Spider-Man Swings back into form in Brand New Day – A Review

This review contains no spoilers.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day caught me off guard. After the trailers, I was expecting another Spider-Man film determined to outdo everything that came before it. Instead, Peter Parker isn’t saving the world. He’s just living in it. For a while, the film seems perfectly content to stay there too, letting New York feel like a place again instead of another backdrop for collapsing buildings and glowing holes in the sky. Peter has room to exist beyond the next crisis.

The dishonesty of those trailers only becomes clear once the film begins. They lingered on moments that seemed to define Brand New Day, arranging its largest images into the shape of an entire movie, yet many of those scenes arrive surprisingly early and barely register as major beats at all. The film eventually earns the deception. Those ideas return later with greater purpose, while the story around them remains far more focused than the advertising ever suggested. What appeared to be the centre of the film turns out to be material it can pass through without losing sight of Peter. I had also completely forgotten who Sadie Sink had been announced as playing, which made her appearance another genuinely pleasant surprise and her performance in the climax one of the highlights.

That smaller scale suits Tom Holland, particularly because it finally lets Spider-Man feel like Spider-Man again. One thing that’s always frustrated me about Holland’s previous appearances is how often he felt toned down. This is someone who can hold up buildings, survive impossible impacts and trade blows with characters far stronger than himself, yet the films rarely let him carry that presence. Brand New Day remembers. He hits harder, moves with greater authority and occupies the action like one of Marvel’s most powerful heroes rather than simply one of its most popular. Holland has always been convincing as Peter Parker. Here, the film finally gives him enough force to complete the other half.

Spider-Man displaying his incredible strength.

That matters because Brand New Day is also very funny, and Spider-Man’s humour works best when both sides of him are taken seriously. Peter has always dealt with impossible situations by talking his way through them. He fills silence, buys himself time and keeps speaking long after most people would have run out of breath. Sometimes he is irritating whoever stands in front of him. Sometimes he is trying to calm the person behind him. Often, he is stopping himself from thinking too carefully about what might happen next. The jokes belong inside the tension because Peter does. He doesn’t step outside the scene to comment on it. Even behind the mask, his awkwardness comes out as an inability to stop talking.

But Marvel has spent years giving that instinct to almost everybody. A sincere moment begins to settle and somebody reaches for a joke. A character gets close to saying something plainly and the film nudges them towards irony, as though earnestness needs disguising before an audience will accept it. Heroes who should approach the world from completely different places gradually begin speaking with the same voice. Peter escapes because that rhythm was already his. The dialogue sits naturally against the nervous energy, the deflection and the refusal to stop talking even when the person beneath the mask is terrified. Brand New Day exposes the problem by showing how effortless those habits can feel when they belong to the character using them. Spider-Man carries Marvel’s house style so easily that, for a while, it almost stops looking like one.

The Hand arrive with a language of their own. Their fights are some of the most distinctive Marvel has produced in years, borrowing from wuxia cinema and favouring rhythm, precision and movement over brute force. Attacks flow into evasions, distance becomes part of the choreography and each movement seems to create the next. It was satisfying to see Marvel return to ideas it explored so well in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, especially because the influence gives these sequences an identity beyond the characters trading blows. The Hand move differently, fight differently and alter the rhythm of battle.

Peter crawling out of a web of his own making.

Spider-Man’s side of those sequences is more uneven. The choreography is inventive, and Holland’s increased physical presence gives it a stronger foundation, but Marvel still has a habit of sanding away impact with digital effects until punches lose some of their weight. Cars, debris and collapsing buildings move quickly enough to sell momentum, yet rarely feel as heavy as they should once they arrive. Spider-Man occasionally strains against obstacles that never quite persuade you they deserve the effort. The movement remains exciting because the ideas behind it are strong, though some of the film’s largest impacts land with surprisingly little force.

One sequence briefly pulls the film apart. Spider-Man makes an uncharacteristic mistake that seems designed purely to create a particular 3D shot, forcing Peter to behave around the image instead of allowing the image to emerge from him. It lasts only for a second, but the intention is impossible to miss. Brand New Day is usually much better when it trusts Spider-Man’s movement through a space. Here, his movement is made to serve the shot.

The film’s most conspicuous weakness arrives elsewhere, in an emotional storyline built around an actor who is normally brilliant. The beats are there, and the writing gives it clear emotional direction, yet the performance never brings any of it to life. It is bafflingly flat, particularly because there is no obvious weakness in the material to explain it. By the time the storyline reaches its biggest moments, the film has done everything except make them felt.

Spider-Man and The Punisher fighting side by side.

I enjoyed Brand New Day. More than I expected to. It is funny, far more focused than the trailers suggested and finally lets Spider-Man feel as capable as he always should have. That is also what makes its success so frustrating. Marvel has spent years watching the same habits flatten one character after another, and Brand New Day gives no indication that it has understood why. Peter’s humour already works as deflection, allowing the studio’s usual dialogue to disappear into him. Marvel may look at the film and decide the formula was never the problem. It has not fixed those flaws. Spider-Man simply hides them better than any other character.