This guest post is written by Josh Bell.
The closing credits of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” play over a montage of street scenes from New York City, and that sense of workaday life in the Big Apple is the best thing that the movie has going for it. Even if it was all shot on locations and soundstages in the U.K., “Brand New Day” often captures the ground-level NYC appeal of Spider-Man that has been an essential element of the character’s comic-book adventures for decades.
Unfortunately, “Brand New Day” only maintains that vibe for about half its running time, primarily up until the reveal of the true identity of the movie’s villain. Before that, the focus is on the personal plight of Peter Parker (Tom Holland), who begins the movie at a high point for his superhero persona of Spider-Man, but a low point for his emotional well-being. Following the events of 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” all memories of Peter have been erased from anyone aware of his secret identity, including his onetime girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon).
So Peter watches from afar via social media as MJ and Ned attend and graduate from MIT, while Peter lives alone in a dingy apartment and devotes all of his time and energy to stopping crime as Spider-Man. He works closely with NYPD detective Jean DeWolff (Liza Colón-Zayas), but only communicates with her over the phone or from behind a mask, and refrains from making any kind of human connection. Director Destin Daniel Cretton smartly lays out this new status quo in a dynamic sequence that covers a period of several years, as Spider-Man takes down familiar foes like the Scorpion (Michael Mando) and Tombstone (Marvin Jones III) while also repeatedly coming home to an empty apartment, avoiding meaningful interactions with anyone else.
This is the kind of Spider-Man story that rarely makes it into film, because superhero movies require increasingly heightened stakes, especially in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Cretton and screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers establish the rhythm of Peter’s new life as Spider-Man in a way that feels genuine and lived-in. When he crosses paths with the Punisher (Jon Bernthal) and references a notorious past incident between the two of them, it has the ring of truth, even if the audience has never seen them together onscreen before.
Of course, that street-level crime-fighting can’t last for long, because “Brand New Day” has to tell the kind of big, impactful story that the MCU demands. At first, the filmmakers keep that storytelling grounded, too, introducing a new antagonist who inflicts damage on Spider-Man emotionally as well as physically, and putting Peter through changes in his powers that reflect his inner turmoil. This is the most that Holland’s Peter has resembled Tobey Maguire’s version of the character from Sam Raimi’s groundbreaking films, and that raw vulnerability gives “Brand New Day” an edge over previous MCU Spider-Man films.
For quite a while, the movie’s mysterious villain isn’t even glimpsed onscreen, since they have the ability to take over other people’s minds and control their actions from afar. Those people are the only ones that Spider-Man and the Punisher encounter when they attempt to stop a stolen tank from destroying a facility run by the superpower-policing Department of Damage Control. Cretton stages a car chase through the streets of Manhattan that recalls the creative and exciting San Francisco bus chase that was a highlight of his previous MCU film, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” and he brings a visual flair to “Brand New Day” that is often missing from the homogeneous MCU.
Cretton also gets strong performances from his entire cast, especially in the pairings of Spider-Man with other MCU heroes. Spidey is amusingly flustered by the dismissive sarcasm of the newly influential Black Widow (Florence Pugh), he’s eager to geek out with physics professor and reformed Hulk Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), and he’s exasperated but indulgent with the gruff Punisher. The relationship between Spider-Man and Punisher (and, when they let down their guards, their alter egos) is as important to “Brand New Day” as the relationship between Peter and MJ, and real-life friends Holland and Bernthal have great chemistry together.
It could seem like a copout when the filmmakers allow Peter to tentatively re-befriend MJ and Ned, potentially negating the sacrifice he made in “No Way Home,” but that rebuilding feels earned, and it ties into the way that the mind-controlling villain taunts Peter, digging up deeply personal information and turning it against him. There’s a real sense of danger to this new foe that Peter is facing, especially as his powers seem to be mutating, making him even more spider-like.
Then the movie drops the reveal of who’s really behind the Damage Control attacks, and it turns from a relatively self-contained Spider-Man story into scaffolding for the future of the MCU. The best superhero stories give their villains meaningful motivations and engaging individual histories, but “Brand New Day” sidelines Peter to become an origin story for an entirely separate corner of the MCU, in which Spider-Man now plays a subordinate role. Elements of Peter’s journey that seem so important in the early parts of the movie end up unresolved, so that this new character can go on their own, slightly dubious journey of self-discovery.
“Brand New Day” eventually rights itself in time for a crowd-pleasing finale, a celebration of Spider-Man’s importance to New York City that rivals the iconic scene of subway passengers carrying him in Raimi’s “Spider-Man 2.” It also cements the connection between Peter and Frank Castle (aka the Punisher) as people, while leaving the door open for future bonding between Peter and his onetime besties.
All of those emotional beats land, but only after a lengthy segment offering an overstuffed yet truncated arc for the perpetrator of the assaults on Damage Control. Learning that person’s identity is likely to be divisive for MCU fans, but their presence in the story is shaky for more than just larger continuity reasons.
So much of “Brand New Day” is dynamic and fun, and Cretton brings some comic-book flair back to the sometimes drab MCU, recreating iconic motifs including the cover to Spider-Man’s first-ever appearance in print. Following that early car chase, Cretton continues to deliver on the action front, making the threats feel substantial without having to put the entire planet in peril. There are still some dicey special-effects moments (prepare to cringe at every close-up of the Hulk’s face), but overall “Brand New Day” looks like it was put together with care for the technical aspects, which hasn’t always been the case in recent MCU movies.
With the fan-service behemoth of “Avengers: Doomsday” looming on the horizon, “Brand New Day” offers a welcome small-scale breather, which is why it’s especially disappointing when it gets derailed for MCU build-up. Even with those missteps, it’s a reminder of the many charms the MCU provides when handled right, and the way that a wider superhero universe can serve specific characters. Let the overarching MCU continue on with its world-shaking events; Spider-Man will be back in NYC where he belongs, taking care of the everyday problems, which are just as vital.
Image Credit: “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”
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