Spidey sensibility
Today: Sam Thielman, a reporter, critic, essayist, and editor, and graphic novel columnist for the New York Times.
Issue No. 623
Action is his reward
Sam Thielman
Action is his reward
by Sam Thielman
Spider-Man’s master plan:
Build his own little spider clan.
Moxy Früvous, “Spiderman”
As a parent in New York City, taking a child to every summer movie that looks like it might not scar him for life is more or less compulsory. You get, if you’re lucky, three pleasant hours in the air conditioning and you can talk about it afterward, although you will probably have to purchase tie-in Legos, which can be expensive. To give you an idea of my nine-year-old son’s cinematic acumen, he loved Hoppers and Masters of the Universe and Minions and Monsters and begged me for a toy version of that movie’s fart gun, which, you will be horrified to learn, exists. He thought Toy Story 5 was fine. He loves The Lego Movie so much I occasionally catch him watching the DVD with the commentary tracks on. Let’s call him Ben.
On Wednesday I took Ben, who had never seen a live-action Spider-Man movie before, to Spider-Man: Brand New Day. We did not watch the first three movies in the series beforehand, both because the movie is called Brand New Day and is directed by a different guy (Destin Daniel Cretton, rather than Jon Watts, who made the first three), and because I strongly believe it’s important to be confused about what, exactly, is happening when you first encounter Spider-Man. This is how most people experience the Marvel Universe, cinematic or otherwise, and this fourth film felt like a good starting point. I will be spoiling the movie below, but not before the paywall. If you want to know whether it’s good or not, I liked it. I would put it in my top five or six Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, up there with The Marvels and Doctor Strange and the Shane Black Iron Man movie and Thor 3. Ben also liked it.
Ben liked Supergirl but thought the Clayface trailer beforehand was too scary, and, having recently insisted on hearing Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey as a bedtime story after listening to a kids’ podcast about Greek mythology until his mother and I could no longer stand it, enjoyed the Christopher Nolan movie, with the exception of the cyclops (also too scary, probably because I had told him it was scary. If you don’t tell kids to be scared they often aren’t. Circe turning people into pigs, he felt, was hilarious.) Ben was interested to see Telemachus as Spider-Man, Athena as MJ, and Menelaus as The Punisher.
Keep us breathing fire!
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