The reception for this film has been spectacular. It quickly became one of the most successful movies ever released; competing with films like Avengers: Endgame and Titanic.
Many seem to think that Brand New Day is worthy of multiple visits to the local cinema. I think, however, that this movie is painfully overrated.
Brand New Day's main antagonist is none other than Jean Grey, a mutant woman with psionic abilities (namely, telekinesis and telepathy). Jean can brain control anyone within 33 feet from her. She can experience their memories, and she can jump between the brains of multiple people.
In the comics and other movie adaptations, Jean Grey is a hero; this is not the case in Brand New Day, where Sadie Sink plays an embittered teenager whose sister Sarah was abducted by a government organization named Damage Control. She wants to find a way to infiltrate DC, find her sister, and rescue her.
We can profile her as some sort of school-shooter type enemy: broken, immature and extremely distrustful. Her levels of empathy are also remarkably low, with some people comparing it to the "Dark Phoenix" saga from comics were Jean is corrupted by a cosmic entity.
Her attempts to save Sarah involve a variety of morally questionable actions, namely:
+ Mind Controlling people whose role in Sarah's abduction is none.
+ Mind Controlling a random guy and making him stand in front of traffic - after which he is promptly ran over by a car - just to tease Spiderman.
+ Mind Controlling Spidey's love interest, MJ. Forcing a kiss with Spiderman just to deceive him and hurt his feelings. Proceed to make MJ jump off a building.
+ Mind Controlling Bruce Banner, destroying his ability to control The Hulk, and sending him into a rampage. This one to me is particularly disgusting because this is Banner's greatest fear, and this could cause serious repercussions to his life and sanity.
+ Mind controlling an elderly lady into strapping a bomb to herself and ramming a tank into a government building.
+ Harming / killing random people.
+ Mind controlling the guys from a ninja group named "The Hand", forcing them to attack Spidey. She makes one of them stab himself through the stomach just to injure the arachnid.
In short, this film's Jean Grey is an individual who doesn't care about lessening harm to third parties. At the same time, there is no reason to think that her abusive "plan" was the best way of saving Sarah. For example:
+ If Jean Grey can jump within people's brains, why make an old lady steal a tank when she can just psychically sneak her way into Damage Control headquarters?
+ What exactly prevents Jean from mind controlling a Damage Control worker to infiltrate the headquarters?
+ The MCU's New York city is home to a large number of super powered individuals; if Jean Grey can control one of them, she's done. Furthermore, she can find someone's dirty secrets and use them for blackmail.
I mean, all of this things still involve moral issues, but the damage to third parties is greatly reduced and the plan is more effective. In short, Sadie Sink's Jean Grey is someone whose malice makes her stupid and hinders her own intentions.
Despite all this, Jean Grey is treated by the movie as a poor little misunderstood innocent, not as a broken figure who does evil things. She is elevated to the level of victim™ as if her victims didn't had feelings too.
After figuring out why she is a terrorist, Spiderman "fixes" her: he allows her into his mind, and she witnesses Aunt May giving a motivational speech. Spidey then takes the role of a social worker who tells Jean that she is loved, that she is not a killer and that she's got a friend in him, friendly neighborhood Spiderman.
Then, Spiderman takes a bullet for her. This finally convinces Jean that Spidey is a friend and she decides to save him with the help of the Punisher.
And then she just leaves. She faces no consequences for her actions. The movie wants us to consider her a victim™ as if she didn't hurt lots of innocent people for a plan that didn't even save her sister in the end.
You see, saving someone who loves you and forgives you for your abuse isn't as brave as admitting that you have been a useless monster. Most characters who redeem themselves in movies proceed to actually virtuous deeds. Some make a big sacrifice of their life or safety. Others try to compensate their great evils with an even greater number of good actions. It would have been nice to have a scene were Jean apologizes to the people she harmed or possessed, but none of this happens. Not even in the post-credits scene.
And this isn't even the first time Marvel excuses the behavior of a female possessor.
The last mass possessor in the MCU was Wanda Maximoff, aka Scarlet Witch. After experiencing grief because her robot boyfriend Vision died, she commits the following crimes:
+ Possessing all the inhabitants of a town named Westview, forcing them to pretend they are living in an Utopic sitcom.
+ Sending fellow witch Agatha Harkness into a mental loop because she wanted to intervene.
+ Refusing to free the inhabitants as soon as they revealed they were experiencing torment.
+ Accessing the evil book Darkhold, after which she is possessed by an entity that convinces her to kill, torture and harm people just to get to take care of someone else's children.*
+ She only expels the entity from her mind when she realizes someone else's children think she is a monster. Then, she kills herself.
While all of this happens, "heroes" like Dr. Strange and Monica Rambeau react with the maturity of a Lego Marvel© Christmas Special. Once again, zero consequences.
Will Marvel try to actually try to redeem Jean Grey, like Tony Stark before her? I would like them to do it, but I don't expect them to correct their course. You see, Brand New Day and it's characterization of Jean Grey are being defended by establishment media and commentary figures. They think Jean is a "morally grey" character. Furthermore, she is portrayed as a persecuted minority, which means the writers won't dare to give her some accountability.
That's pretty sad because a decently written redemption arc for her could be beautiful, motivational and even spiritually useful for some of the hapless viewers. It's also extremely uncomfortable because brain control is a violation of privacy, something that corporate tech bros, politicians and wanna-be antichrists like Trump are obsessed with.
Perhaps, just like Jean Grey herself, Marvel's evil is making them stupid too.
I will pray that people will benefit from whatever is good in this movie (not much) and strongly reject the (multiple) areas with questionable morality.
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