'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' Review - A Heartfelt and Inspiring Epic
This article is a review of Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Brand New Day after a free screening of the film.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is set to hit cinemas today, and the Marvel and Sony pairing have held a number of critic screenings and red carpet premieres worldwide, and taken clips of the film across multiple conventions as a testament of their self-confidence.
The film’s social reactions have been very positive, with most critics stating Brand New Day is the best Spider-Man film since 2002’s Spider-Man 2. Some thoughts were mixed, as a few reviewers felt the film was somewhat overstuffed with villains, but as a whole, the film’s grounded nature and character progression were the most praised, and on this basis, my expectations were exceeded.
Following No Way Home‘s conclusion, fans were hopeful Marvel would continue the ending’s promise of a street-level, grounded Spider-Man. Brand New Day mostly keeps this promise, adopting a personal and thematic core to the story over a bombastic adventure with large scale stakes. The themes of self-acceptance, grace, and choice, compose a journey not only Peter makes, but all the core characters; that is the film’s true strength above all: character growth.
That journey is even visualised in the progression of Spider-Man’s swinging over the course of the film, with the effortless grace of the previous MCU films at first replaced with heavier, more turbulent swings, with Peter only breaking his fall at the last moment, subconsciously implying that Peter is contemplating letting himself hit the ground. This changes over time, but the physics of those swings felt almost as if I was blasted with a gust of air in a 4DX screen, as the audio and bass shook the room, the same way the Spider-Man games shake controllers when performing a heavy swing – while most will think to Spider-Man PS4, I think to the OG game to feature this – Spider-Man 2 (2004), which I played on the Gamecube.
Does it have the best swinging scenes in a Spider-Man film? It certainly has the best swinging moments, but they were so few and far between. I certainly hope that in the sequel, they replicate those heavy swings, but give them an extra 30 seconds or so to breathe.
Tom Holland’s portrayal of a broken and isolated young man with no direction in his day-to-day life, and no emotional safety net, truly ground the character and make him more relatable than other iterations for me, and I think that heartbreaking vulnerability of having so many emotional struggles but refusing to speak to anyone about them, may touch many young men today. That quiet devastation that is rife among them, is a feature Holland excels in subtly presenting, extending to the minute details such as his facial twitches when watching the love of his life making out with another man, or even simply remembering traumatic memories.
The rest of the cast work surprisingly well, with Sadie Sink’s character offering an intriguing dynamic with the titular hero, and Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, no, not big green Mark Ruffalo, the Hulk, being a return long overdue (eight years to be exact). And while I wasn’t the biggest fan of their return in the immediate sequel, Zendaya’s MJ and Batalon’s Ned Leeds are performed exceptionally, with realistic consequences to Doctor Strange’s spell. I do dream to think of the nonexistent film between No Way Home and Brand New Day, where Peter is utterly alone, there’s no reunion with his high school friends, and he fights mob bosses, and meets the Punisher – a movie that was effectively montaged over in the opening minutes of the film.
The Multiverse Saga marked Marvel’s attempt to divide characters into distinct corners of the universe, and this film marks their efforts to remove Spider-Man from the Avengers and place him in the street-level Defenders corner of the MCU. This was the right choice, one that resulted in Jon Bernthal’s inclusion as The Punisher, a casting which was perhaps Marvel’s wisest choice in this entire saga. Holland and Bernthal share an electric relationship that is reminiscent of a young boy butting heads with his older brother who reluctantly looks after his sibling.
Holland and Bernthal's bromance is a cinematic delight
Rather than repeat the tired conversations first established in Daredevil (2015) that were then repeated in Daredevil: Born Again (2025) of one moral character telling the Punisher not to kill, the Punisher arguing back about why he needs to kill, both him and Spider-Man understand the other’s stance, accept it, move on, and get to working together. While they disagree on the appropriate method in certain situations, it isn’t a case of morality more than it is practicality.
What’s unique to his relationship with Spider-Man compared to that with Daredevil, is that the former brings out the humanity in Bernthal’s Frank Castle, a fresh side to the character. I’m a huge fan of the Marvel Defenders shows, and very protective over how Marvel Studios utilises those characters. The Punisher is not a funny character, and is not one to quip and make jokes (something many fans were concerned about when the Punisher’s inclusion was announced), and while he doesn’t succumb to that Marvel virus, I never once expected I would be giggling at the Punisher while he still remains in character and keeps his iconography intact. It’s a humour in the bluntless and nature of the character, not him making cringe humour or recycling two-year-old memes. This cements yet again that Marvel Television were unrivaled in their casting decisions.
My one main gripe however, is that the film does unfortunately sacrifice some of its structure and misses the opportunity to more deeply enrich the Spider-Man lore in lieu of setting up the MCU’s future. A common complaint of the last trilogy is that Holland’s Spider-Man has not yet faced a villain of his own, as previous antagonists were either multiversal refugees or motivated by a personal hatred for Tony Stark. This motif doesn’t change with this film, as there is no clear cut villain, and certainly not from Spider-Man’s rogues’ gallery.
A tighter narrative with fewer characters featuring iconic street-level Spider-Man villains such as Mr. Negative, Kingpin, or several of the characters sped through in the film’s opening montage may very well have been the difference between a great film and a perfect one. If reports are accurate and this is Holland’s last trilogy as Spider-Man, then that is a true shame, as we have barely scratched the surface of Spider-Man’s lore and characters.
One addition that left me befuzzled was The Hand. Being familiar with the various Defenders-verse shows they were in, and having seen their inclusion in the various trailers, many were anticipating their relevance to the plot. The answer to this is none… Although they look ripped from a comic book, there’s no intent or reason behind their return following the organisation’s demise at the end of Marvel’s The Defenders. Their only purpose in this film is to serve as henchmen for Damage Control, and besides a cool fight scene, the group is disposable and could be replaced with any generic soldiers.
The biggest sin of this film is Sony’s lack of security measures. There are so many interesting creative choices that would have been surprising, had it not been for a year of leaks practically spoiling nearly every detail in the film. I am not someone who goes looking for leaks, but merely being in the online comic book film community as a fan and as press, I was unfortunately made aware of a great deal of these just by casually scrolling social media. After the leaks of Macguire and Garfield in this film’s predecessor, I would have hoped Sony learned their lesson, but if anything, the problem got worse.
Since Endgame, Marvel have had somewhat of an identity crisis, with Phase 6 being a scramble to regain some of the unmatched Infinity Saga structure and quality. For the most part, this has worked, with all the projects released thus far being widely praised and positively received. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is no exception to this, and possibly the best of the lot, with the exception of Wonder Man, also created by Brand New Day director Destin Daniel Cretin.
Among all the Spider-Man films, Brand New Day is certainly on the upper echelon in the rankings. Is it the best? I’m not quite sure. It’s certainly the most original, but it isn’t quite as clean as the first two Raimi Spider-Man films. I’d certainly put it top three, among Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and Spider-Man 2, but where it sits, I’m yet to decide…
While it’s a true crime that this beautiful tapestry of comic books come to life that was filmed for IMAX is not getting an IMAX release, please, oh please, see this in a premium format with sharp colours and powerful speakers. I was able to see the film in Dolby, which did a good job at this. The bass shaking the room when Spider-Man cut against the air resistance, shook the water in my bottle. Should Brand New Day at any point get a limited IMAX release, best believe I will be first in line.
To Kevin Fiege, Amy Pascal, and the executives involved at Marvel and Sony, well done. Please, keep this up, let’s set this as the standard and only improve from here. And Destin, give us more swinging scenes.
Watch the official trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day:
Spider-Man: Brand New Day releases today.
