Spider-Man: Brand New Day showcases every strength and weakness of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It features a charismatic group of young actors who are all better than the given material, and a frustrating drive to keep everything within the status quo simply because of future instalments.
When the movie works, it does so entirely thanks to Tom Holland, Zendaya, and the fantastic Sadie Sink, who never gets enough to do with her magnetic screen presence. At times, director Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed one of the best Marvel outings in Shang-Chi, brings visual flair and a sense of scale to the adventure, both of which have felt severely lacking in the past.
But each time Brand New Day is about to soar, it stumbles in the complex web of its making, including all future homework that Marvel requires of its audience today. In the process, it repeats plot points from the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, especially Spider-Man 2, as if Marvel can't escape the twelve stories it has to tell because that would risk upsetting an established fandom.
This is a densely packed, yet strangely underwritten film. It catapults the story three years ahead from No Way Home – itself a perfectly fine ending to Holland's saga as Spider-Man – and proceeds to repeat the lessons from its predecessor with all the wrong conclusions. Before, Spider-Man had to learn that to be a hero, you have to be selfless, and that means sacrificing a part of yourself for the greater good. Now, it's all about how you can have everything you want, simply because the fans want it, too.
Packed into a mammoth two-and-a-half-hour runtime, Brand New Day introduces numerous new villains, multiversal shenanigans, and partnerships for Spider-Man, yet adamantly refuses to expand on any of them. Even Sink's big spoilery reveal, which Marvel has teased for months now, lands with a thud.
When we're finally told her true persona, it arrives with the same dull fanfare as Benedict Cumberbatch's reveal as Khan in the forgettable Star Trek Into Darkness. It only works if you already know what to expect from the future. Right now, it means nothing, especially as Brand New Day can't figure out what to do with Sink.
So, it's entirely to her credit that she's still one of the best parts of the film. Funny and terrifying when need be, she waltzes in like she owns the place and makes all the other drama feel almost inconsequential. I won't spoil who she is or what she's after, but even if I did, I doubt it would actually ruin the experience. This is a film where things are constantly happening, but if you stop to think about any of it, you'll notice that none of it has any consequence whatsoever.
But oh boy, does the film try to spin some plates to impress us. To do that, it brings out The Hulk once again for a contractually obligated action sequence that serves very little and repeats an already established beat from previous films. Mark Ruffalo is terrific as ever as Bruce Banner, but you can tell that he's here because they need him for the next Avengers joint. Storywise, you could cut out his part entirely and very little would change.
More perplexing is how the film insists on making The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) a quippy, silly, and entirely harmless sidekick for Spider-Man. While Bernthal is game to make light of the broody, monstrously violent anti-hero, it feels entirely off-key considering we just saw him in the awful One Last Kill executing dozens of people in broad daylight.
Here, he bickers and laughs with Spider-Man, playing both second fiddle and mentor to the young hero. If this were the first we saw of The Punisher, we wouldn't recognize him. In comics, these wild turns work somewhat. In a movie, especially one that follows other, darker material this soon, the whiplash is palpable.
And yet, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is mostly entertaining, even if it is far too long. The plot is almost incomprehensible, with numerous twists and events just to reset previous choices so that Doomsday and Secret Wars can happen. Holland does much of the heavy lifting as Peter Parker, and it's almost miraculous how he can sell even the laziest choices as something meaningful.
Cretton, meanwhile, leans harder on the Spider-Man games and animated series for his inspiration, and the results are surprisingly great. Brand New Day was filmed in Glasgow, so the New York featured here is almost entirely computer-generated. Cretton pushes for a more mobile, jumpy Spider-Man, who always looks just a little larger than life. It's a good choice, one that surprisingly helps ground the more ridiculous elements because we're already expecting something cartoony.
Yet the drama falls flat because by now, we know that all of this can be reset in the next film. With the way Doomsday is shaping up, I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what is in store. That doesn't mean that Brand New Day can't achieve pathos, but it often seems like it doesn't even try. Just watch how quickly the film moves from great tragedy to slapstick to attempted life lessons and back to violence, often within minutes of each other, and it all starts to feel exhausting.
If all you want out of this series is a couple of hours of lighthearted banter, charming actors, and nothing to challenge you while in the theater, Brand New Day delivers. It's just a shame it has no ambition beyond that, especially when its cast and crew are capable of delivering greatness.
