Spider-Man: Brand New Day
4/5
Spider-Man: Brand New Day sees the return of Tom Holland as our titular hero in the fourth mainline installment of the third modern live-action iteration of Spider-Man. This alone feels like a minor miracle. Raimi’s trilogy, which deserves significant credit (or blame) for the past few decades of Marvel movies, is widely considered the template for a great superhero film—specifically Spider-Man 2—but that universal acclaim was squandered on an overstuffed third entry that effectively ended the trilogy that started it all. Andrew Garfield and Marc Webb’s Amazing Spider-Man series never even made it past two movies, thanks to an agreement to reboot the character and align the new Spider-Man with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Tom Holland’s Spider-Man has managed to mostly avoid the sins of his predecessors. The MCU elevated his profile, and his character was a huge boon to nearly every film he appeared in, even as audiences have slowly but surely soured on the whole ordeal. And this partnership, providing some distance between Marvel and Sony, appears to have benefited nobody more than Spider-Man. His solo outings have been enriched by bringing over the best parts of the MCU and ignoring the rest—and you can get away with that when you have such a rich universe of characters at your disposal. Despite the lackluster performance of superhero films over the last few years, Spider-Man has proven immune.
I expected Brand New Day to be a success, but not to become the biggest Spider-Man movie ever, easily surpassing No Way Home (which had the benefit of uniting all our previous Spider-Men thanks to some multiverse shenanigans). Audiences turned up for Avengers, but the proposition of committing to another decade of buildup does not seem as enticing as it once was. The novelty has worn off. I expected the same with Spider-Man, and I’m quite pleased to be wrong.
Serving as a soft reboot after the memory-wiping events of No Way Home, the film cruises through a few years as Peter Parker isolates himself, overworks himself, and attempts to dangerously control his evolving powers. The emotional stakes are clear and coherent. Being a superhero means making enormous sacrifices to protect those you love, and oftentimes those sacrifices are still too little, too late. It’s a theme we’ve seen time and time again, but Tom Holland does an excellent job expressing those feelings, showing frustration and regret even when faced with everything he has already lost.
Zendaya and Jacob Batalon reprise their roles as MJ and Ned, respectively. Both are excellent foils to Peter Parker, living their shared dream without consciously knowing they’re missing a key piece—though it’s clear they both feel the same absence Peter is vividly aware of. Special shout-out to Jon Bernthal as the Punisher, who serves as this iteration’s “father” figure and is equally, if not more, fun than Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark/Iron Man. Bernthal plays the role comedically while still oozing heart. The Punisher represents one path Peter Parker could take—and it’s a dark one.
Spoilers, but the film’s big bad turns out to be Omega-level mutant Jean Grey (Sadie Sink), in a pseudo-origin story that sees her honing her powers while hunting down the Department of Damage Control, led by the always mischievous Tramell Tillman, in search of her sister. Sink does an excellent job portraying the tragedy of the Grey sisters with limited screen time, and the introduction of this new version of the famed X-Men works well, never bogging the film down or making it feel overstuffed.
Most impressive is the portrayal of Jean’s telepathic powers, ingeniously rendered through real-time choreography in which she can “jump” a maximum of 33 feet, taking over unsuspecting victims as she goes. In a film still filled with CGI, I was thrilled to see this balance between practical effects—especially for characters and powers we’ve been watching on screen for more than 20 years—and the usual, though especially well-done, CGI of Spider-Man swinging through the city and the Hulk… smashing, per usual.
The film’s box-office success raises the bar for other superhero movies. With the right cast, the right script, and some smart ethos and pathos, these films can start feeling like complete stories instead of meaningless chapters building up to… what exactly? I predict Avengers: Doomsday won’t approach the success of this latest Spidey film because Kevin Feige has not quite figured out how to continue evolving this franchise in meaningful ways. And don’t get me started on the complete miss that Supergirl was as the sophomore DCU film under James Gunn.
This is all easier said than done, and the creative team behind Brand New Day lived up to the challenge.