[#item_full_content] [[{“value”:”I had been hoping to do a video review of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, as I’ve done for many of the summer’s big movies, but having a screening starting at 7pm all the way uptown and having to stay through the entire run time for possible end credits stuff – there is one; it’s pretty insignificant – scuppered that plan. (In case it isn’t obvious from my decades as a critic, I’ll be skirting around as many potential spoilers as possible, other than what’s been in trailers.)
Anyone who has been reading comics for a significant amount of time knows that the subtitle of the fourth Tom Holland Spider-Man comes from the beginning of the Dan Slott run in 2008, following J. Michael Straczynski’s decision to erase Spider-Man and Peter Parker from the minds of Aunt May and his wife MJ (from what I can remember). In the comics, that erasing was done in a deal with Mephisto, but Spider-Man: No Way Home did it with the help of Doctor Strange. Slott might be one of the most successful Spider-Man writers of the 21st Century (alongside his “comic book writer lookalike” Brian Bendis, who co-created Miles Morales). This is partially due to the characters he introduced, but also for expanding the Spider-verse introduced during Straczynski’s run. Brand New Day really has nothing to do with any of that, and to a certain point, that’s perfectly fine.
I went into Brand New Day hoping for the “street level” Spider-Man movie once promised, which to me would deal with the New York crime scene and villains like Hammerhead, the Kingpin, the Enforcers, etc. It’s pretty obvious from the start that this is not that, even if New York City is featured quite heavily in every frame. As much as it was nice seeing Spidey regular Detective Jean DeWolff from the comics brought into the mix, as played by Liza Colón-Zayas, she basically acts as a confidante to Spider-Man, more than anything else.
No, this follows along the line of other MCU movie where science and technology play a large part in the story, the plot revolving around a number of attacks on Damage Control, who have also played a regular part in the MCU, going back to Spider-Man: Homecoming. Here it’s run by Tramell Tillman’s William Metzger, who is puzzled by the terrorist attacks on Damage Control from the likes of Mac Gargan aka The Scorpion (Michael Mando, also introduced in Homecoming). Like last year’s Fantastic Four, there’s a montage of Spider-Man villains, some good, many quite weak, but only Gargan plays any sort of significant role, while still being a maguffin for the film’s real villain(s). At the same time, Peter/Spider-Man is trying to adjust to life without his best friends, but he’s also losing control of his powers as the arachnid portion is starting to take over the human. At first, that general plot feels uninspired, essentially a lot of ideas that don’t necessarily work together.
Throughout the first hour, I was getting worried that Zendaya’s MJ and Jacob Batalon’s Ned Leeds would be put on the back burner. The same seemed to be happening with Jon Bernthal’s The Punisher after the early chase sequence seen in the trailer. In fact, it just takes some time for the story to bring them all back into the mix without losing sight of the main story that was introduced. It was actually clever marketing to focus on the film’s first half hour and only partially let people know what was happening. That all makes much more sense after the first hour.
It takes some time to really set up a clear villain other than someone capable of switching bodies and taking over minds. Although Sadie Sink’s identity may be the worst kept secret in MCU history, trying to keep that secret might actually have done the movie a great disservice. I’m sure some will readily figure it out considering her character’s powers. As it turns out, Sink was some of the most inspired casting for the MCU maybe since Holland was cast as Spider-Man, and without spoiling the whole thing, the movie eventually goes to a place that greatly appealed to a life-long fan of Brian De Palma’s The Fury, as myself.
Destin Daniel Cretton is an interesting choice to direct this, even if he’s coming off Shang-Chi, one of my favorite recent Marvel movies, but he also has this background directing these very human indie films. Both things come into play throughout Brand New Day, and it eventually becomes obvious how much he has a strong handle on what he was trying to achieve. This includes some of the film’s bigger action scenes like when Spider-Man is attacked by full-on Hulk, one of the more impressive setpieces, or later in the movie, when Spider-Man faces off with the Hand (introduced in that earlier montage), which allows Destin to flex those martial arts muscles he proved to be so capable of in Shang-Chi.
One thing I didn’t realize going in was that writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, who had written all three Tom Holland Spider-movies, wrote this one as well, and that makes a massive difference when it comes to handling Peter’s relationship with M.J. and Ned, because those scenes really deliver to anyone who has been following their story through three previous films. It’s probably why the scenes between Holland, Zendaya, and Batalon are the film’s best, even if those three together is far less than in any previous movie.
As mentioned, Brand New Day is very much a New York City story, and Destin does a great job capturing the city, even if much of the movie was filmed at Pinewood in England. It’s one of the better-looking mostly daylight superhero films, avoiding some of the problems of so many MCU movies all looking the same. That’s accompanied by another killer score by Michael Giacchino, who was also an inspired choice after last year’s Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Brand New Day may take its time to find its footing, but once it does, it offers lots of fantastic action, as well as some of the strongest emotional moments of any MCU movie to date.
Rating: 8/10
Spider-Man: Brand New Day opens nationwide on Friday, July 31.”}]] 
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