Over the past few years, it has become a rather rare treat when I end up genuinely, unequivocally enjoying the latest superhero film. Mostly I find them to be middling entertainment, sometimes a bit dull—and for The Eternals, nearly unwatchable—with the notable exception of 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine and last year’s Thunderbolts*.
Add Spider-Man: Brand New Day to that list of exceptions. Tom Holland’s latest outing as the titular web-slinger reminds us that superhero movies can still be very, very good—as much about well-drawn characters with interesting developmental arcs and well-timed emotional beats as CGI-filled action extravaganzas. There’s plenty of the latter in Brand New Day, of course, but it’s the grounded humanity at its heart that makes director Destin Daniel Cretton’s film work so well.
(Spoilers below but no major reveals until after the gallery. We’ll give you a heads up when we get there)
Spider-Man: No Way Home ended on a pretty bleak note, with Peter Parker (Holland) asking Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to erase him from everyone’s memory to protect the multiverse and everyone in it, including his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and his BFF Ned (Jacob Batalon). Brand New Day finds an isolated Peter focusing on work to the exclusion of all else, while secretly following MJ and Ned on social media as they make their way through four years of MIT. He’s living rough in a NYC tenement, monitoring the city, and keeping his suit and web slingers in good repair with the help of a homemade “fabricator” (described as part sewing machine, part 3D printer).
His only friend is Det. Jean DeWolff (Liza Colon-Zayas), and even she is getting worried about Spider-Man working too hard. Even worse, when Peter does work up the nerve to attend a party incognito, he sees MJ kissing her new beau. The stress of it all triggers a disturbing mutation in his Spidey-self: His senses are ultra-heightened, he gets much more aggressive (and his eyes go black) when battling foes, and he develops organic web spinners (similar to the Tobey Maguire Spidey incarnation).
Even worse, he’s facing an entirely new threat: an invisible psionic villain who can hijack people’s minds and bodies and is targeting the Department of Damage Control (DODC). Peter seems to be the only one who is immune, which is why DODC chief Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman) seeks his help in capturing the mysterious being.
(WARNING: Major spoilers below! Stop reading now if you haven’t seen the film.)
Ch-ch-ch-changes
Cretton devised a clever non-CGI means to visualize the mysterious villain’s body-hopping: He brought in a dance choreographer to map out how human bodies would respond biomechanically and coordinate the movements of actors playing affected passersby accordingly. The identity of the foreboding cloaked figure is the film’s Big Reveal: it’s none other than a young Jean Grey (Sadie Sink). Peter does eventually defeat her and turn her over to the DODC, only to learn that Jean is looking for her sister, Sara, who was kidnapped by the DODC for experimentation.
It’s a neat twist that meshes nicely with Peter’s overall emotional arc. Brand New Day shows Peter leaving his more naive teen years behind and truly coming of age. That includes Peter’s realization that perhaps the DODC aren’t the uncomplicated “good guys” he thought they were, just like Jean is as much victim as villain. Peter must come to terms with his physical changes as well. His first response is to squelch his mutation, much like Bruce Banner keeps the Hulk in check with a handy inhibitor. But Banner asks a pointed question: “How would you decide what parts of nature are good or bad?” Ultimately, Peter must learn to embrace those changes to become a fully mature Spider-Man.
Cretton also doesn’t take the easy way out when it comes to Peter’s relationship with MJ. When she accidentally finds the letter he wrote and never delivered at the end of No Way Home, she confronts Peter about the revelation that they were once a couple. He reaffirms his love, only for MJ to gently respond that she doesn’t love him in return. How could she? This MJ has no memory of him, or their time together. Holland’s initially hopeful, then heartbroken expression as he absorbs this painful truth is why Holland will have the role of Spider-Man for pretty much as long as he wants it.
Alas, the film is inconsistent about how the memory wipe spell works, since Ned, at the very end, suddenly remembers Peter after they both perform their special handshake. If Peter needs to rebuild what he lost with MJ with new experiences to create new memories, why doesn’t he have to do the same with his friendship with Ned?
Too many tie-ins
Frankly, the film’s biggest weakness is all the forced tie-ins in preparation for Avengers: Doomsday. Jean Grey’s introduction worked for me, because this version is not yet known as one of the X-Men, and thematically she’s on a similar emotional journey to Peter’s. Frank Castle’s Punisher is an odd inclusion, given his usual R-rated behavior, but Cretton has fun making him PG-13—such as when Spider-Man covers his mouth with webbing mid-swear. And Frank turns out to be fairly central to the main plot.
Cretton also makes good use of The Hand, now recruited to the DODC’s service—and just as easily manipulated by Jean. (Peter can’t help marveling mid-battle at just how cool they are.) Bruce Banner/Hulk is a solid choice to offer Peter advice on dealing with his mutation. But did we really need the added complication of Banner Hulking out under Jean’s mind control? Meanwhile, other classic villains like Tombstone, Ramrod, Boomerang, and Tarantula merely make the briefest cameos; at least Mac Gargan/Scorpion (Michael Mando) got a few lines.
Despite such an overcrowded field and a couple of glaring plot holes, it’s Peter’s personal journey that dominates the film and ultimately wins us over. Brand New Day just crossed the $1 billion mark and is smashing all kinds of records. That’s great. But I fear Marvel will take away the wrong lesson from its success. Marvel CEO Kevin Feige told Variety that Spidey’s box office success “bodes very well” for upcoming MCU films, i.e., Doomsday, adding, “When a shared universe works, these are the results.”
That’s precisely not what makes this movie work. I yearn for the day, perhaps in a far-distant future, where studios shift their focus back to making truly great standalone superhero movies again, where one doesn’t need a refresher crash course to remember all the myriad threads of the tie-in films that came before. Until then, Brand New Day is here to serve as a shining beacon of hope.
