And What’s Brand New Is Best
DIRECTOR: DESTIN DANIEL CRETTON/2026
The more I review superhero fare, the more repetitive I feel. Since 2002’s Spider-Man kicked off a quarter of a century of box office dominance, the question for critics has shifted. In the ‘00s, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Disney, Marvel Studios, New Line Cinema, Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros.—plus a few more—competed for slices of a still-growing pie, each with their own vision. In the last decade, that list has consolidated to three major players in Disney (which absorbed Fox and Marvel), Sony (which shares Spider-Man with Disney), and Warner Bros. (which scooped up Guardian of the Galaxy director James Gunn to run the DC Extended Universe). While those hiring moves and mergers make sense on paper, all that corporate incest has begat uniformity. Twenty years ago, we asked what are the flaws are holding back a movie. Today the question is how much do the list of same flaws hold back each title?
All that to say, I apologize if feel like you’ve read this review already. Spider-Man: Brand New Day exhibits the same deficiencies that have defined the 2020s, most of all that it’s trying to fit in too much story and forcing too long a runtime. (See also: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Wonder Woman 1984.) The villain is generic (like in Eternals), some of its themes are underbaked (not unlike Black Adam), the plot mechanics are half-explained (I’m sure you’ve already forgotten Venom: The Last Dance), and the plot scaffolding depends on your knowledge of previous content (as in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania). The superhero genre’s batting average has always been spotty, but I’m beginning to yearn for big swings-and-misses like Bully Maguire dancing down the streets of New York just so I have something else to write about.
So how much do those same ol’ flaws hold back Brand New Day? More than you’d hope, but less than in any of those films I just mentioned. Since the ending of 2021’s No Way Home erased everyone’s memories of their time with Peter Parker (Tom Holland), he has thrown himself entirely into his work as Spider-Man. With no friends or family to keep him grounded, he spends every waking moment swinging between Manhattan’s skyscrapers. (How he pays for the occasional bodega sandwich is never clarified.) He still checks on Ned (Jacob Batalon) and MJ (Zendaya) from time to time, but his reason for steering clear is justified when a mysterious threat starts targeting the Department of Damage Control and the people Peter cares about. For the first time in years, he’s found a danger to the neighborhood he can’t tackle alone.
This Spider-Man adventure might better be titled Brand New Vibe. With a new director, significant changes to the cast and setting, and a darker tone, Holland’s Peter has grown up into someone more like Sam Raimi’s vision of the character. (Maybe Old New Vibe would be more accurate?) Between losing Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and graduating from high school, this isn’t the breezy kind of Spider-Man adventure we’ve seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far—he’s now an adult tortured by the great responsibility that comes with his great power. With MJ and especially Ned taking a back seat, Peter’s only available teammate is the trigger-happy, sarcastic Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal, always good), who makes an Odd Couple pairing with Peter’s earnest do-gooder. (Though his violence seems sanded down from what I’ve heard about in The Punisher series, parents may have more concerns for younger viewers here than in the last few films.) It’s no accident this is his first adventure without “home” in the title.
The good news: When it’s not being forced into a backdoor pilot for the next phase of the MCU, Brand New Day is an excellent vehicle (and one-two punch with The Odyssey) to prove Tom Holland can be more than just Spider-Man. First and foremost, newlyweds Holland and Zendaya have been celebrities since they broke out in 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming. This is no insult. There’s an art to the charisma for red carpets, lip sync battles, and secret weddings that deepens relationships with audiences and makes their onscreen presence more valuable. It may not be fair to compare them, but their long-term courtship makes it impossible not to. Zendaya has exhibited better critical taste and had better luck—who could’ve guessed Holland’s Pixar outing would be overshadowed by a worldwide pandemic?—but this summer we’ve finally gotten to see Holland has more in him than a winning underdog. This Peter vacillates between anger and despair instead of the usual insecurity and optimism, and he makes us feel it, not just understand it.
What else turns down the volume on the routine superhero flaws: the new flourishes of director Destin Daniel Cretton. This Spider-Man minimizes the CGI gobbeldy gook that often plagues the third act (sorry, Supergirl), making it obvious that Holland is really wearing a red and blue spandex suit instead of a motion capture one adjusted in post-production. And though I can’t explain to you why ninjas needed to be in this film narratively, their physical presence on set creates a greater sense of danger than a giant animated monster (sorry, Fantastic Four). Cretton also lets us join Spidey as he swings across the city, and these kinetic aerial shots are so thrilling I wish I could figure out how felt so real. What’s best about Brand New Day is what’s brand new, reminding moviegoers why they’re still in love with Spider-Man a quarter of a century later.
