Spider-Man: Brand New Day: Movie Review

Cast: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Mark Ruffalo, Sadie Sink
Director: Destin Daniel Cretton

There's a lot to love about Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton's new Spider-Man film.

Chiefly, some inspired martial art fight scenes and taut action pieces, as well as Tom Holland's most impressive performance in his fourth outing as the webbed wonder.

But there's also a lot to feel weary about in the latest Marvel movie as the weight of expectation hangs heavy over the MCU universe ahead of the unleashing of Avengers: Doomsday in December this year. 

Four years after Peter Parker helped the entire city of New York forget who he was - including his amour MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned (Batalon) - the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man is combating crime but breaking under the emotional weight of doing it alone.

With a battered body and a crushed spirit, Peter finds himself pushed to the limit when a new threat appears in the form of a telepath (Stranger Things' Sadie Sink), hellbent on their own mission and seemingly unstoppable.

That, coupled with the fact Peter's powers are changing after years of trauma, presents plenty of problems for Spidey. But the biggest problem may be the loneliness and the cost of being a superhero.

Emotional edges and a strong performance from Holland help Spider-Man: Brand New Day to new heights, but as he retreats to emotional emptiness and isolation, grappling with a darkness, there's a distinct feeling of deja vu as elements of the Venom black suit storyline flit in and out.

And while the inclusion of fellow PTSD-sufferer and lonely soul Frank Castle AKA The Punisher (Bernthal, gritty as usual) makes for a good bedfellow and banter, the appearance of the Hulk in his monstrous form adds little to proceedings, other than to satiate a few moments of fan-fiction writ large.

Yet when the film slows down and concentrates on the moments between MJ, Ned and Peter and the relationship, the depth really shows and impresses. The main plot's been kept under wraps by Marvel bigwigs (and the urging of Sony to keep it unspoiled) but needless to say, it's not as strong as it warrants such secrecy and feels more like a course correction ahead of the upcoming mega-epic Doomsday.

Zendaya's underused here, but perhaps wisely. The film works better with less of the moping that has felt part of the previous films and there's a real feeling of tragedy when star-crossed lovers MJ and Peter meet. There's also a lovely closing coda that feels true to what makes Spider-Man work in his connections with others that could have involved someone else, but chooses not to do so and is all the better for it.

The latest film is about the weight of adulthood, the loss of friendships and the toll life takes on you. As a result, it's less of the quippy Spider-Man you've come to know and love, but Holland sells the transition with power and poise. There are genuinely heartbreaking moments of truth within the action sequences and while this Spider's web continues to grow in terms of the wider universe, it's in the smaller moments that the Spider-Man power is more obvious.

The credits show snapshots of life around New York, the city Spider-Man's chosen to protect and save - and it's here that Cretton really marks out a point of difference for the overly familiar can Peter be a man and Spider-Man at the same time question. It's a reminder of the impact we have on others and amid the big-scale bluster of CGI destruction that happens in parts of the film, it's good to see that even when it's over-stuffed with spectacle, Spider-Man never loses sight of what truly matters to his story.

Hen: Movie Review

Director György Pálfi.

The old adage of why did the chicken cross the road is given a new spin in this film from Hungarian director György Pálfi.

Encompassing both birth and death, Hen begins with the laying of an egg inside the confines of a factory farm for chickens. As the little chick breaks free, chirping away, life seems full of possibilities - but because of the colour of the little chick (black), the hen's plucked away from those going to slaughter and taken by a lorry driver as a feal to have at home.

However, when the hen leaps out of the cab window at a fuel station out of curiosity, it encounters a new world of adventure - and danger - as it ends up at a seafood taverna, and whose owner is living a double life.

Much like Eo did, Hen presents a sympathetic and almost simplistic way of animal life, looking to humans for salvation, empathy and company. And much like Eo, there's a distinct danger in every interaction that the plucky hen faces. Whether it's a fox stalking on the side of the road or the pecking order within the hen house, Pálfi's film offers a humanistic and grounded approach to the class reality of the animals.

There's humour within too - and shocks (one scene sees the hen inadvertently cause a massacre) but Pálfi never loses his eye for what makes this universal tale so engaging. Sure, there's a human allegory here and a tale that shows an insight into life in Greece, Europe, human trafficking and the migrant journey, but the film never looks to be overly didactic and instead concentrates on ensuring that what plays out is thoughtful and moving.

With its thriller edges and some murderous moments, this is a strangely uplifting film that shows once again, the most effective of tales can come from this simplest of executions.

