Why Jean Grey Fails as a Spider‑Man Villain in Brand New Day

Okay, before you get excited and angry, I'd like to begin by saying that this is just a personal opinion of mine. It is in no way trying to bash the viewpoints of other fans of the storied franchise; however, personally, I'm quite disappointed at what I have just seen.

The Wrong Villain

The young version of Jean Grey as the villain in Spider-Man Brand New Day seemed as if they couldn't find a villain, so they kind of forced her into the franchise. With the power of telepathy and being in quite a different reality, she just didn't fit the prototypical Spiderman villain. In actuality, with her ability to control people's minds, she's too foreign to the Spiderman universe. There's no conflict between them. So, she's the bad guy, but not really the bad guy, just a teenager searching for her sister. In the end, Spiderman figures it out and eventually wants to help her instead? What in the world just happened? Jean Grey, even as a teen, would just be too powerful for Spiderman. It's not realistic, as she is actually in a world of her own.

The Forced Power Limitation

After realizing that, indeed, Jean Grey is too powerful even for Spiderman, they gave her power limitations of 33 feet. She bypassed this limitation by body-hopping. Throughout the movie, we see Jean possessing different people every 33 feet through chaining. They purposely made her weaker. Perhaps, in some sense, it was believable because this young version of the popular mutant Jean Grey could be conceived as naive. Yes, she's young, but it's not like she didn't have some time to learn a couple of tricks or two. She was so powerful in the movie that she was able to freeze people for a mile and take control of "The Hand" ninja warriors to fight Peter in the end.

Peter Parker's Increased Spider DNA

Just as the timing couldn't be more perfect, Peter so happens to be working on a DNA suppressant prototype that would later be key to stopping Jean Grey's plan temporarily, allowing him to be captured by Bill Metzger, the director of the organization responsible for Jean Grey's sister's capture. Jean eventually gets Metzger at her mercy, manipulating broken glass through telekinesis to point toward him and threatening to end his life if he does anything stupid. Wouldn't it have been ideal to get into his mind to see what actually happened to her sister? Metzger did mention a prototype that he and Jean Grey's sister were working on, implying she was a willing participant in the experiment. Wasn't she curious at all about what actually happened to her sister?

Spiderman, though powerful, simply doesn't stand a chance against the likes of Jean Grey, even in her weak form, as in the movie. He simply doesn't stand a chance unless Jean was suppressing her powers all along because she was actually not a true villain.

At the end of the movie, Jean says, "I'm stronger than I was before..... and I'm still changing." This is evident when she shows her telekinetic powers for the first time. That being said, it presents her reality as being unreachable for Spiderman himself.

Pacing

Toward the middle part of the movie, I felt kind of sleepy because there were too many things going on at once, and it seemed almost like day labor getting through it. Ned and MJ serving as major parts of the movie seemed forced. They don't remember him, so what's really the point unless Ned was to become the next Goblin or something, as some people speculate?

Jean and Peter are incompatible as rivals

Spiderman is a street-level hero who influences all the people around him. His main rivals traditionally have been people he knows. Pairing him against Jean seemed forced. This may have been the reason why Jean's villain arc feels incomplete. She's the bad guy, but not the bad guy, so it gave me the feeling that Spiderman was fighting for nothing. No stakes. Nada.

Overall, it was a good movie. It managed to entertain, bore, and excite me at the same time. But who am I to criticize, right? The movie is about to make a billion.