Spider-Man: Brand New Day Review: A Bold Marvel Reset

Should Christopher Nolan get a little credit for “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” landing this well? While working on “The Odyssey,” Tom Holland was struck by Nolan’s rigorous preparation — a sharp contrast, by Holland’s own account, to the Marvel Studios habit of shooting extensive green-screen material around an unfinished script and trusting post-production to stitch everything together. Appearing in an auteur-driven blockbuster seems to have sharpened the actor’s expectations. Discussing the making of “Brand New Day,” Holland told GQ, “I was really able to lay down the law and say, ‘We are not going to come to set and figure it out… We need to know why we are making this movie beyond the fact that it’s “Spider-Man 4” and they make loads of money and we’re going to just have a big summer. Why are we making this movie?’”

That connection between two of the summer’s biggest movies is a fun one, but the more meaningful praise belongs to Destin Daniel Cretton, the director who clearly found an answer to Holland’s question of purpose. With James Gunn now steering the Distinguished Competition, Cretton may rank behind only Ryan Coogler as Marvel’s most dependable filmmaker at the moment. “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” delivered some of the MCU’s sharpest action filmmaking before its finale slid into more familiar territory, while Cretton’s Disney+ series “Wonder Man” stepped outside the usual Marvel formula altogether, becoming a warm, funny character study.

With “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” Cretton has made his strongest superhero movie so far, though his best film overall remains his debut, “Short Term 12.” This new chapter sits alongside “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” among the best Marvel movies released after “Avengers: Endgame,” and it is my favorite live-action Spider-Man film since Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man 2” in 2004. The animated “Spider-Verse” movies, of course, still occupy a league of their own. What makes “Brand New Day” work is that it never feels like a sequel built solely to cash in. It has a reason to exist. If anything, its biggest weakness is that it has too many reasons, with several ambitions competing for space and occasionally colliding.

Four years after wiping his friends’ memories of him at the end of “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has traded any chance at a normal social life for nonstop crime-fighting. He still crosses paths with other superheroes — he and The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) clearly have history — but he no longer removes the mask around them the way he once did with the Avengers. His closest human connection is now a police detective, played by Liza Colón-Zayas, whom he mostly speaks with over the phone for work. If the “Tony Stark Jr.” version of Peter in Jon Watts’ trilogy often served as a way to grant him special access and shiny advantages, “Brand New Day” is more interested in the darker inheritance. This Peter spends much of his life talking to an AI assistant and making morally shaky decisions — some of which, refreshingly, he is actually forced to answer for.

At least New York still adores Spider-Man. The days of J. Jonah Jameson screaming that he’s a menace appear to be over — my personal theory is that The Onion bought the MCU’s Daily Bugle. Spider-Man has been rounding up the city’s worst criminals, a status quo laid out in an opening montage packed with action images that look ready to be ripped straight from a splash page. For a while, that side of his life seems to be going smoothly. Then, naturally, everything falls apart. I’ve promised not to spoil the identity of the mysterious body-hopping character primarily played by Sadie Sink, even if it may be the worst-kept movie marketing secret since Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s “No Way Home” appearances. There will be plenty more to unpack once that secret is officially in the open, but in terms of setup, she proves more than capable of making Peter Parker’s life miserable.

These problems inevitably send Peter on the path to reunite with his ex-girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and former best buddy Ned (Jacob Batalon). How these reunions will work out might very well be the stronger source of hype for this movie than any battles or hero-villain conflicts. The storytelling here is thoughtful in addressing the much ballyhooed “male loneliness crisis,” and it excels in giving Peter and the audience the things we need even when the things we want must remain out of reach. You might tear up a little by the end.

On top of everything else happening, Peter Parker is once again mutating, with his arachnid hormones far exceeding previous normal levels. It’s a fun reversal of the “Spider-Man 2” conflict (instead of losing power, he’s now got too much), but this is where the movie gets a bit too busy. There are mixed messages on whether this is a result of his emotional state or if it’s a natural occurrence. He spends a lot of the movie trying to develop a chip to repress his excess hormones — this is where Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) gets involved — which gets overcomplicated both narratively and thematically once you consider how this plays in with the secret character and what she represents. There are like five different metaphors here that don’t fully cohere with one another and don’t resolve with full satisfaction.

Switching to a more positive topic: for all the emotional darkness “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is dealing with, it never forgets that comic book movies are supposed to be fun. It’s genuinely funny without feeling like it’s forcing in quips when inappropriate. All the different hero team-up bits are entertaining in their own right without feeling like they’re forced to build to some future movie — even the one scene that sounds like a corporate synergy mandate on paper is handled in a hilarious and surprisingly sexy way (TIL Spider-yaoi exists in MCU canon). The action scenes are a huge step up from the previous MCU Spider-Man films; when we get to Peter’s second showdown against The Hand ninjas, I begrudgingly have to admit that Cretton’s upcoming live-action “Naruto” movie is going to kick a ton of ass.

It makes me happy to be writing such a positive review for this film. The MCU is in a weird place right now; there are so many loose threads currently hanging (I can think of one I wish “Brand New Day” picked up on but didn’t) and I remain skeptical if “Avengers: Doomsday” will tie it all together satisfyingly. But this movie still shows there’s plenty of life to the franchise when it comes to street-level stories.

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” opens in theaters July 31.