First Time Films

Tom Holland, like Peter Parker in the new Spider-Man movie, has been dealing with some growing pains. ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ starts off by speeding through what would have been Peter’s college years to pick up with him in his early 20s. He has also been going through a spider puberty of sorts, causing his wrists to sprout organic web slingers that render his old mechanical ones unusable and making him prone to fits of black-eyed aggression. This is his equivalent of a spider molting, shedding its old exoskeleton to hopefully emerge — stronger and more resilient — into adulthood. “But the movie has no idea what that adulthood might look like,” writes film critic Alison Willmore. Part of this is a Spider-Man problem — growing up has never entirely suited Peter Parker, who’s always felt most natural as some kind of student. But part of this is an issue with Holland, who’s risen to movie-star status on the strength of the Marvel character but who himself is teetering on the edge of a grown-up career that feels a lot less certain. When Jon Bernthal’s Punisher, with whom Spider-Man is inexplicably paired up for this installment, growls, “I’m gonna kill that kid,” it’s a reminder that Holland also just spent ‘The Odyssey’ playing a boy waiting to come of age while elsewhere in the same film actual children get enlisted into war. “Timothée Chalamet is the same age but plays characters whose core tension is their desire to be taken seriously as men despite their youthfulness,” writes Willmore. “Unlike him, Holland feels perched on the edge of the unknown — like the movies aren’t allowing him to grow up because they’re not sure what a grown-up Holland character entails.” Read Willmore on how, in the latest ‘Spider-Man’ film, Holland, like the superhero he’s playing, struggles to show us what might be next: nymag.visitlink.me/fN7C7U

Christopher Nolan, responding in Time magazine this week to the avalanche of criticism over his Odyssey casting choices: "Hopefully they'll enjoy the film, even if they don't agree with everything. We had a lot of scientists complain about Interstellar. But you just don't want people to think that you took it on frivolously." He built a real seaworthy ship, shot entirely on 70mm IMAX, and spent $250 million. Is Nolan being dismissed too quickly, or did his casting choices earn the backlash?

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