Spider-Man: Brand New Day has a lot on its plate. It has to follow the excellent and crowd-pleasing Spider-Man mashup No Way Home, and it’s the last movie before Avengers: Doomsday releases this December. Plus, it still has to be a standalone Spider-Man story while also allowing time for the Punisher, the Hulk, and other characters to drop in. It all sounds pretty messy, and it is, but it’s also the most entertaining Tom Holland Spider-Man movie.
Brand New Day is meant to be a darker entry in the series after all the losses Peter Parker suffered in No Way Home: the death of Aunt May and the Dr. Strange spell that made the entire world, most notably his girlfriend MJ and best friend Ned, forget about him. Spider-Man and dark don’t exactly go together (see the hilarious Tobey Maguire “edgy” montage in Spider-Man 3) since the character is typically the most light-hearted in the MCU. So this is easily the most dour of the four films, but there’s still plenty of goofiness.
It’s not really a dark movie so much as a lonely one. Peter has nothing but his work as Spider-Man. The only socialization he gets is talking to a police captain and stalking his former friends on social media. Aside from that, he leads a hermetic life in a small apartment, completely consumed with crime-fighting. But he’s still joking around while he does it.
The early montage of Spidey fighting various deep-cut comic book villains while recreating classic covers is one of my favorite parts of the film. The Iron Man, Jr. suit is gone, and he is on his own. This is what I’ve wanted from these movies. The first three films kept Peter so busy and connected to other movies that he never seemed to find time to just be Spider-Man. Brand New Day gives him that chance…for a little bit.
I don’t want to get into spoilers and summarizing the plots of MCU movies is as boring to write as it is to read, so I’ll just skip all that. The important thing is that Spider-Man is not on his own in this movie. He has a conflicted relationship with Jon Bernthal’s Punisher (a toned down PG-13 version of the character), Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, and a few other surprise characters meant to set up Doomsday a bit.
Normally, the inclusion of all those characters as well as a subplot about Peter’s “arachnid hormones” overtaking his human hormones would make this far too messy of a movie to enjoy. But it worked for me for a couple reasons. First, I don’t think the Punisher or the Hulk are interesting enough characters to warrant their own movie, so I’m happy to get these small doses of the characters. And there’s an action sequence in the middle of the film featuring all three characters that will make any comic book fan feel like a little kid. Second, the action and general look of this film is a huge improvement for the series.
I like the first three films in this run, but I honestly don’t find the action all that memorable. It’s not bad; it’s just serviceable. In Brand New Day there are multiple sequences that I am excited to revisit as soon as I can. And the POV web-swinging sequences look amazing.
Brand New Day is definitely one of those movies that falls apart a bit under scrutiny. But when a comic book movie can deliver enough fun action and engaging characters, then I’m not going to start nitpicking it. But I get it if others feel differently.
I’ve become lenient with comic book movies, especially since a couple of my kids have started watching them with me. So when a movie like this (that clocks in at nearly two and a half hours) keeps them interested, then it gets a pass from me. And I’ve made my peace with the fact that Marvel hit a high point not likely to be reached again with Endgame. I hope Doomsday is amazing, but it’s not going to be a big deal to me if it isn’t. I’m still going to watch these as long as my kids want to, and hopefully they are all as fun as Brand New Day.
Random Thoughts (SPOILERS)
Okay, so the Jean Grey stuff. I didn’t mind her being the “villain,” although it just sets up so many more questions for how the X-Men fit into everything going forward since they’re re-casting some roles but having the original actors for others. I’m just assuming it will all be explained at a later date.
The biggest issue I had with the film was the arachnid hormone stuff. I’m okay with him developing the Tobey Maguire ability to jizz out his own wrist goo, but it just seemed a little tacked on. So he’s getting burnt out which makes him more of a spider? Once again, hopefully this is explored more later since he stops using the inhibitor chip at the end.
I guess I need to watch the Punisher short film and the Daredevil show now. Though I’m reading some complaints about Punisher in this being different from the TV-MA version. I guess I’ll see, but I really enjoyed Bernthal in this. Easily the funniest moments in the movie featured these two bickering at each other.
Some have pointed out that it makes no sense that Frank would just be hanging out at the hospital at the end, and I honestly didn’t think about that at the moment (more on that later). I did wonder what people thought about him being there since he was the one, you know, who shot Peter. But apparently there was a cameo shot and cut featuring Rosario Dawson’s nurse character that explained how he came to be there. Who knows? But there was some quote from Holland (I’m not linking to any of this, so feel free to Google it to confirm or deny) about an edit of the film that he hated, and I’m wondering how much shit was cut from this.
I was just on board for this movie all the way, which is why I didn’t think much about Frank hanging out at the hospital. Perhaps that’s the wrong way to watch these movies, but it is what it is. When it comes to comic book movies these days, if they are even mildly entertaining to me or my kids, I kind of give them a pass. Not very critical of me, I know, but I’m not exactly writing for the New York Times here. I’m writing for the few dozen weirdos who end up on this page after Googling something very specific I wrote about in my Random Thoughts section.
There was one scene that is a pet peeve of mine with the MCU. One of the worst moments in the MCU happens in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. There is a fight happening and one of the antagonists almost kills someone, and they all stop, and act like, “Whoa, what happened there? You hurt somebody!” Of course they did! Aren't these characters trying to kill each other? Or is it all just for fun? Anyway, when full arachnid Peter fights a Jean Grey-controlled Scorpion (yeah, this movie might have too much going on), he goes too far beating the shit out of him and wrecks a cop car, hurting the officer. It's seen as a horrific moment, but I'm pretty sure there must have been instances of this during the tank chase earlier in the film, but no one cared. Plus, it's okay to beat Scorpion's ass, but just not too badly? What's the line?
Glad to see full Hulk back in action. I'm not a fan of the half-Hulk thing they've been doing. Speaking of Hulk, they just left him high and dry in this. No follow-up to maybe get him out of jail or anything? The film just used him up and tossed him aside.
So glad the suit is just a normal suit. The first films just made him another version of Iron Man. He's still using the assistant shit, and I guess he's spying on the entire fucking city, but at least he looks normal again.
So he doesn't have Stark's suits anymore, but did he get some money from him? How is he affording anything? Did I miss the explanation for that in this or the last film?
I assumed the recurring Staten Island joke with Frank was a reference to something from one of the shows, but it’s not. It's just them letting us know they've had plenty of other interactions.
I know Peter is supposed to be a little naive and whatnot, but seriously, his Spidey sense never went off when meeting with the clearly evil head of Damage Control?
By the way, I've read very few comics, so I am no authority on what a Spider-Man “should” be. I just know what I like.
I like the Raimi version, and this is the closest the Holland movies have gotten to Raimi, for better or worse.
I saw that Bero front and center in the convenience store, Holland. Get your advertising in for your near beer. I was worried for a second that they were going to have him buy some, but it was just simple shameless product placement.
That shot of Spider-Man dragging Punisher as he shoots at the Hulk just makes me forget any nagging questions about this movie.
I didn't stay for the end credits scene (I just watched it on YouTube so I didn't have to make my kids sit through the credits). Apparently it sets up Secret Wars. Now I feel like I need to read some comics. Hopefully that feeling passes; I already do too much dorky shit.