Tag Archives: Spider Man

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October 2, 2026

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Avengers Endgame Encore

An amazing thing happened this last weekend, a movie that came out 7 years ago was re-released into theaters and took the number one position in the box office for the weekend. You might ask yourself how that was the case, in truth it’s not really that hard to understand. The film in question is “Avengers Endgame” and the re-release is part of the build up to a new MCU film that is meant to reestablish the dominance that the franchise once had. I hadn’t realized when I scheduled a trip to the theater to rewatch the film that it was going to include four stingers that didn’t play in the original movie and were specifically designed to promote the upcoming version “Doomsday”.

When I first posted on “Endgame” back in 2019 I was enthusiastic but I was not of the opinion that this was the best film of the MCU franchise. It is a very solid follow-up to “Infinity War”, and it has a lot of emotional beats to it which should work for the faithful comic book audience. When I originally reviewed the film I thought it was a little bit slow in it’s build up. As I watch it these days, I appreciate that more deliberate approach vastly more than I did in 2019. The events of the previous film needed time to settle, and we need to absorb the impact of what ultimately gets called the blip. And that’s what takes place in the first hour of the film. My reappraisal of the movie has to do with this part of the film more than any other. The emotional defeat that the Avengers are trying to live with, it creates the emotional foundation for what is to follow. If we didn’t get to experience the low, then the high that we get at the end of the film would not be as meaningful. 

Obviously there’s a lot of fan service built into the movie, and since I’m a fan I don’t really object to that. Let me just share with you a couple of my favorite moments from the film. When Scott Lang waves at the camera at the entrance of the Avengers compound, announcing himself and trying to remind the people inside of who he is, I both laughed and smiled. I had known from the end of “Ant-Man and the Wasp” that Scott was going to play a big part in trying to restore the Galaxy after the Thanos decimation. 

Of course the moment that I most remember, and that so many people who are fans of the MCU hold in their heart, is one of the greatest shots in the whole film series. It is the point at which Captain America picks up Thor’s hammer during the battle with Thanos and we all cheer because we know he is worthy. In a film loaded with shots that are designed to provoke a cheer from the faithful audience, this is probably the one that is most satisfying. Another moment from the final battle sequence which is clearly fan service for the girls, the key female superheroes line up to support Wanda as she is confronting Thanos himself. It’s probably a little bit more “woke” than we need, but it is a fun shot so I’m not going to dump on it. One more moment from the final battle that deserves to be called out, is the reunion between Spider-Man and Iron Man. We know that Tony Stark  felt the weight of the loss of Peter Parker, and we get a chance to enjoy an emotional connection that we knew existed and was part of Tony’s defeat.

Probably the things that I should be speaking about the most in regard to this revisit are the “Encore” stingers. It’s probably not fair to rank them in order of their emotional impact, but that’s the only way I can respond to them until I see Doomsday at Christmas time. From my point of view the strongest one, which evoked the best response from the audience including me, was the appearance of Loki in the Captain America wrap up story from the original version of “Endgame”. A knock on the door and then Loki stepping through the door produced a collective gasp and laughter simultaneously.

In one of two mid credit clips, we see Bruce Banner sequestered in what looks like an underground Atomic bunker, and he is providing exposition for story elements that we are not yet aware of. I suppose it’s designed to provoke questions about the upcoming film. And also let us know that some of the characters that we have loved are going to return for this next episode. I found it mildly interesting but it didn’t really have any emotional impact for me, it’s simply a sequence from the upcoming film that’s been inserted for a reason that I cannot yet fathom.

A second mid credit clip reminds us that the Time Variance Authority is a thing, and that it will be playing a role in this story. It’s not clear how big an impact the TVA will have, but what is shown to us is designed to give us a sense of the significance of Dr Doom on the universe. It’s an example of raising the stakes, because after all, we’ve already had Thanos wipe out half of life in the universe, we need something bigger than scale to make the next episode feel important. 

Finally there’s just a short image at the end of the credits, which shows a metal mask being forged in the Darkness, backlit by flames and enhanced by the sound of a pounding hammer. I’m not sure which way this is supposed to be going, but it was a nice little period at the end of the film.

I completely understand the criticism that the MCU films have had over the years. Frankly because the material is all comic book based, I don’t understand why anybody would expect something different. People who have enjoyed the pulp entertainment of comic books are being given something that they can enjoy on screen, and the films have been well produced, spectacularly shot and staged. They have enough emotional beats both humorous and dramatic, to make the stories acceptable. There may be occasional retconning of some of the plot lines, but for the most part it feels to me like there was also elaborate planning. I do know that the Doomsday approach is in part a reaction to another plot line blowing up due to an actor in an earlier film getting into some trouble. The diversion to Doomsday, will probably result in creativity that we might not have gotten otherwise. I hope it all works out, regardless I was happy to see “Avengers Endgame” again.

