Prior to 2026, there had been eight different Spider-Man live-action films made. One thing has united each bracket of continuity, the public loves the Spider-Man character and the popularity of it is on a scale of public notoriety on par with DC Comics’ Superman. Spider-Man is a beloved character of the times of monoculture. Everyone knows the character and has an affinity for him. The duality of the outcast nerd that somehow is one of the coolest, strongest, plucky, wisecracking heroes of all has become one the public relishes. The character has now been depicted in three separate continuities: a trilogy starring Tobey Maguire directed by horror auteur Sam Raimi, two films starring Andrew Garfield directed by Marc Webb and what up until now was a trilogy starring Tom Holland directed by Jon Watts.
The last of these films, Spider-Man: No Way Home connects the prior tellings of the fiction as part of a shared multi-verse, Garfield and Maguire’s versions of Peter Parker meeting up with Tom Holland’s version and all of them trapped in a pressure cooker against Electro, Sandman, Doctor Octopus, The Lizard and The Green Goblin. Each film starring Tom Holland has been a massive success, and No Way Home the largest of the three, coming out in 2021 just as the public was starting to head back to theaters and live entertainment following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the joint production deal with Marvel Studios, Holland also portrayed Spider-Man in two monolithic films Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, the massively successful end to Marvel’s all but total dominance of superhero cinema and their acclaimed Infinity Saga. Many assumed that Holland would move on after the events of No Way Home, but it was announced not long after that Holland would return and continue to portray the character. The first in what could be a whole new trilogy, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, has arrived and fans of the character are in for a massive treat.
Much like the three Watts directed films, Brand New Day is penned wonderfully by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. First of all, the story is where this film really succeeds most. Similar to Daniel Craig’s first foray into playing James Bond, Casino Royale, it benefits massively from an atypical storytelling structure, certainly ending in a climax, but eschewing the typical “massive fight to save the world at the last second” dynamic that most action films are afraid to move away from. Destin Daniel Cretton (who brilliantly helmed Disney+’s Wonder Man series this year and prior to that Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) guides the viewer through an experience that truly lands as an evolving story. The film picks up right from the major consequences of Peter Parker asking Dr. Strange to cast a spell that causes everyone to forget who he was. Parker leaves his beloved M.J. and best friend Ned (Zendaya and Jacob Batalon respectively) to live their lives safely away from his crime fighting, sinking himself fully into life as a vigilante protecting the streets of New York City from villains large and small. As the trailer hinted, the film artfully recreates a bevy of legendary comic book covers showing Spider-Man squaring off with all manner of foes likely not to be shown in detail in the films such as Boomerang, Tarantula and Ramrod as the years go by. Parker has opted for a solitary life, largely burying himself in the work of keeping the streets safe and the public has warmly embraced him for it. The story shifts between his internal wrestling match not returning to MJ and Ned to tell them the truth of their connection, a bizarre and unexpected evolution of his own mutant powers and the arrival of a new foe, brilliantly portrayed by Stranger Things alum, Sadie Sink.
The film never aims for too funny, but is jovial enough that there are ample laughs. Action sequences feel fully rendered and rewarding, but large amounts of time are spent just sitting with Parker as he deals with the challenges of the story, seeing the longing in Holland’s eyes at times and the brutal malevolence his encroaching mutations bring about. There is significant time to breath here and really feel like you’re getting to know Peter Parker’s mind and determination to balance an impossible array of spinning plates set before him. It’s an obvious and worthy lesson for lesser directors on how much value there is in a “less is more” approach. The action here hits way harder because you actually care about these characters and their world. You feel like you know them. This is on par with what at the time may have been the best superhero film ever—at least until the Heath Ledger starring The Dark Knight—the Sam Raimi directed Spider-Man 2, which was a thorough examination of Peter Parker’s struggle to balance his human life against his life as Spider-Man.
Some Marvel properties have included their incredible bench of talent in cameo roles, but recent entries have sometimes felt more forced and served more to string the shared continuity together. Brand New Day features numerous tie-in characters to the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe, some you know, and some you’ll be delighted to be surprised by. The ones widely advertised do a fantastic job in this film. Mark Ruffalo accentuates both sides of his Bruce Banner / The Hulk character to both inspiring and terrifying heights. But Jon Bernthal really shines here in his reprisal of Frank Castle / The Punisher following the excellent inclusion of the character in season one of Daredevil: Born Again and the Disney+ one-shot The Punisher: One Last Kill. There’s a lot of his trademark grunts and shouts, but Bernthal’s total commitment to the Frank Castle character and his mindset make for an excellent counterbalance to Spider-Man’s “never kill an opponent” mantra. You never for a second doubt how visceral and relentless the Punisher character is, but his scenes with Holland become a pretty delightful and often funny series of interplay, the two having found wonderful chemistry on screen with each other (they also shared a similar chemistry in a totally different dynamic in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey). The moments these three characters (and others we can’t spoil for you here) share rival the best moments of comic fiction rendered for visual media seen in The Avengers films and The Incredibles. The film feels powerfully like it understands the dynamics that have always made comic books special, and how that artistry and juxtaposition makes for incredibly rewarding scenarios.
Many have tried to guess Sadie Sink’s role in the film, but we will speak around it here so you as the viewer can arrive at the moment organically. The secrecy is frustrating, but trust us, this time it’s worth it. Most crucially, Sink is perfect for the enormous demands this character requires to be pulled off effectively. It’s a total command performance on par with Michael B. Jordan’s rendering of Erik Killmonger in Black Panther. If you are a fan of Stranger Things and are familiar with the incredible range Sink exhibited in the show’s legendary “Dear Billy” episode you could pretty quickly connect the dots as to why she was chosen for this part. It requires equal measures of vitriolic rage, internal anguish, a humanity-laced need for friendship and killer confidence. It’s an easy bet that Marvel Studios has big plans for her character, so like the total formulation of perfect embodiment of a character that made the original arc of the MCU so successful (Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Robert Downey Jr), the actor that played this character needed to bring the goods on almost every level. It’s a wild challenge for Spider-Man and one that is worthy of bending a whole story to.
5 out of 5
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a wonderful new addition to the mega successful franchise. Nine movies for one character in less than twenty-five years could easily become stale or redundant, but a killer cast, script and directing job cement Spider-Man as film’s de facto leading superhero film franchise, a sure to be gigantic box office success and fan-favorite entry. If you’re looking for a complaint, there aren’t many to be found here. Perhaps how an anonymous street-level man in a colorful spider costume is able to work with the NYPD and NYFD openly, in a continuity where the world for many years had adopted the Sokovia Accords and where recently in Daredevil: Born Again the Kingpin serving as mayor effectively outlawed vigilante crime fighting? But that is a question for the most studied of MCU diehards, as other than that, it’s all pure gold here.
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