With three incarnations and nine movies now behind us, one consistent truth has emerged: It kinda sucks to be Spider-Man. For all of Peter Parker’s paladin-pure heart, there’s always some cackling freaky-deak ready to break it in two. Whether it’s Aunt May, MJ, or the whole of Queens, something or someone Peter loves is always on the brink of oblivion. In any given Spidey flick, a painful question must be asked: How lonely and burned-out is Peter for this installment?
In the case of Brand New Day, the answer is very much. (The remainder of this review will contain spoilers for the previous movies, so you noobs have been warned.) After the events of No Way Home, Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) has scrubbed the memory of Peter Parker (Tom Holland) from all of humanity. That means his bestie Ned (Jacob Batalon) and longtime squeeze (Zendaya) now live as if they never knew him. With Aunt May’s death in the previous entry, Brand New Day finds Spidey lost in a malaise of quiet desperation.
Sounds like fun, huh? As the film begins, Peter handles his grief just as many real people do: He chucks himself into work. The opening reel shows us a Spidey who’s everywhere, busting up bank robberies and taking on The Hand. All this hard work pays off with safer streets, but it also pushes Peter to the point of exhaustion.
Plus, anybody who’s ever tried to outrun their grief can tell you a simple truth: Grief is always one step faster. In quiet moments, Peter finds himself on social media, tracking all the core memories Ned and MJ make without him. They share new in-jokes, build new life goals, and MJ finds a new guy. All this puts Peter at an existential crossroads: He can either start from scratch with the people he loves, or move on forever.
Meanwhile, big things are afoot in lower Manhattan. (In the comic book world, aren’t they always?) A mysterious psionic force is possessing random New Yorkers. Somebody’s blowing up Damage Control facilities all over the place. (No doubt Damage Control is a bigger deal in those MCU TV shows, but I noped my way out of all that franchise-building hooey somewhere around Moon Knight.) The Scorpion (an underused Michael Mando) terrorizes the city. All this evil stretches Spidey to the point of snapping.
If these two storylines feel incompatible, it’s because they are. Peter’s personal crisis sits awkwardly next to the overstuffed plot. When the filmmakers try to smash these different colors of Play-Doh together, they don’t mix well. That’s because the A-plot of Peter’s lost loved ones is so emotionally resonant, it turns the typical Marvel shenanigans into the Battle of Who Could Care Less. Holland and company have done such an exceptional job of investing us in Peter’s relatable decency that we want him to find his place. Every time we start down the path of Peter’s potential happiness, the screenwriters steer us back to the bureaucrats at Damage Control. Two different narratives compete for the same emotional real estate, but one is clearly more compelling than the other.
The good news is that Marvel compensates for this tonal discrepancy and overall bleakness in ways that elevate the film. First, we get a big ol’ barrel of fan service. (If you want to avoid a couple of light and fluffy spoilers, then you best mosey on down to the next graph.) Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) shows up, and he’s a dorkafied college professor with a Hulk inhibitor on his forearm. Also, Jon Bernthal scowls and stomps his way into a few scenes as the Punisher and Florence Pugh’s Yelena conducts spywork through the steam of a hot tub. Best of all, these three players have fun with their heavy cameos, and everybody contributes something to the plot. Ordinarily, this many winks and nudges would capsize a movie like this, but Brand New Day really needed something to lighten the mood.
Next, director Destin Daniel Cretton delivers an absolutely gorgeous film. He takes a page from the animated Spider-Verse epics and infuses Brand New Day with billions of colors and eye-popping camera work. The movie blurs the boundary between the iconic New York we know and the fantastical, teeming cityscape that lives in our imaginations. As Spidey swings through the jungle of skyscrapers, the view is astonishing.
The film gets an additional boost from its all-star cast. Holland brings new emotional depth to this fourth installment. This Peter Parker is older, wiser, and wearier. The weightless joy of Spider-Man: Homecoming feels like a different lifetime. There’s an enigmatic sadness to being Peter, and Holland nails it. Ditto for Zendaya and Batalon, who play MJ and Ned with a hollow happiness. Life seems good, but both seem aware an enormous part of their lives is missing. Sadie Sink plays a crucial new character–I won’t spoil the details–whose heartbreaking origin only adds to the film’s dramatic depth.
All this adds up to a sturdy Spider-Man epic. It’s not perfect, but it’s also never boring, even when the plot wanders into the weeds. My biggest hang-up of the film has nothing to do with its actual content: Spider-Man: No Way Home was the definitive film for the character. It hit like a sledgehammer, and the ending had the feel of an emotional and spiritual destination. Brand New Day belongs in the realm of Toy Story 4 and Creed II–good, but also inessential. It’s been a great ride, but hopefully Miles Morales is somewhere getting a good stretch, because the next brand new day should belong to him.
145 min. PG-13. On demand.