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August 15, 2026

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Spider-Man Brand New Day (2026) 2

We are well past the point where any of my opinions are going to matter on a film like this. I am completely aware that my suggestions will be superfluous, after all the movie has already made over a billion dollars and it’s part of a long-standing franchise that is going to continue regardless of what I think. Nevertheless I consider it my responsibility to let people know what I thought of a movie that I saw in the theater, and I’m happy to say that I generally enjoyed the heck out of this movie. It’s not quite as fun filled with the fan service that we got in the last Spider-Man film 5 years ago, but it is plenty entertaining and doesn’t screw up our main characters too much.

Tom Holland may however be growing out of the role since he is much less boyish than he was when he first appeared on the scene as Spiderman in “ Captain America Civil Wars” more than a decade ago. The plot does have him growing older however, so it’s not as if the filmmakers are denying the existence of time, but rather they’re just trying to minimize it.

You can get a recap of the plot from a number of other sources, let’s just say that the film picks up pretty much where it needed to after the whole planet has been wiped with the memory of Peter Parker. Peter himself of course. still has his memories, which is what is torturing him a bit, because he still loves MJ and misses his best friend Ned. Having made the decision not to reconnect with them at the end of the film last time, he’s had to go it on his own. There’s a great sequence at the beginning of the film that reminded me of a similar sequence in “Fantastic Four First Steps”, where we see a quick montage of Spider-Man defeating a variety of his comic villains. On the Lambcast my friend Jeanette used the term “cold open villain”, to describe the secondary nature of these characters. They exist just long enough to demonstrate Spider-Man skill but they aren’t worthy of an entire film.

The lone police detective that Spider-Man has connected with, forming a relationship similar to that between Batman and Commissioner Gordon, is professionally effective but emotionally empty. This means Peter is spending a lot of time wallowing in his existential crisis. He watches Instagram posts from Ned about the lives of he and MJ as they go through MIT without him. It’s only the presence of a new supervillain, a mysterious psychic, who LeapFrogs from person to person, that causes Peter to try to reconnect with his old friends.

Meanwhile Spider-Man is also undergoing some changes as a result of his isolation. Apparently the spider DNA that is coursing through his body is following an evolutionary pattern for spiders who do end up in a solitary existence. The changes frightened Peter and move him to try to consult with somebody else who is fighting the DNA in their own body. It’s not really a spoiler to tell you that this person is Dr Bruce Banner, since the character is featured in most of the promotional material for this movie.

Bruce has sound advice but it comes with a warning and as usual, Peter can’t really listen to a warning, he dives right into trying to make a solution that will work. As it turns out the solution would also potentially stop the new super threat that the psychic presents. In case you haven’t guessed it, that solution is a double-edged sword which may in fact hurt Peter, and can definitely be weaponized by the Department of Damage Control, the agency that is under attack from the psychic, and which has been responsible for cleaning up after alien and enhanced human confrontations.

There are two very emotional scenes in the film, each of which is worth talking about a little bit. Peter gets two chances to confront the situation between him and MJ, one turns out to be a ruse, and the other is a quite affecting moment between the two actors on the screen. The filmmakers do a nice job confronting the situation that Peter has put himself in in relationship to MJ. They don’t have an easy answer, but they do seem to have an honest one. And if you have any romance in your heart for their relationship, it may provoke a moment where you choke up.

Even more emotional however, the clever way Peter tries to resolve the issue with our mysterious psychic. It involves a memory of a conversation that he had with his deceased aunt. Marisa Tomei returns as Aunt May and what might have been flashbacks but are really extended visions in Peter’s head. The conversation that Aunt May has with the Peter possessed psychic, is likely to invoke some tears in those of us who are pretty sentimental.

As it turns out, there are other characters from the MCU that show up in the film as well. One is there for a bit of comic relief and for some narrative, but mostly just to remind us that the Avengers is still a thing. The other MCU character is providing a transition to a new set of possibilities in the Marvel Universe. Those comic book fans who know the history of the rights dispersal of MCU characters, will be salivating at the chance to maybe reconnect some formally disconnected Heroes.

There’s a lot more to talk about here, and if you want to hear more from me, you can visit the Lambcast episode that I have shared, where Jeanette Ward and I spent an hour debriefing each other on our opinions and theories.