One of the best ways to combat superhero movie fatigue is to stop making everything so huge, the noise so loud, the stakes so big — not every adventure has to have the fate of the entire universe hanging in the balance. If you spin a good yarn (web?), smaller stakes can feel just as satisfying. Spider-man: Brand New Day is that notion taken to heart in the best possible ways. In fact, in the film, even Florence Pugh’s Yelena (Black Widow II) notes that she and The Avengers handle, “big potato” problems and Spider-man should land firmly in the realm of “little potatoes.”
In this fourth MCU/Sony Spidey film, we find Peter Parker living a solitary existence, a few years after the events of the last movie. If you recall, Dr. Strange had to cast a spell (to save all of time, space, and the universe, of course) that caused everyone to forget about ol’ Pete. He has been watching his best friend Ned and the love of his life, MJ, from afar as they go to college. He has also been grieving the loss of Aunt May, and blames himself for her death. He has all but closed the book on Peter Parker, choosing mostly to live as Spider-man. He can devote all his time to fighting crime and saving lives without putting people in danger because of their attachment to Peter Parker. It strikes a decidedly darker and more melancholic tone than the previous John Hughes high school vibes of the earlier entries.
Tom Holland, who has grown into the adult version of the role, does an excellent job channeling both the quipping boyish charm of public Spider-man, but also the sad, cursed version of the hero that has caused him so much heartbreak over time. The film itself is deep with character-building scenes and emotional resonance. When my son was young, he hated movie dialogue scenes that would take away from the explosions, but I always told him that without those scenes, there are no stakes. The explosions mean nothing if you don’t care about the people in the middle of them.
Speaking of explosions, there is some hyper-kinetic action on display. I noticed right off the bat that there were shots that felt insanely reminiscent of the PS4 Spider-man game, which is one of my favourite games of all-time. I’m more of a Spider-man fan than a gamer per se, but I say this as a compliment, because that game really got it. It made you feel like you were Spider-man. Complete with my stomach launching into my throat when I dove headfirst off buildings.
Another piece of advice I’ve always had for Marvel is that some of the best Spider-man adventures from the comics of my youth were team ups (heck, they used to have a title called Marvel Team Ups). I remember a great one-off with Wolverine, where he just popped in for one issue and he and Spidey hang out and solve a crime. And of course, there have been plenty of team ups with New York characters like Daredevil and The Punisher. Well, I guarantee they didn’t get the idea from me, but thankfully someone found the spark. Maybe it was seeing the success of Deadpool and Wolverine? At any rate, Jon Bernthal’s Punisher is some of the best casting in the MCU (though his own show was uneven) and he provides not only a great foil for Spider-man, but also some unexpected comic relief. There are several other cameos, heroes and villians, big and small, that populate the movie. And while some may be cynical about it, I thought it worked. Everyone is there for a reason and they’re not trying to backdoor a TV pilot or a new movie spinoff.
There were some minor details that I’d take umbridge with. There were some very obvious story beats (and there is at least one character who isn’t what they seem but fools no one for even a second). There’s not a lot of fat on the movie, but at 2 and a half hours, you could edit it a bit to tighten it up. I also don’t love the whole Spider-man’s powers aren’t working for psychological reasons stuff, though it has precedent in the comic (and in Raimi’s Spider-man 2, where I didn’t love it either). But that’s personal taste and I think the movie handles it mostly well, even though it doesn’t really resolve itself properly. I think if I mentioned a few more of my gripes, we’d be too far into spoiler territory. But let me say that the gripes were few and mostly nerdy.
Overall, this is probably my favourite of the Tom Holland Spidey films and certainly in the top five overall (including the animated Sony films). It has some great action, but it also juggles several emotional stories with the deftness of a spider spinning a story web. The worst part is knowing we’ll have to wait a number of years before seeing the follow up. This movie made me excited for a more mature Spider-man film, with a Peter Parker who is also facing the problems of adulthood.
