Same Hero, New Director, New Perspective
You can always count on Spidey. The ever reliable hero that – no matter what is happening in the superhero genre around him – will always bring people to the theater to experience his new adventures. As of this writing, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has grossed over $74 million in Thursday night previews. That’s the biggest opening EVER, even besting some of the MCU kings like Avengers: Endgame. Needless to say the web of Spidey traps all generations and fans flock in droves to be a part of the hero’s journey.
The hero has had his ups and downs, both within his own world and in his film iterations. Brand New Day offers a little something new paired with a little something borrowed, a fresh story that often retreads plenty of old ones to deliver an mixed bag of tired familiarity and brand new emotional gut punches. Destin Daniel Cretton (The Legend of Shang-Chi) takes the reigns from director Jon Watts for this latest entry in the Tom Holland Spider-Man franchise. A smart choice in the end, because for all the faults in Brand New Day – and there a lot of them – Cretton seems to truly understand Spider-Man as a character, tapping into the things that make him so loveable while introducing new emotional challenges as the web-slinger whips through New York.
A Much More Emotional Story
Tom Holland returns as titular character, aged up from high school to his college years and thrusting himself into his crime fighting work full time. He’s alone and grieving, nothing and no one to help him after the death of Aunt May (Marissa Tomei) and his spell in No Way Home wiping the memories of everyone closest to him. Clearly struggling, Peter begins to go through changes – a kind of late stage puberty from child like “Mr. Stark!” to a man of his own making – that both cloud and enhance his abilities, splitting him between his human side and spider side.
When a new villain arises who can be anyone at anytime, Peter must finally confront his own demons, decide the kind of man he wants to be and discover if being alone is really the answer. Brand New Day also stars Sadie Sink, Zendaya, Jon Bernthal, and Tramell Tillman.
The Real Villain is Depression and Loneliness
Where Brand New Day shines brightest in the emotional undercurrent that powers the story. Cretton brings a fresh take on old ideas, digging a little deeper in the growth of the beloved character and actually pushing him forward in new ways. Much these new grounds and on the foundations of cherished ones; Peter going through mutative changes, Spidey going darker and more violent, and the inherent nature of the loneliness that drives him. These are themes present in Raimi’s trilogy, and Cretton understands that if you’re gonna pull from foundational Spidey stories, the original trilogy is probably the best well to draw from.
Brand New Day feels intrinsically Spider-Man, largely stripped of all of the MCU noise and adamantly focused on our hero. That’s not to say the MCU follies don’t creep up here and there – it’s nearly impossible for the MCU to make something that isn’t creatively bankrupt at this point – but Cretton almost forces his voice into the story, something very few directors have done in the post Endgame era. Brand New Day draws from the best parts of the web slinger, his comic book origins and renderings along with franchise best narratives combine to create a truly emotionally charged adventure. Thematically, it actually has a lot in common with Thunderbolts in that it deals with mental health, loneliness, isolation, and yes, the power of friendship.
You can roll your eyes all you want at the idea of the real villain being depression and growing up, but seeing as how or reality is an ever shifting hellscape and being an adult sucks, Brand New Day hits close to home beneath the more fantastical elements of superheroes. It’s such a smart choice, one that powers the entire film and really gets into your heart. Yes, the power of friendship is very real but in an anonymous digital world, real connection is vital to our survival.
The Stars Are at Their Best in Brand New Day
Holland has never been better. He grows with his character in his performance, shedding the perpetual childlike framework often inherent to Spider-Man to give us a much more mature, complex, and nuanced portrayal. Brand New Day finally centers on the hero himself rather than attaching him to the hip of mentors and telling their stories instead of his own. Iron Man, Mysterio, the other Spidey’s and Doctor Strange are all portrayed as being central to Parker’s anatomy, robbing him of autonomy and forcing him to be a support character in his own stories. Cretton does away with all of that, isolating Peter almost entirely and really sitting with the damage -both physical and emotional – and toll being a hero takes on someone.
