SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY Review — From Spider-Boy To Spider-Man

No, I'm not going to tell you who Sadie Sink is playing. (Nor am I going to offer any other spoilers pre-release.)

Every once in a while, we get very lucky to have a film knock our socks off. I've enjoyed nearly all of the Spider-Man films (not you, Spider-Man III, and no amount of revisionist history will change that), and expected to have a similar amount of fun in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. What I wasn't expecting was to walk out of the theater with my heart full and my head on cloud 9.

I left Spider-Man: No Way Home with one primary frustration: MJ (Zendaya) explicitly tells Peter (Tom Holland) to come find her after the spell. It's not subtext, it's not out of context, it's not asked in words too difficult to understand; it's just ignored. The love of his life tells Peter Parker exactly what she needs and the moment he has the chance to make good on his promise, he decides it's too hard and too scary and that she'd be better off without him. It's a decision that was never his to make, and Brand New Day explores that betrayal and its fallout in more ways than one while also juggling a narrative that is both equal parts silly and dark. Said exploration doesn't just matter to the film because it's one of its many facets, but because it chooses to reconcile with it at all. Older superhero fare would simply shrug and say "that's the cost of being a hero!"

[fart noise]

Brand New Day is, in fact, telling Peter that "that's the cost of being a hero!" is nonsense every step of the way. Everywhere he turns, people are demanding that he find some balance or friendship or love in his life. Even folks like Frank freakin' Castle (Jon Bernthal), the absolute last person you'd expect to be demanding such things of anyone.

This side of The Punisher and his older brother-esque relationship with Peter makes Brand New Day really sing. We see a glimpse of it in the trailer, but there's very little to prepare you for just how exceptional this duo is. Holland and Bernthal have worked together a lot over the years, and their odd couple chemistry here could carry a weaker film entirely on its own. But a weaker film Brand New Day is not.

Director Destin Daniel Cretin and cinematographer Brett Pawlak play with the film's contrasting themes with scenes that will both awe comic book fans looking for bright and exciting call-backs while also delivering shots for the film nerds who want to see something a little bit more exciting than a center-frame subject and lackluster action sequences. Speaking of — y'all remember color grading? 'Cause someone at Marvel decided it was returning to their multiverse. Brand New Day's color department (Frankie Hudson, Nick Nassif, Tom Poole and Shanal Pallewela) decided there would be no accusations of flat and ugly color levels in their house, and the depth their work adds to the visuals is unmissable. Like Superman, Brand New Day has absolutely no issue being bright and bold.

Still, it's writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers who walk away as Brand New Day's MVPs. Their screenplay was tasked with juggling Spider-Man's evolving powers, [redacted Sadie Sink character], Peter's interpersonal strife with MJ and Ned (Jacob Batalon), introducing new tech with astronomical implications on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a stealth work/life balance narrative and a deep web of character interactions between players that have never shared the screen before. Oh, and McKenna and Sommers have the complicated responsibility of showing us a new, all growed up Peter Parker.

The plucky little subheader to this review wasn't just a quip. This is not the Spider-Man that we left in the fallout of No Way Home. It's a Peter Parker forced to deal with the fallout of his bad decision while learning how to become the man he's meant to. This is true both in the fact that we're finally seeing Peter manufacture his own tech — including some that will have devastating ripples in the MCU as a whole — stand on his own after years of Stark holding his hand. It's also evident in his overall behavior as he tries to find out who he is and what he needs to be the best friendly neighborhood Spider-Man he can be. We can't talk too much about what that "need" is this early before the film releases wide, but suffice to say that we significant growth outta this little dork from Queens.

Brand New Day forces our forever (and lovingly) pissed off Frank Castle to grow up a little bit himself. To that end, MJ and Punisher's dynamic is low-key one of the best aspects of the film. I'm not trying to sound like a parasocial freak, but Bernthal has absolutely adopted Zendaya as his little sister and it is both cute, cute, cute and as evident through their chemistry as it is with he and Holland's. You can pinpoint the exact moment Bernthal's Castle begrudgingly realizes that he already cares for Zendaya's MJ and is going to protect her with his life (just remember: "bombs"), and it's just a taste of how pivotal Berthal ends up being to Brand New Day's brand of humor.

I haven't mentioned Sadie Sink, and that's largely by design. There's nothing I can say or imply that isn't going to give the surprise away, but I will say that she is as good as expected if you've grown familiar with her body of work. We'll talk about her more next week, I promise!

While I've never considered myself among the MCU's haters, and I've stuck around in later phases as the franchise struggles from listening to the loudest, dumbest voices on the internet rather than focusing on being good storytelling, I'm comfortable saying that Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the exact kind of shock to the heart that Marvel needed ahead of Doomsday. It's not about telling what's next — though there is a fair share of that, let's not expect a leopard to change its spots this late in the game — but a ground-level tale of a superhero deciding what kind of man he wants to be and learning what a lone wolf mentality actually does to someone. The sheer humanity of the story acts as a foundation for other players, yes, but this is never not about Peter Parker's journey as both man and hero. That it looks good, sounds good, and feels good matters a lot, especially alongside the difficult stakes that come along with the complicated balance of Spider-Man.

Though it would require a compete re-watch to say where Spider-Man: Brand New Day fits in the overall pantheon of the MCU, this is both the best of Holland's Spider-Man films and the best thing to come out with Marvel's name attached to it for some time. Thwip yourself to a theater as soon as you're able, this one's a joy.

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