Synopsis: A forgotten Peter Parker lives alone as a full-time Spider-Man until mounting pressure triggers a dangerous change and a powerful new enemy emerges.
Stars: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Tramell Tillman, Michael Mando, Mark Ruffalo
Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
Rated: PG-13
Running Length: 145 minutes
Movie Review in Brief: Destin Daniel Cretton grows this franchise all the way up, and Tom Holland answers with his best work in the suit. Bernthal’s Punisher is a gift, the Hulk has never looked this good, and the surprises land clean. One of the best and best looking Marvel films yet.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day Review
Four films in, and Marvel still hasn’t run out of ways to hurt Peter Parker. That’s a compliment. Most superhero series hit part four and start coasting, trading surprise for a bigger explosions. Spider-Man: Brand New Day goes the other way, and it goes there hard.
No spoilers ahead in my Spider-Man: Brand New Day review, so please pay that courtesy forward on your way out of the theater.
The setup is the easy part. Doctor Strange’s spell at the close of Spider-Man: No Way Home wiped Peter Parker from the world’s memory. Four years have passed, with Peter (Tom Holland, Chaos Walking) living in a cramped apartment near the Queensboro Bridge. He listens to a police scanner and works street crime full-time, checking in with Detective Jean DeWolff (Liza ColĂłn-Zayas, an Emmy winner for The Bear). People remember Spider-Man. Nobody remembers Peter. Then his powers start changing in ways he never asked for, and something arrives in the city that he can sense but can’t see.
Alone in a City of Millions
Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings & Just Mercy) takes over the director’s chair from Jon Watts, and the change registers fast. Peter and MJ are adults now. The stakes move from saving the world to saving one guy’s heart, and I was more worried about the second one. Returning screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers keep hitting pause on some stupendous set pieces so Peter can sit with what he gave up.Â
This is the hardest PG-13 the series has tried. It’s darker, more adult and more willing to sit in discomfort. It also spends a suspicious amount of time with Holland in his underwear. That is aimed at a specific corner of the audience, and it brushes right up against unnecessary. The bigger swing works better. For roughly three quarters of the runtime, Peter is masked and fully suited. That is far more than any previous entry. The choice says everything about how completely the man has fused with the hero.
Tom Holland Grows Into the Suit
Holland is the engine here, and he’s never been steadier. He plays exhaustion, stubbornness and grief without tipping into self-pity, and he does most of it through a mask. Michelle Jones-Watson (Zendaya, Challengers) is still a perfect MJ, sharp and unsentimental. Her scenes carry a fresh ache now that the history between these two only runs one direction. Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon, Spider-Man: Far From Home) has less to do this time, though his charm survives the trim intact.Â
Frank Castle, Bruce Banner and the Company Peter Keeps
Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal, His & Hers) finally makes the jump to the big screen. Bernthal has played his version of The Punisher for a full decade now, across two Daredevil runs and two seasons of his own show. He is a terrific gruff counterweight to Peter, and the big brother dynamic surpasses anything that Holland built with hsi fellow Avengers. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo, The Adam Project) is back as well, and the effects team has pushed the Hulk’s face closer to Ruffalo’s than ever. The Hulk work is the best it has ever looked, and so are the visual effects across the board.
The most fun part of Spider-Man: Brand New Day is what it can’t say. I can’t tell you who Sadie Sink (Fear Street Trilogy) and Tramell Tillman (Barron’s Cove) are playing, or how they factor in. You should want it that way. Sink is tremendous in a part she turns out to be ideal for. Tillman keeps building on the foundation that Severance gave him, and he sits a few choice roles away from full A-list status. Mac Gargan/Scorpion (Michael Mando) turns up too, cashing a check that Spider-Man: Homecoming’s mid-credits scene wrote back in 2017.
The less you know, the bigger the payoff. Nothing telegraphs, and I am already looking forward to going back just to hear a crowd react. Did I stifle a squeal of delight during this one? Maybe three.
The Score, the Lens and Money Well Spent
Michael Giacchino returns to score, and he accomplishes what he always does for these movies, which is put the film first. Rousing when it needs lift, delicate when it needs air, never showing off. Cinematographer Brett Pawlak stages the mostly daytime action with real sharpness. You can count the lines in the Spider-Man suit and every shard of glass leaving a window. Plenty of that is the work of a small army of effects houses, but Pawlak gives them a canvas worth filling.
The cutting is where the action sings. Fights swooop and soar and may leave your stomach a little sore, and the same hands let the emotional beats settle instead of rushing them. Costume designer Sanja Milkovic Hays did more than build a new Spider-Man suit. Look at how Batalon’s style evolves across the years the film covers, or the cut of Tillman’s suits. Small garments, real care.
Go Opening Night, and Go Loud
The last one landed in 2021, when we were all still asking how safe the world was. Five years on, the lines are drawn harder and the division runs deeper. A friendly neighborhood hero feels less like nostalgia now and more like a need. All Peter wants is to cut through the noise and stop crime. Then the mask comes off and he is a young man with no family and nobody who remembers him. The film understands that the community he protects is one he belongs to. He needs them as much as they need him.
Marvel Grows Up
Brand New Day is one of the best and best looking Marvel films yet, built on a true moral compass and a vulnerable heart. It is enormously entertaining and hardly ever hits a wrong note (ColĂłn-Zayas is frustratingly underused). At 145 minutes the time evaporates. I still give No Way Home the edge by a hair, and that hair is the only thing separating them. This is Marvel at its most grown up, and it never stops being fun.
If I can say one thing about Spider-Man: Brand New Day in this review, it is this: go opening weekend, go loud and go with a crowd. Peter Parker spent four years being nobody. Be the room that remembers him.
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