Sadie Sink is an excellent new addition the rouges gallery. A perfect foil for the crash out Spider-Man is enduring, she brings such depth and emotion to her character especially as more and more gets revealed about who she his and what her motives are. Jon Bernthal returning as Punisher is also welcomed, as the banter and ideological clashes between him and Spidey are some of the funniest moments in Brand New Day. Tramell Tillman continues his heat check streak, making the most of his limited screentime and once again proving that any movie is better with him in it. Zendaya too, gives a MJ best performance, every interaction between her and Peter really tugging at the heart strings and delivering a much more mature and layered portrayal of their relationship.
It’s Good, But There are Flaws
Where Brand New Day struggles is in its bloated narrative and clunky execution of too many moving parts. There’s too much movie in this 2 hour and 20 minute superhero story and no reason it needs to be this long. The inclusion of Sink’s character – though handled well in the end – leaves a lot of questions and lot of opened ended plot threads that never really present any payoffs. It’s opening a world and then refusing to explore it. Obviously it can’t pull on every thread given the implications of her rewritten origin story, but Brand New Day introduces far too many ideas without the load baring structures to hold it all up. It’s an MCU problem, not a Spider-Man problem, one that feels inescapable but honestly shouldn’t be such a hindrance to storytelling at this point.
The MCU connective tissue rears its ugly head yet again here in Brand New Day, either omitting or just outright pretending they wiped our memory about prior events and characters. Damage Control plays a huge role here, and while I get it – Spider-Man is alone and often naive – EVERYONE else in New York knows they are basically the ICE of the Marvel universe. With 90% of all superheroes living in New York, not one single person thought to reach out and advise Spidey not to trust them? Ms. Marvel is literally right there, but Marvel seems to be adamant about removing her from the canon entirely for reasons I will never fully understand. We just can’t ask Peter to grow up but then insist that he’s still a child. For it to work, he needs to put away childish things and that includes his high school naivety.
A Clash of Big Hulk Smash
It’s a clash of character, needing Spider-Man to grow up but keeping him the dark about things he frankly should not be blind to. It posits the idea that Brand New Day exists both inside and outside of the MCU, and this splits the narrative more than the dichotomy of the character himself. This is a nitpick, sure. But Brand New Day has so much going for it that these little missteps feel more glaring when they occur – and they occur often. It can’t be both – the entries of old and sad boy Spidey – and the overload of movie hinders the things that could make it great break through the noise.
Hulk is another one where they needed to forgo the way we know the character within the world of the MCU just so we can have Big Hulk return to the screen. Banner’s change from Endgame to now is in service of the plot at hand but blatantly disregards anything that came before. It’s never really explained because it needs to get us to the mutation inhibitor subplot. Banner is obviously the best choice for a science mumbo jumbo companion, but setting him back to Day 1 Banner for no other reason than to get across a new storyline in a new movie is to some degree insulting.
These aren’t full on detractors for Brand New Day. But they do stem from a larger issue within the genre itself and the stale MCU machine that just refuses to get better. Most fans and moviegoers probably won’t even realize or care about any of these flaws I found in my viewing. For me, it holds Spider-Man back from being truly great. Because there IS a great Spider-Man movie in here, and at the end of it all the high highs out weigh the low lows. Brand New Day is easily the strongest entry in the Holland franchise, one that shifts its focus to be more of a character study that interrogates the emotional state of Spidey rather than just thrust him into another round of fisty cuffs.
Final Thoughts
There’s plenty of web slinging action amid the deeper cuts, and Brand New Day is sure to wow fans and delight them across the board. It may be a mixed bag, but what it gets right is far better than whatever it gets wrong and it comes really close to being one of the better Superhero films we’ve gotten in a tired string of bad franchise fatigue.
Spider-Man Brand New Day may have its issues – its bloated and clunky and at times looks visually regressive despite being darker in tone – but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me tear up more than once. I haven’t been this moved by a superhero film in nearly a decade, and I’d say that makes for a pretty damn good entry.
Also, a reminder that Florence Pugh will ALWAYS make your movie better.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
