Review: Spider-Man: Brand New Day

What puts Peter Parker, your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, ahead of the pack when it comes to super-heroics, is angst. He doesn't just have to deal with villainy in all its super-powered forms, he's got a crushing burden of guilt weighing him down. He knows that with great power comes great risks to those around him - which is where the latest Spider-Man film begins.

Having wiped the world's memory of who he is at the end of the last film, and with Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) now six feet under, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is very much on his own. Fortunately, he still has his secret identity as Spider-Man to keep him going, and for the last three or so years fighting crime has been his whole, entire, kind of depressing life.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is more episodic than usual, and the early scenes are pretty much an extended opening montage showing the new status quo. Spidey fights crime, Spidey is lauded as a hero (New York really loves this guy), Spidey puts flowers on Aunt May's grave, Spidey lives in a bit of a dump, and Spidey's connection on the force - Jean DeWolff (Liza Colon-Zayas) - appreciates his commitment but maybe he could take a break once in a while.

It's the lack of former besties MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon) in his life that's really getting him down, and watching their dopey social media content as they climb the rungs at MIT isn't really helping. The plan was for Parker to reveal his identity to MJ after the spell, but that never happened; now he just hangs onto the note he was going to use to get her back. 

It's not until a runaway tank and an encounter with Frank Castle, aka The Punisher (Jon Burnthal) that the story finds its feet. There's a new bad guy in town, one who has the ability to possess a person - and then jump from one mind to the next, moving from body to body. What they want is a bit of a mystery, but they seem to be targeting Damage Control, the organisation that cleans up after superhero battles and tries to turn bad guy technology (and the bad guys themselves) into a force for good.

Things start to come together when the face of the mysterious psychic jumper (Sadie Sink) is revealed and the threat becomes more focused on Parker himself. Meanwhile, he's starting to notice some weird side effects from his spider-DNA: maybe he's finally becoming a man... well, a spider-man.

This is very much a MCU movie featuring Spider-Man; other cameos that aren't spoilers include the new Black Widow (Florence Pugh) and Dr Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), while The Punisher steps up to the role of sidekick in the second half of the film. It's what you expect from Marvel (well, a Marvel / Sony co-production) - it's not like previous films didn't have big casts - but it does leave this feeling a little like a film of two halves.

The MCU stuff is consistently solid, if rarely inspired. The action scenes are varied and well-constructed (though the CGI does leave some fights a little weightless), the many scenes with Spidey swinging across NYC are at times exhilarating, and who doesn't love cameos? The double act that develops between Spider-Man and The Punisher is especially well handled: looks like Parker's finally got himself a big brother, even if he is a gun-toting maniac.

It's the personal side of things that stands out, thanks in large part to a thoughtful and nuanced performance from Holland and some much-needed emotional grounding from Zendaya . Parker's plight is a typical young adult's writ large: he's left school, his school friends have moved on without him, and while he's committed to his job he's otherwise feeling lost. And he's also going through some physical changes, so better late than never there.

These two halves eventually overlap when MJ gets involved, but they still largely run parallel instead of merging into one. What ties them together is Parker, but it still feels like he has problems at work and then also problems at home: just because they're both happening at the same time to the same guy doesn't make them the same story.

With the sheer size of the MCU, and Spider-Man now one of the franchise's old stalwarts, it's hardly surprising there's a lot packed in here. What is surprising is that it works as well as it does. The previous installment may have done a better job of juggling an over-stuffed cast, but this still keeps it together. It's a film of memorable moments rather than a coherent whole, like a bunch of fun scenes suspended in a web.

- Anthony Morris 

Review: The Odyessy

Since the days of Memento, Christopher Nolan hasn't been much of a fan of linear storytelling. That works in his favour here: most of us know the broad strokes of Homer's Odyessy, and right from the beginning - where a storyteller begins to tell the story of the ten year Trojan War, only to be told we've already heard that one - he leans into the fractured timeline of the original and shuffles the cards. The first time we even see Odysseus (Matt Damon), his story is almost over... well, apart from one important bit.

So there are a few timelines here. In one, Odysseus' wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and her not-quite-of-age son Telemachus (Tom Holland) have to endure a hall full of rowdy freeloading suitors, each there to claim her hand once she finishes weaving her grandfather's shroud and admits her husband is never coming home. Sleazy Antinous (Robert Patterson) is first amongst equals here, though his decent facade crumbles the more we see of him and the more his desire to claim the throne and dispose of Telemachus comes to the surface.

In another, it's the dying days of the Trojan War, with a big wooden horse left behind on a seemingly abandoned beach. This feels like the kind of thing we could probably gloss over, but we keep returning to it - often at the prompting of various veterans of the war. There's a deeper meaning behind all this recollection, though it does also provide some thrilling action sequences.

Occasionally we check in with an aged Odysseus, wandering a beach collecting driftwood while a mysterious woman (Charlize Theron) watches on. He's trying to remember his past, and she's both helpful and fearful of what he may learn. Maybe have a bit more lotus and we'll check back in the morning.

