Spider-Man: Brand New Day ~ Review

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For me, the factors that make up the best Spider-Man stories are as follows: 1) Peter Parker needs to be having a terrible time, 2) Peter Parker’s social life needs to feel like a dramedy about work-life balance, and 3) the super villain action needs to test Peter Parker’s morals almost to the point where it breaks him. Now, these rules aren’t hard and fast, and across Spider-Man’s six-decade history, I’m sure you can find counterexamples, but for me, these are what make a Spider-Man story great. Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the 12th live-action appearance of the character and 4th MCU entry, is one of the better Spider-Man movies, and while it gets a little long, it never forgets the emotionality of its main character.
 
It’s been roughly five years since the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, where Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) cast a spell to erase everyone’s memories of Peter Parker aka Spider-Man (Tom Holland). It was a whole thing and not worth getting into here, but needless to say, the love of his life, MJ (Zendaya), and his best friend, Ned (Jacob Batalon), have forgotten about him entirely. While Ned and MJ went off to college, Peter stayed in New York, throwing himself into being Spider-Man. Now five years later, Peter has no real friends. His only personal connections are to Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman), the shady head of the shady MCU government organization Damage Control, a police detective (Liza Colon-Zayas), and brutal vigilante Frank Castle AKA The Punisher (Jon Bernthal).
 
When a telepath (Sadie Sink) who can control people’s minds arrives in the city, Peter’s former friends and Bruce Banner AKA The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) are now under threat. To make matters worse, it appears Spider-Man’s enhanced spider DNA is mutating, enhancing his powers to an absurd degree, making it hard for him to control. Who can Peter Parker turn to when the closest thing he has to a friend is an unhinged vigilante with a death wish? Can Spider-Man even have friends? And what if your supposed allies are not actually on the up and up?
 
Shockingly, for a late-stage MCU project, Brand New Day is singularly focused on its main character. While the film has several cameos and reveals about the wider MCU, these are all used in service of Peter Parker’s story, to wit – what does loneliness do to someone? What makes one a monster? And is suppressing your basic needs a good thing? Director Daniel Destin Cretton knows to put the emotion front and center, which gives the action more weight. This is how you’re supposed to make a superhero story. Aside from Sam Raimi, Cretton is the only director who has made web swinging incredibly thrilling. When it comes to action, Cretton pulls his camera wide for big splash-page moments, but in the more intimate scenes he chooses a handheld approach. This makes the film feel like a proper adaptation of the Spider-Man comics. The script by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers is witty and emotional. Even better, in the moments where the story could spiral into MCU bloat, the script keeps everything emotionally grounded in Peter’s character. The film is a little long and has many characters that it needs to service, which makes the film feel like reading a year’s worth of Spider-Man comics in one sitting. This could be exhausting for some viewers, but for me it reminded me of spending a summer day reading comics.
 
Tom Holland has been playing Peter Parker/Spider-Man for ten years now, and at this point he slips into the Spidey suit with ease. Peter Parker can easily turn into a sad sack, and Holland does a great job toeing the line between depressed Peter and the fun of Spider-Man. I think Holland’s superpower as an actor is his ability to have chemistry with just about anyone he shares the screen with, and his interactions with Jon Bernthal are fantastic. Who knew putting Spider-Man and the Punisher on screen together would be so fun? Bernthal brings that same intensity here as he did on the Marvel shows, and he is still one of the best actors to portray Frank Castle. But bouncing him off a light hearted hero like Spidey gives Bernthal more to blow than “glowering, screaming, wounded buffalo.”
 
Zendaya gives a warm and heartbreaking performance as MJ. The character could be a mostly thankless role, but each one of these movies gives her something compelling to do.
 
I’d like to talk about Sadie Sink’s character, but to do so would be a spoiler. So, for now I’ll say she’s fantastic in the movie, and I’m intrigued to see where the character goes from here. And that’s all I think I can say on that.
 
2004’s Spider-Man 2 is my favorite superhero movie of all time; I think Raimi hit everything important about the genre in that film. Brand New Day comes very close to being one of the best Spider-Man movies. It’s nice to see the MCU pull itself back on track.
 
Three and a half out of Four Stars