After years of multiverse madness, endless cameos, and an increasingly complicated Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Brand New Day does something surprisingly simple: it brings the focus back to Peter Parker rather than the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, and it works. Why? Because that’s exactly what Spider-Man needed.
The fourth Tom Holland-led Spider-Man film picks up years after the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, when Doctor Strange’s spell erased Peter Parker from everyone’s memory. His friends remember Spider-Man, but not the young man beneath the mask.
Peter is therefore alone. No MJ. No Ned. No Avengers looking over his shoulder. No one knows who he really is. That loneliness becomes the foundation for a film that is considerably more personal than its title suggests. Had the title been something like ‘Spider-Man: Rediscovering Peter’ or something along those lines, it might have made more sense.
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, Brand New Day blends street-level crime, superhero action, emotional drama, and the increasingly interconnected Marvel universe. The result is not quite the best Spider-Man film ever made — No Way Home still holds that distinction — but it may be the film that best understands what Marvel's friendly neighborhood hero needs right now.
What is Spider-Man: Brand New Day about?
Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has spent years protecting New York City as Spider-Man, all while living as a stranger to the people he once loved. Thanks to Doctor Strange’s spell, the world has forgotten Peter, but Peter remembers everything.
MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon) have moved on with their lives, while Peter continues to fight crime and try to understand what his new life should look like. His problems become considerably more complicated when a mysterious threat begins to affect ordinary New Yorkers.
Peter's investigation brings him into contact with Detective Jean DeWolff (Liza Colón-Zayas) and Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman) of the Department of Damage Control. When he needs a friend, he turns to his Avengers family, most notably Yelena Belova, the new Black Widow (Florence Pugh), Bruce Banner, aka The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal).
As for the mysterious threat, it turns out to be a newer version of Jane Grey (Sadie Sink), who can make others do her bidding while staying in the shadows, even if it means threatening the good guys, such as Spider-Man in this case. Can Peter counter this threat, or will he fall prey to her mind tricks? Watch the film to find out.
What works
The biggest success of Brand New Day is the brand-new Peter Parker, who finally gets the chance to rediscover himself and his alter ego and to formulate a plan to stay alive in a city where anything can happen.
Unlike the last three films, where Tom Holland plays the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, this time he has no superhero friend to save him. He is alone in the film, tired and heartbroken, which drives him to experiment on himself to become a better version of Spider-Man.
Although he is increasingly desperate to reconnect with the people he lost, Peter doesn’t forget his duty as a superhero, which keeps his mind off many things, with MJ and Ned at the top of the list.
He finally meets MJ, but not as Peter, rather as someone who lives in the neighborhood and goes by that name. She does not remember him, but he remembers everything about their relationship, creating a painful imbalance that gives their encounters genuine emotional weight.
One must commend the real-life couple Tom Holland and Zendaya for their performances in such scenes, where they handle them beautifully. The film does not constantly turn their meetings into exaggerated melodrama. Instead, there is awkwardness, sadness and affection — exactly the kind of complicated emotion that makes Peter Parker work.
And then there is Frank Castle, better known as The Punisher, who, as his name suggests, believes in punishing those beyond redemption, a stance that clashes with Peter’s ideology of saving lives. This unlikely relationship between Spider-Man and Punisher becomes one of the film's biggest draws, as they back each other no matter how dire the odds. Their dynamic gives Brand New Day the edge it needs to be counted among the franchise's best films.
As for Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey, she is one of those characters who spends half the film as the antagonist and then becomes the hero’s supporting character as things go from bad to worse. The Stranger Things actress is a welcome addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and dethrones MJ as Peter’s favourite woman in the film, but only at the very end. His heart is still with MJ, who has no clue they were once together; Ned, on the other hand, is a different story altogether.
The film is laced with many action sequences, some energetic, some imaginative, and, best of all, easy to follow. Spider-Man gets to show his dark side as well, even if only for a few minutes, before finally realizing the error of his ways. What makes all these fights interesting is that they carry the story forward instead of disrupting the film’s flow, and that’s why they are remembered in a good way once you exit the theater.
What doesn’t work here
The biggest weakness is the film's inability to fully break free from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Every time another superhero enters the story, the film risks shifting focus from Peter to the next stage in Marvel's larger plan.
Whether it’s Florence Pugh’s Black Widow or Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner/The Hulk, both feel forced. They could easily have been replaced by another teacher (in Banner’s case) or a minor villain (in The Hulk’s case), whereas the information Black Widow provided could have somehow been obtained by EV, the Artificial Intelligence (voiced by Tom Holland’s first onscreen mother, Naomi Watts), which makes its MCU debut in this film.
Brand New Day is at its best when it focuses on Peter Parker, and it works because it is smaller and more personal. It does not need to constantly remind audiences that Spider-Man exists within a cinematic universe with dozens of other heroes.
Too much melancholy also drags the film. While many might agree it was required, for a superhero flick it was too much. You made your girlfriend forget you, man; move on!
Also, Sadie Sink’s entry as Jean Grey should have been in the first 30 minutes because that would have been the beauty of it. Lingering on the suspense killed it, and by the time it was revealed, many had Googled what was happening on screen. Also, her entry scene seemed lifted from Denzel Washington's Fallen (1998), where the actor playing a detective notices a troubled soul swapping hosts to taunt him.
And finally, there is plenty of Peter Parker and Spider-Man in the film, but too little of Ned, who has so far been the most trusted sidekick any Spider-Man has had across the multiverse. A little more Ned wouldn’t have hurt.
Spider-Man film ranking
So, is Spider-Man: Brand New Day the best Spider-Man film? Nope. One Spider-Man whose heart is broken is no match for three of them, each with their own baggage, history, and abilities. To top No Way Home, the makers of Spider-Man will have to go ballistic instead of sadistic, which is where this film went.
But if the last Spidey flick had Tom Holland, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield together, this one had The Punisher, Jean Grey and Spider-Man, making it a crossover event nobody expected. Instead of showing these characters battling it out, it tells the story of Peter Parker, who needs these two to save himself, return to his world, and become a better human being and an even better superhero.
This film has become one of the highest-grossing films of all time because it revolves around a more grounded Peter Parker, one who has always been overshadowed by Spider-Man. The film reminds us of something Marvel occasionally seems to forget: Spider-Man is interesting because Peter Parker is interesting.
If you go back to Spider-Man’s origins, you will realise that this Peter Parker is closest to the one Stan Lee created sixty years ago. He was meant to be broke, living with his aunt, struggling for money, holding onto the only job he could get, and facing the same issues any young person would in downtown New York. Tom Holland plays that young man well, portraying someone who is trying to do the right thing while dealing with loneliness, responsibility, money, relationships, and the consequences of his own choices.
It may not be the best Spider-Man movie ever made, but after years of increasingly complex superhero storytelling, it could be the film that gives Marvel what it desperately needed: a brand-new beginning.
The writer is a freelance contributor who writes about film, television, and popular culture
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