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Last summer, James Gunn tried to launch a brand-new superhero cinematic universe on the back of a colorful, earnest, wildly overstuffed Superman movie filled with more comic book characters than you could shake a Kryptonian spear at. It was an experiment that—to me at least—bit off way more than it could chew; putting the metaphorical cart way before the metaphorical super-horse in a film that mostly just left me exhausted. Now Marvel is here to prove that putting in the groundwork really does make a difference. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is just as earnest, just as colorful, and just as overstuffed with crossover comics characters as Gunn’s Superman. The difference is, it all feels earned. While late-stage Marvel is a frequently exhausting proposition, it turns out there’s still some juice to following up three incredibly likable Spider-Man movies with the best bits and bobs of an entire shared universe.
A lot of that comes courtesy of director Destin Daniel Cretton—easily the MCU’s savviest investment since Ryan Coogler. He’s the force behind Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, one of the best movies Marvel has produced in its clunky post-Endgame era. And he’s also one of the creatives behind Wonder Man, one of the most unique pieces of television Marvel has produced in its overstuffed Disney+ era. Brand New Day now brings him three for three, with a film that synthesizes the entire big screen history of Spider-Man even more directly than the multiverse hopping of No Way Home.
There are two homages in one here. The first is to the concept of comic book storytelling itself. This is a universe where Peter Parker (Tom Holland) casually crosses paths with long-time MCU players like Frank Castle a.k.a. The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) or a non-Hulked out Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) on the way to stop the rogues gallery of small-scale villains who fill New York City’s streets. Though that’s ostensibly the hook of the entire MCU, it’s never felt quite as seamless as it does here. Whether it’s returning cameos or welcome new additions like Detective DeWolff (The Bear’s Liza Colón-Zayas), these characters don’t feel like they’re sharing one plot so much as casually living alongside one another.
The other homage is to Sam Raimi’s original trio of Spider-Man films, which helped kick off the 21st century superhero craze in the first place and remain a high-water mark for the genre. The death of Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and the memory wipe at the end of No Way Home means this Peter is now once again a struggling loner with a secret identity rather than a billionaire-backed Avenger with a crew of supportive friends and family who know he’s Spider-Man. As with Raimi’s work, that provides a sense of poignant melodrama to counterbalance the highly saturated, splash page-ready action. (I’m not sure any MCU movie has ever looked this colorful.) When Peter isn’t saving New York, he’s sitting around his shitty apartment, longingly following the college vlogs of his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) and his lost love MJ (Zendaya).
In fact, with a storyline that sees Peter going through a “second puberty” when it comes to his powers, the opening act of Brand New Day sometimes feels like a direct remake of Raimi’s original Spider-Man movie, with a little bit of Spider-Man 3 thrown in as Peter’s new arachnid hormone levels unlock a bit of a dark side within him. Ultimately, however, screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers (who have penned all four Holland Spider-Man films) weave a more sprawling web about loneliness, isolation, responsibility, and empathy. One with a fascinatingly mysterious villain and a great role for Sadie Sink as a still yet-to-be-publicly-revealed character.
As with a lot of Marvel movies, it seems like three different story pitches got woven into one here, although the stitching is more elegant than it has been in the past two Holland Spider-Man outings. (I’d put this one up there with Homecoming, if not a notch above it.) To some degree, this probably should have been a movie that just zoomed in on the Peter/Frank/Bruce loner dynamics and left MJ and Ned on the margins of Peter’s life for a bit. But, on the other hand, complaining about getting too much Zendaya and Batalon in a Spider-Man movie is a real “my steak is too juicy, my lobster is too buttery” problem.
This generation of Spider-Man actors are so insanely likable it’s a joy to spend time with them in these roles. Cretton knows that and leans into the same kind of shaggy, character-centric hangout vibe that characterized Shang-Chi and Wonder Man too, only with the pathos turned up to 11. No one plays on-the-verge-of-tears quite as well as Holland and Zendaya (and Bernthal, though he’s unfortunately stuck in broad comedy mode here). That makes Sink a natural fit for this world too. Stranger Things put her squarely in the “best crier” category and as the main Spider-Man cast age up into adulthood, she brings a kind of little sister energy that allows a version of Peter Parker largely defined by his adult male mentors to finally start doing some mentoring of his own.
That Brand New Day manages to be both soulful and fun largely makes up for its issues with pacing and the fact that it’s probably about 15 minutes too long. As with Shang-Chi, Cretton puts care and craft into ensuring his action sequences are distinct and legible, with some particularly creative uses of Spidey’s wall-crawling abilities. There’s also an emphasis on what it would feel like to swing around as Spider-Man, which occasionally crosses over into video game territory but not necessarily in a bad way.
It all adds up to a thoroughly entertaining time at the movies, if perhaps not an entirely cohesive standalone film. (None of these Holland Spider-Man outings really have been.) More than anything, Brand New Day feels like dropping in on a slice of Peter’s life the way you might in a classic comic book installment. The trick is that Cretton embraces that as a feature and not, well, a bug.
Grade: B
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