Hen is playing at the New Zealand International Film Festival - for screening times, visit nziff.co.nz

Marty Supreme: Blu Ray Review

Cast: Timothee Chalamet, Kevin O'Leary, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A'Zion, Fran Drescher
Director: Josh Safdie

Not a film to be viewed if you've already had a fraught day, Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme is a ramshackle, hyperactive sports film like you've never seen before.

In fact, it's probably fair to say it's more about the journey, than the ultimate destination. 

Chalamet plays the overly confident and tunnel-visioned Marty Mauser, who's an excellent shoe salesman in 1950s New York, but whose soul is not in it - despite the owner wanting to make him manager. More a hustler who's convinced himself he can talk his way into anything he wants, Marty is about to take part in a table tennis tournament in the UK but is short on cash. 

Holding his colleague at gunpoint and claiming the money is owed to him, he heads abroad, only to lose in the finals to Japan's Endo. But undeterred, he sees this as just the start after romancing a fallen Hollywood star (Paltrow) and charming her millionaire husband (Shark Tank's O'Leary). However, anything the chaotic Marty seems to touch descends into mayhem.

Marty Supreme starts in a rush of hormonal desire and doesn't really let up from the get-go. With a frenetic eye for a series of episodic sequences, Safdie, along with Chalamet, constructs a tightly wound tale about a man trying to get what he wants with consequences for everyone but him.

With extreme close-ups that give you a view into every pore of some of the characters, and loud needle drops of music throughout, Safdie manages an immersive experience that's nerve-shredding at times in its intensity, even if the story does occasionally feel repetitive and unthreaded.

Yet in the middle of it all is Chalamet, whose nervy and wiry performance is compelling, no matter how unlikeable his Marty Mauser becomes. Despite an unearned ending that's not entirely convincing, Chalamet does more than enough to take you along for the ride.

Marty Supreme may be a claustrophobic ride of tension and an unnerving one at times that dips its toes into a myriad of genres, from crime caper to romance film to Bonnie and Clyde-antics, but it's well worth a watch - as long as you're up to date with your blood pressure medicines.

H Is For Hawk: Movie Review

Cast: Claire Foy, Brendan Gleeson, Lesley Duncan, Denise Gough
Director: Philippa Lowthorpe

Based on Helen MacDonald's own memoir, H Is For Hawk is a broodingly introspective piece about grief and coping with loss.

Cambridge Academic Helen spends her time as a teacher taking her students to the pub and engaging with them on their course work - but when she receives a call that her photographer father (Gleeson, mostly glimpsed in flashbacks) has collapsed and died while out on a job, her world falls into a tailspin.

As she negotiates the next stage of her life, she decides to take up falconry, buying a goshawk to train after years of bird-watching with her father. But the new hobby becomes all-consuming, leading family and friends to fear that Helen is inert and unable to move on.

While H Is For Hawk's 2-hour run time can feel drawn out in places, the film's slow peeling back of the layers of grief prove to be just about compelling enough to keep you engaged - though in truth, a lot of that is due to some handsome cinematography and Foy's restrained and soulful performance.

It's perhaps fascinating that scenes between Foy and the hawk (named Mabel) are perhaps the more engaging, as the rest of the film feels more like a traditionally dour affair, that has a degree of predictability about it.

Family and friends fret over Helen's over-identification with the hawk and Lowthorpe's movie does little to move on the idea that Helen's projecting onto the bird and hiding behind the need to keep her indoors and in darkness - there's little to no subtlety in the parallels here and the conclusion is no real surprise to anyone.

But in the final moments, as Helen and the hawk stand alone on a bucolic paradise, the sun hazily retreating in the background, the movie's less interested in providing ultimate closure and more concerned with raising the spectre of a life after.

It's just a shame there aren't more of these moments scattered throughout - as it is, and no matter how strong Foy is, H Is For Hawk flies, but it sadly rarely soars.

New Zealand International Film Festival 2026 preview

With the Auckland leg of the 2026 New Zealand International Film Festival beginning on Wednesday, it's almost time for cinephiles to dive into the dark of the matinee (and evening screenings too) for a range of international and national cinema.

From big winners at Cannes such as Fjord to a secret screening, there's more than enough to satiate audiences, but there are also films which may not see the light of day on a big screen again.

Opening the festival this year is a film that's come from Dame Jane Campion's filmmaking course Wave in the Ocean and which offers a New Zealand spin on the tried and true coming of age tale.