And then there's the younger Odysseus and his crew trying to get home after the war is won. When everyone else strikes out along the established trade routes, Odyessus thinks he knows better (and after figuring out how to win the war,  he's clearly got a bit of hubris going on). Soon they're lost, raiding coastal towns where the residents are increasingly worried about lawless "sea people" and landing on islands where you probably have a pretty good idea what awaits.

As far as Gods and magic goes: no to the former, aside from the occasional cameo from Athena (Zendaya), and yes to the latter. People believe in the Gods or they don't, and their workings are through nature and the hearts of men. But there are giants, monsters, and witches in this version of the story - and no version of The Odyessy would be complete without a trip to Hades.

The afterlife here is - as in the original - a bleak, dour place, and while the idea of any kind of faithful version of The Odyessy is silly at best (even in the original Greek, Homer didn't write a screenplay) this largely stays close to the broad strokes of the classic. So much so that at times it almost feels like the story is forcing Nolan to be more overtly entertaining than he's recently been: a lot of the crowd-pleasing stuff is in here, and it works just like it has for the last three thousand years.

That said, Nolan does work in his own take on what it's all about, though he merely adds new angles rather than outright rewriting the classic. Odysseus here has an extra new-ish reason for maybe not rushing directly home; people talk about the end of their "civilisation" as if the Trojan War has shattered its very foundations. There's even a callback (call forward?) to The Lord of the Rings if you want to see it.

But anyone looking for links to today (specifically, the USA and its military culture post 9/11) won't have to look hard; there's an awful lot of veterans wandering around in this story, using your wealth to get out of military service isn't a good look, and once you value results over the basic rules of society that society is in serious trouble. 

All that aside, this is a thrilling story skillfully told. By it's very nature the story is episodic, but each strand is equally compelling and the almost three-hour run time flies by. Some scenes are a little wordy (the modern-ish dialogue works fine), but there's plenty of near-silent action, and Ludwig Goransson's soundtrack is blunt and powerful.

Not every big name in the star-stuffed cast (including Samantha Morton, Elliot Page, John Leguizamo, Lupita Nyong'o and John Burnthal) gets a lot to work with, but pretty much everyone gets a moment to shine bright - well, maybe Theron is a little short changed. And Damon acquits himself well, though his version of Odysseus isn't so much cunning as annoyed everyone else doesn't realise he's right.

Whether you're here for stunning visuals, exciting monster action, creepy witchcraft, a thoughtful meditation on the importance of rules or just the original payback warrior taking out the trash, The Odyessy brings it all home.

- Anthony Morris 

Review: Evil Dead Burn

What separates the Evil Dead movies from the rest of the unholy possession / unstoppable zombie pack is that they usually try to be a little funny. What makes the goings on more than just a gore fest is that the Deadites aren't afraid to go way over the top when it comes to treating their possessed bodies badly. To quote another zombie movie, "they're all messed up".

But while Evil Dead Burn has a few jokes, for the most part it takes itself a little too seriously. Which has been a bit of a problem with the movie franchise since it was revived sans Bruce Campbell a decade or so ago. The previous film, Evil Dead Rise, seemed to suggest the series was finding its way back to the cartoony gore gags that made the whole thing work back when Sam Raimi was directing; that direction does not continue here under co-writers and co-directors Sebastien Vanicek and Florent Bernard. 

Still, the whole thing has a solid foundation. After her abusive - hey, he's under a lot of pressure, okay - husband Will (George Pullar) dies in a car crash, French ex-pat Alice (Souheila Yacoub) has to attend a funeral where his parents - Susan (Tandi Wright) and Edgar (Erroll Shand) - don't quite openly despise her, but it's close.

Her brother-in-law Joseph (Hunter Doohan) and his girlfriend Thya (Luciane Buchanan) are a bit more sympathetic, but once everyone's back at the decaying old mansion Joseph's been given (and is struggling to repair), tensions are rapidly on the rise. Oh, and Will was killed by a Deadite who infected Edgar and the demons are looking for a magical dagger Joseph's nutty grandfather stashed somewhere in the house. Carnage ensues.

The gore is both excessive and inventive, which is good because the story itself struggles to get into second gear. There's plenty of conflict between the characters, both living and dead; being a bit of a self-serving dick when the Deadites attack might save you at first, but when the person you left behind comes back they're going to give you a serve. But nobody here is all that interesting, which makes the "family reunion from hell" angle a bit of a fizzle.

(it probably doesn't help that The Invite is also out this week, a more successful film that's also about a small group of connected characters getting on each others nerves. If they'd started turning into Deadites halfway through, then we'd really have something)

Putting technical proficiency ahead of character is something pretty much every Evil Dead movie has in common. But where the Raimi-directed films had the crazy charisma of Campbell to cover it, the later films just take for granted that we're not here to connect with anyone on a human level. That's not to say there aren't decent performances here, but the focus is on the blood and guts rather than the characters its spilling out of.

It seems a little foolish to be complaining about a lack of humanity in an Evil Dead movie. But with nobody to care about and only a handful of decent jokes to break up the mood, all that's left to offer is a whole lot of gore. Which isn't nothing, and some of the kills are fun (in an ewwww way). It's just that in the end, that's not enough to fully animate this particular corpse.

- Anthony Morris