Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton
Written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers
Starring Tom Holland, Zendaya and Jon Bernthal
Classification PG; 145 minutes
Opens in theatres July 31
It has been 5½ years since the last Spider-Man film, and the world has changed.
The pandemic – which people broke containment for in order to enjoy 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home in theatres, a watershed moment for either side of the masking movement – has subsided. Artificial intelligence, which half a decade ago was mostly employed as an insult thrown toward the likes of No Way Home’s robotic screenplay, has kneecapped countless industries, up to and including Hollywood. And the Marvel Cinematic Universe that houses everyone’s friendly neighbourhood radiation victim has seen its popularity wax, wane and practically reach new moon (if not new Moon Knight) status and reboot entirely, with the upcoming epic Avengers: Doomsday rewiring franchise star Robert Downey Jr. from iconic hero to big-bad heavy.
Yet in Spider-Man’s New York, things remain stubbornly the same. Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is still weighing the great power that comes with great responsibility. Supervillains, both secondary and theoretically top-tier, are still rampaging around the Big Apple, evoking equal amounts of Spidey quips and VFX-enabled nips (and tucks). And true love, always just out of grasp for this MCU version of Spidey, remains elusive – with the object of his affection, MJ (Zendaya), now memory-wiped by a Doctor Strange spell deployed at the end of the last movie. (If you don’t already know, don’t ask.)
Tom Holland, more winsome than Tobey Maguire and sweetly naive than Andrew Garfield, does as much as he can with the job before him, even if that ends up not being enough to carry this non-event of a film.Jay Maidment/Supplied
By this point in the Spider-Man franchise – nine films deep, not counting two excellent animated outings – absolutely everyone knows the general contours of Peter’s world-wide web, not to mention the corroding MCU mechanics needed to keep it spinning.
So you would think that director Destin Daniel Cretton – new to the Spidey brand, if not new to Marvel thanks to his work on 2021’s other Avengers-y outing Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings – would try his darndest to find something new to add to the Peter Parker mythos. And, remarkably, for the first half-hour of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, he does.
Ripping through a series of action scenes set to the rolling thunder of TV on the Radio’s track Wolf Like Me, Cretton reintroduces us to a hero who leaps off the screen as well as he does Manhattan skyscrapers. There is a fiery, wiry energy in the way that the director captures Spidey mid-fight and flight.
At one moment, the hero is cycling through breakneck melees with a series of secondary villains (Scorpion, Tombstone, a ninja cult dubbed The Hand that feels as if they’d be more at home in the DC cinematic universe next door, hanging with Ra’s al Ghul). The next, Spidey is snappily trading intel and insults with the street-level mercenary Frank (The Punisher) Castle (Jon Bernthal, in peak grizzled and grumbled form).
Spider-Man and The Punisher.Jay Maidment/Supplied
The familiarity of it all is offset by the sheer momentum that Cretton brings to the opening action, which possesses an air of real-world place and physicality just thick enough to make you believe that the MCU has finally shaken its addiction to janky, weightless CGI.
But then you check your watch and realize that there are still 120 minutes to go, and this Brand New Day starts to resemble the same old week.
Yes, Spider-Man must face a new threat in town, but it is courtesy of a mystery-cloaked villain (Stranger Things star Sadie Sink) who seems wedged into the proceedings for no good reason other than Marvel Studios desperately needing to set up the plank of its next few movies. The moment that the character’s identity is finally, mercifully revealed, during a scene in which two superheroes conduct what is essentially a Google search, is designed to evoke gasps among the audience, but only raised a few faux-chuckles during my screening.
There are also plenty of ostensibly emotional, presumably essential character-building moments in which Spidey reckons with the relationships that he once shared with MJ and his onetime BFF Ned (Jacob Batalon). But they are all bafflingly distended, the dialogue by screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers groaning and creaky.
There are plenty of ostensibly emotional, presumably essential character-building moments in which Spidey reckons with the relationships that he once shared with MJ and his one-time BFF Ned.Jay Maidment/Supplied
Meanwhile, the film’s central theme – a riff on the old Jekyll and Hyde divide when it comes to embracing, or controlling, your inner monster – is belaboured. And what about the action, which initially seemed blessed by Cretton’s own seeming superpower, a heroically sharp eye? Well, it reveals itself to be as artificial and aggravating as everything else, the promise of spectacle turned into a grey slurry of smashed concrete and broken bones. As a character, Spider-Man is above all vigilant. But the crushing length of his adventure this time around makes it a challenge to stay even passively alert.
Holland, more winsome than Tobey Maguire and sweetly naive than Andrew Garfield, does as much as he can with the job before him, even if that ends up not being enough to carry this non-event of a film. Don’t worry, he’ll emerge unscathed, so long as he can keep convincing the Christopher Nolans of the world that he’s a box-office draw unto himself.
Speaking of which: Holland’s Odyssey co-stars Bernthal and Zendaya can also keep their heads high, the pair enlivening a cinematic multiverse that grows more dim by the second. Heck, even the handful of MCU players from the mothership franchise who briefly pop up here – and who shan’t be named, lest Sony Pictures’ spoiler police bring their Mjolnir down – earn their surely fabulous paycheques.
It is only that, once Brand New Day wraps up, it is hard not to feel a little like MJ back in 2021: completely unaware of anything that happened in the preceding few hours. We can forget, but it might be past time to forgive.
As a character, Spider-Man is above all vigilant. But the crushing length of his adventure this time around makes it a challenge to stay even passively alert.Matthew Towers/Supplied
Spider-Man Movies, Ranked
11. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
10. The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
9. Spider-Man 3 (2007)
8. Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)
7. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
6. Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
5. Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
4. Spider-Man (2002)
3. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
2. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
1. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
-B.H.