Big Girls Don't Cry by director Paloma Schneideman follows the life of 14-year-old Sid (Ani Palmer) who tackles six long weeks of summer during 2006. Set in the northern edges of Auckland, it's a sensitive, if familiar tale of a girl trying to find her way in life - and negotiating her growing feelings towards other girls.

Blessed with a sensitivity and pace, the tropes are familiar ones as Sid deals with immature boys and girls whose viciousness comes from their own desire to seem experienced. But it's in the quieter moments the film triumphs as its universally relatable themes come carefully to the fore.

In 2023, a film about a donkey proved to be popular at the NZIFF. 2026's spiritual successor to Eo is the Hungarian director György Pálfi's film Hen, a story of an errant black hen.

From literal birth (a close-up at the start unleashes an egg) to life on a battery farm before accidental escape at a service station, Hen follows the plucky chick as she literally crosses the road at the petrol stop to a new life in a rundown taverna in Greece.

Pushed into the hen house, beaten by others within and stopped from trying to break free, Pálfi's film is an at times humorous look at the follies of life as it presents a sympathetic and almost simplistic way of animal life, looking to humans for salvation, empathy and company. And much like Eo, there's a distinct danger in every interaction - add in a story of human trafficking and the film springs vibrantly and surprisingly to life, thanks to some incredible performances from a string of hens strutting their stuff.

As light as a song on the breeze, director Christopher Nelius' Whistle (not to be confused with the recent horror movie of the same name) is as genial and pleasant as they come - and content to let its subjects do the talking.

Or in this case, the competitive whistling as it follows the competitors at the Masters of Musical Whistling event. From a Spanish ingenue to a Japanese artist who never manages first place, the film's packed with quirky characters and genuine heart.

Chief to all of this is the ever-so slightly out of control self-appointed director of the event Carol Anne Kaufman, whose aspirations mix with a kind of danger as she doesn't suffer fools gladly. The documentary has the kind of feel of an almost mocking tone, but it never crosses that boundary, preferring instead to salute the genuine sweetness of the performers and their performances.

Finally, perhaps the most important film on the programme is the Oscar-nominated The Voice of Hind Rajab.

There's a degree of provocation in Four Daughters' director Kaouther Ben Hania's distressing docu-drama that meshes The Guilty's call centre setting with a 24-style story set in the war in Gaza.

But the biggest shock of all is that it's based on true events - and is incredibly harrowing, thanks to Hania's one single choice: to use the emergency audio of a 5-year-old girl caught in the middle of a horrific conflict in Gaza.

When a call comes into the Palestinian Red Crescent from a little girl trapped in her car as the tanks and guns fire all around her, the volunteers race to save her from afar. But what should be an 8-minute rescue run for a local ambulance turns into a bureaucratic nightmare where nobody can win and the victim is the little girl.

It's stirring, horrific and urgent fare - and grippingly unmissable.

For more on this year's programme, head to nziff.co.nz

Rhythm Paradise Groove: Nintendo Switch Review

Developed by Nintendo / TNX
Published by Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo Switch

Nintendo's back with another one of those block-rocking beats.

But unfortunately, if you're not on board with the timing, Rhythm Paradise Groove can be anything but paradise for players struggling to keep up with the bitesize games on offer.

Much like Parappa The Rapper did for PlayStation way back when, Rhythm Paradise Groove is perfectly suited for the Nintendo mentality of pick up and play - and get others involved.

The key to the game is its simplicity as you only have to press one button to carry out the required timing jumps and various challenges (though some throw some stick controls in as well) - but as ever with this type of game, just because it appears to be easy doesn't mean it is.

Whereas the likes of Guitar Hero and Rock Band were all about the skills and twisting of the hands to meet the combo requirements, Rhythm Paradise Groove decides to use simple gameplay mechanics and simple beats to help you get to where you need.

From jumping through hoops to talking to an alien, the clutch of mini games is colourful, bright and simple to watch without being distracting. But this is a game that's about auditory cues, and as such, the music's the star - it's highly recommended that you use headphones to achieve the best results early on.

However, it's never easy to achieve, with various things cropping up on screen to make play a little more difficult - whether it's the screen blacking out or the movement not quite working like it should, the game has a way of making it trickier than you'd expect.

With multiplayer games offering a respite from the solo efforts (and offering different games too), Rhythm Paradise Groove really does find its groove and its audience early on. It's definitely worth a spin, but don't be surprised if you find yourself feeling like you're struggling to start with - perseverance is the key here and it's all the better for it.