Superhero fatigue is something that is talked about a lot and has quite honestly taken ahold of the film genre. While there have been some standouts in the field since Endgame, for the most part, many are failing to hit the box office highs we saw back then. Not only that, the stories themselves are feeling more contrived and less interesting, leaving us to wonder if this world we’ve come to know and love will ever get back to the quality we’ve become accustomed to in our comic book movie escapism. Thankfully, Spider-Man has, almost without fail, been a beacon of light, and while our current outing, Brand New Day, doesn’t quite hit the highs of No Way Home, it’s a welcome sight in what is becoming a wasteland.
Based loosely on both One More Day and The Six Arms Saga from the comics, Brand New Day picks up shortly after our last film wherein the entire world has forgotten the existence of Peter Parker (Tom Holland), including his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon). When he is faced with a body-hopping evildoer, he teams up with Damage Control to stop this threat from delving deep into the agency to find whatever hidden information it is looking for. To make matters worse, his spider DNA is starting to take over his human side, leaving him with lessened or sometimes heightened powers along with a rage that threatens to overwhelm him and endanger the lives of the people he has sworn to protect.
Let’s start with the good stuff. This is the best we’ve seen in the MCU in a long time. Technically, Thunderbolts* is a better film, but so few people saw it that it’s difficult to compare the two. (Side note: if you haven’t checked it out yet, go do so at your earliest convenience. It’s as if A24 did a superhero movie. Seriously, you shouldn’t have skipped out on it.)
But I digress. Spider-Man has always had the weird place of being one of the most interesting and fun Marvel heroes while also being one of the most grounded. He can barely pay rent on time, has to deliver pizza to make ends meet (in some stories), and feels like someone who could quite possibly be our neighbor. But while he carries the burden of responsibility, he also seems like someone who actually enjoys having powers. Sure, he constantly gets the crap kicked out of him, but he’s a smart ass as he does it. Which brings us back to Brand New Day, because this is the epitome of what a Spider-Man story should be. It distills the essence of what Stan Lee and Steve Ditko were trying to do when they invented the character 64 years ago. And that’s what makes him so endearing.
Of course, Spider-Man lives in the fantastical world of telepaths and mutants, but the struggle of who is the real person underneath it all—the Spider or the man—is brought to life wonderfully and literally here. Parker struggles to walk the fine line between both worlds, and he constantly stumbles, but that’s also a big part of why we root for him—he’s us if we were put into the same situation.
It’s also nice to see Tom Holland back in a role that he was born to play. If you read (or listened to) my previous review of The Odyssey, you’ll know that he was one of my small problems with that. Which makes many wonder if he has the chops to carry a film, and Brand New Day shows that he does. He has the ability to play both sides of the same coin that is just wonderful here. So the question becomes as he moves forward in his career, can he do the same with other films, or will he stay in the realm of good and not great actors? I guess we will see, but if he wants to keep being Spider-Man until he’s old and gray, I don’t think any of us would complain.
I do wish he had picked an accent and stayed with it the entire time though.
Aside from that, the few issues I do have come late in the third act, and I seem to be more alone in my thoughts about it than others. There are two pivotal moments that change the course of the story, and one seems emotionally manipulative while the other is unearned. They worked as far as making the audience either cry or cheer (I did both), but the approach to both was unappreciated and could have been handled much better.
On a final positive note, they finally nail the villain, which has been a recurring problem with the MCU since day one. Not only are they believable and interesting, but their motivations make perfect sense and are actually something a normal person in that same situation could see themselves doing. We always say the best villains are the ones who are the hero in their own story, but ours here doesn’t pretend they are anything but laser focused on getting what they want and need, and for good cause. Let’s just hope the writers will take this to heart and apply it to their characters going forward.
So where does this fall in the “Home” series? It’s hard to quantify that because they all have been such different films, and I love them all for different reasons. That said, No Way Home is my favorite Spider-Man movie of all time (including the two original series), and as I said before, Brand New Day doesn’t quite hold a candle to it. All in all, it IS more Spider-Man, and that is almost always a good thing, and we are all here for it. It’s not without its failings, but I think almost everyone is going to have an excellent time with it and leave excited to see where the next film takes us.
★★★☆
