Spider-Man: Brand New Day is about wrestling the monsters within. And though that might sound like an apt topic given the tumultuous state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with its waning pop-culture supremacy, the same can’t be said for the Sony-produced web-slinger series, whose quality has increased with each installment.
That trend continues with its fourth entry, which marries spectacular action and surprisingly substantial character drama to amazing effect, all while welcoming a few new notable faces to the big-screen fold. With the possible exception of Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man 2, it’s the wall-crawler’s best film to date.
In the aftermath of Spider-Man: No Way Home’s multiverse madness, Spider-Man: Brand New Day (July 31, theaters) situates itself squarely in one reality, with Peter Parker (Tom Holland) dedicating his life to being New York’s friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
Courtesy of Doctor Strange’s magic spell, no one knows that Peter and Spidey are one and the same, including Peter’s best friend Ned (Jacob Batalan) and girlfriend MJ (Zendaya), and that anonymity has kept his loved ones safe. Alas, it’s left the do-gooder alone and forlorn—and, troublingly, beset by headaches that aren’t tempered by Advil.
Collaborating with NYPD detective Jean DeWolff (The Bear’s Liza Colón-Zayas), Spider-Man has cleaned up Manhattan, taking down foes like the Scorpion (Michael Mando) and Tombstone (Marvin Jones III), both of whom are now incarcerated, along with other villains, at the Department of Damage Control.
That facility is overseen by Bill Metzger (Severance’s Tramell Tillman), and it quickly comes under attack from a rampaging tank. Fortunately, Spider-Man—using his trusty AI assistant E.V.I.E.—is instantly alerted to any and all Big Apple crimes, and he sets about trying to stop the vehicle.
This skirmish provides Spider-Man: Brand New Day with its first opportunity to have its protagonist clash with Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), aka The Punisher, whose shoot-to-kill vigilantism doesn’t jibe with Spider-Man’s altruistic gallantry.
Fresh off The Odyssey, Holland and Bernthal are a well-matched pair, with the former’s sarcastic aww-shucks nobility clashing humorously with the latter’s fascistic gruffness. Their bickering is one of many highlights in the film, as are opening glimpses of Spider-Man swinging through the city that director Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) stages with a you-are-there dynamism—bolstered by shots from the title character’s point-of-view—that lend the material a swooping, swerving immediacy.
The Punisher comes across as a pesky older brother who won’t stop going too far (or listen to reason), and Bernthal gives the mayhem a hard edge at the same time that he affords Holland opportunities to crack wise. He’s not, however, Spider-Man’s biggest problem, since upon thwarting the attack on the Department of Damage Control, he encounters an adversary who’s as slippery as they are formidable.
Revealing the precise nature of that baddie would, for all intents and purposes, be a spoiler, so don’t expect any specifics here. The same goes for the key figure played by Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink, whose identity has been kept secret, with good reason, in the months leading up to the film’s debut.
Suffice it to say, both spell an extraordinary future for the MCU, although Cretton’s fourquel doesn’t get overly bogged down in on-the-horizon table-setting. Instead, it maintains consistent focus on Spider-Man’s inner turmoil.
Watching Ned and MJ’s Instagram videos from MIT are painful (if irresistible) reminders of a happy life lost, and it’s not long before his loneliness and sorrow are severely impacting his mind and body, complete with blackouts and bodily mutations that leave him bewildered and out of control.
These maladies inspire him to investigate a means of suppressing his arachnid hormones, and that mission compels him to seek guidance from Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), who’s teaching at a university with the aid of a bracelet that keeps his hulking alter-ego at bay.
Written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, Spider-Man: Brand New Day roots itself in the crippling pain of loss, the transformative power of trauma, and the means by which they’re overcome through togetherness and love. Such ideas surround the usual array of extravagant CGI-heavy battles that mix-and-match Spider-Man and his pals and adversaries, but to a greater extent than in many Marvel affairs, they aren’t just padding.
Cretton’s film takes a now-adult Spider-Man’s tortured feelings of longing, guilt, grief, and fury seriously, and they turn out to be the plot’s primary engine, not only because they invariably draw him back to MJ and Ned, but because they’re shared by the enigmatic opponent in his path.
Shot by Brett Pawlak with richer colors and darker shadows than its franchise ancestors, even as it retains—and amplifies—those blockbusters’ acrobatic set pieces, Spider-Man: Brand New Day delivers the cartoonish goods. No other feature has so fully captured the Avenger’s combination of rubbery dexterity, astonishing strength, and lithe athleticism while simultaneously giving him a bevy of one-liners to toss around as he saves the day.
It is, in many respects, the MCU’s most comic-book-y Spider-Man movie, with Cretton even crafting an early freeze-frame image that’s an exact replica of the cover of 1963’s Amazing Spider-Man No. 1.
Of course, there’s plenty of fan service in Spider-Man: Brand New Day for those who know what to look for, and there’s no ignoring the fact that it’s been designed, in some respects, to lay the groundwork for forthcoming MCU events.
Yet after 15 years of superhero ventures, that’s a familiar shortcoming, and at least Cretton’s web-head saga figures out how to integrate its individual and big-picture concerns into a relatively seamless whole. Moreover, Holland keeps rewardingly evolving in the role, embodying his icon with a kid-like earnestness that’s now colored by newfound grown-up emotions that complicate his efforts to be the savior New York City needs and the healthy and happy man he once was and desperately wants to be again.
Less a schematic precursor to December’s Avengers: Doomsday than a natural follow-up to its predecessors that aims to chart a novel direction forward, Spider-Man: Brand New Day proves that the hero remains Marvel’s brightest light. It’s an auspicious start to what will hopefully be a sensational new phase in his nearly quarter-century cinematic life.
