To the Sunny Colch Odeon! …on Monday lunchtime. On my agenda for the Cheap as Chips Monday Grubby Fiver Club was the new Spider-Man movie Brand New Day.
I don’t think I’m really the target audience for any Marvel film. I remember the kids at school being completely engrossed in the Marvel universe in a way that perhaps I thought they might be with Star Wars. Marvel is where all the action is for the cool kids, Natch.
I did try and educate myself ahead of the screening. I noticed that the iPlayer has all nine previous Marvel Spider-Man films available to watch. That’s an awful lot of screen time. I managed to get through the first one before realising that I’ve actually seen it before.
I’m sure I must have missed plenty in films two to eight but I didn’t let this put me off getting in the way of my Monday afternoon booking. My rate of viewing, especially when the football and the cricket seasons are colliding, means that it is unlikely I would get through all the past efforts sometime before Christmas.
I could just about follow the plot. The trick with all of these franchise films is to be accessible at the basic entry level for the likes of me, as well as having plenty of in depth Easter eggs for all the nerds to follow.
It’s a film about a bloke who can spin webs and fly from buildings. That’s about it yeah?
I confess to being rather drawn in and spending another half hour or so back at base, googling all the various characters and how they all fit into the current film. It’s no spoiler alert to say that the Hulk stole the show.
There’s also a fairly deep romantic plot, which I wasn’t expecting.
Brand New Day is supposed to be something of a reboot of the franchise. In the end it felt like it was trying to get all the characters in a place where they feel comfortable ahead of what may come next in the series.
As ever with the Cheap as Chips Monday Grubby Fiver Club, there was some constant chatter from the back row. Four pesky school kids took it upon themselves not only to hold some chat shit conversation, but also to shout out abuse at all the characters.
Thankfully the sound in the Sunny Colch Odeon was pretty deafening and it drowned the dickheads out.
They did join in with a round of applause at the end however. Such communal nonsense is not for me.