instead of pathos
Tom Holland as Parker is more convincing here than in previous years. The actor does not try to jump over his head, does not act at the limit of his abilities and does not utter pathetic monologues about what he has lost and is suffering immensely. His experiences are accurately reflected in his daily life — the guy does not communicate with anyone, endlessly works on improving his costume and can walk from side to side for hours in an empty apartment.
Brett Pavlak's camera "loves" Parker in static and close-ups, when the hero does not fly somewhere and does not wave his fists, but only exists in space. Against this background, any spark of energy, whether it's a strange joke, someone's smile or the charming grunt of the Punisher (John Bernthal is a real decoration of the "New Day"), reads like a real event that has been missing for so long. The new "Spider" generally relies on nostalgia, and it works: if the previous installments were released every two years, then "New Day" had to wait five years.
In an interesting way, Cretton transforms spider sense, one of the Spider's features. If it used to work as a danger signal, now it is a kind of overload warning. Parker's body signals at the moment when the psyche cannot withstand the burden of responsibility that he has placed on it. This is a well—aimed, very unusual find that translates the convention of superheroics into the simple language of human physiology, understandable primarily to teenagers - the main audience of movie comics.
Action as a dramatic tool
Back in "Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," the director proved that he knows how to stage battles in such a way that it looks intense and impressive, and not like in the "Mortal Kombat" of the 1990s, which is painful to remember. In the "New Day" this skill was useful to Cretton and was improved. Every chase and every battle involving Spider and his antagonists is shot in such a way that it risks lingering in the memory for a long time (which is generally not typical of Marvel films). After an action game of this level, there is hardly any question why Peter Parker continues to dissect New York on the web in the middle of the night. It is a rare case when the dynamics of events do not overlap the personal drama of the hero at all, turning into its organic complement.
A special place in the story is occupied by the Punisher (John Bernthal). This year, it's been 10 years since the actor played Frank Castle (he first appeared in the second season of the Netflix series "Daredevil"). A lot of water has flowed away, but the signature elements of the image of an avenger with a traumatized psyche remain. Nevertheless, in "New Day," the Punisher is not a decorative or accidental sidekick of the Spider. In front of us is a mirror in which Peter sees his worst nightmare — the person he can become if he stops believing in the power of goodness.
The Parker and Castle duo works as fantastically as French fries with ice cream: it sounds fast in words, but once you try it, it will stay with you for the rest of your life. Bernthal perfectly plays off external irritation, hiding inner empathy. Holland seems tense next to this mountain of muscles and automatic horns, but deep down (spider sense!) He realizes that Castle is his rock and support, one of the few in the world where no one remembers Peter Parker's alter ego.
Zendaya is more than restrained against the background of previous Spider paintings in "New Day". The romantic line between Parker and MJ is relegated to the background here, as if to avoid falling into excessive melodramatism. Where Parker occasionally behaves like a teenager in love, MJ extinguishes a potentially romantic vibe: he pauses, looks away, bows his head. The line of the main trio — Parker, MJ and Ned — does not line up, but breaks down due to the incident with the lack of common memories. The characters often end up in the same locations, but these are completely different people.
Mutation and transformation
The plot of the "New Day" is not the strongest side of the picture. While Parker is facing an identity crisis, the Marvel cinematic universe is working out a checklist for staying in a big franchise. There is the duplicity of government agencies that hunt for mutants, and spectacular cameos of familiar characters, and, of course, hooks for future paintings of the cycle. As in other films in the cinematic universe, when cinema is forced to deviate from the main plot and remind viewers that they are looking at a part of something bigger, the narrative inevitably suffers. In the last 15-20 minutes, "New Day" turns into a long-running advertisement for the next MCU movie. However, every picture in the series suffers from this.
The main content of the new film about a friendly neighbor is in the intonation. Unlike previous films about Peter Parker, "New Day" does not try to mask the guy's growing up either with inappropriate jokes or another costume update, behind which there are "older" superheroes. Peter here, let's say, loses the right to youthful naivety, having received obligations of insurmountable strength. The guy realizes that the ideal plan for personal solitude for the sake of salvation and world peace is not a working scheme at all. In the typical superhero format, the hero is defeated (at least once) by the villain, so that he learns a lesson and becomes a better version of himself. In "New Day," Parker is "renewed" by life itself.
Cretton's movie differs in many ways from other Marvel films and from previous Spider-Man stories. This is a non—trivial picture of a generation for whom the power of good is not something ephemeral like fairy tales and magic. We get to know the hero, who made a conscious, very difficult choice, involving both new opportunities and a number of limitations. "New Day" is an organic, sensual and candid movie, it successfully combines both lightness and serious intonation. At a time when superhero movies are primarily about corporate schemes and marketing, a "New Day" is a welcome breath of air.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
