Released: 30th July
Seen: 1st August
It’s been 5 years since we last saw Spider-Man in the cinema and boy, it set a high bar. Spider-Man: No Way Home was an undeniable highlight of the post-Endgame MCU era, not only for its ability to weave nostalgia for previous iterations into a truly compelling narrative, but also for being a gut-punch of a film that shifted the course of the franchise. It absolutely changed how Spider-Man was dealt with in this universe due to the world-changing final moments where Dr Strange made everyone forget who Peter Parker was in order to save the world. Personally, I put the film in my top 10 list of that year and I still think Willem Dafoe’s return to the Green Goblin role should’ve gotten him an Oscar nomination (Just saying, he would’ve been a far better nomination than JK Simmons for Being the Ricardos). Any follow up film that Spider-Man had was going to have a lot to live up on not only a narrative level but an emotional one. Fortunately, Spider-Man: Brand New Day manages to meet the standard set by the previous movie in a truly fascinating and compelling way.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day picks up 5 years after Peter Parker (Tom Holland) had the memory of Peter Parker erased from everyone’s memories and thus is leading a quiet, secluded life as the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. He lives in a tiny studio apartment just barely able to keep his tech working and has a friendly-ish co-worker relationship with The Punisher (Jon Bernthal). He also spends his free time watching Instagram videos of MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon) who are just going on with their lives relatively well since neither one of them remembers Peter anymore. Things are going about as well as they can when a few things happen, the first is that it seems like someone is controlling people via telekinesis and using them to try and get into the headquarters of something called Damage Control and Peter needs to stop them… the second is that the mutation that turned Peter Parker into Spider-Man is changing in ways that are terrifying him and making it harder for him to help people.
If Tom Holland’s first trilogy was about a teenage Spider-Man then this is the point where he goes from a teenager to an adult, his body is changing and the world cannot go back to what it used to be. He has to just deal with the choices he made, he can’t undo them as easily as he might like. He has to take on the responsibility of his choices now and Spider-Man: Brand New Day forces him to learn that lesson over and over again. While the last movie in the franchise had a feeling of constantly looking back, trying to see where the character had been (aided by a couple of well-placed cameos), this sets the character up for a brighter future that he can only get to after going through the hardships he goes through in this movie. This might be the movie where Spider-Man goes through the most, not just physically but psychologically. Thanks to the thing that’s controlling people telepathically (I’m not gonna spoil but if you know enough about the MCU you’ve probably guessed) Peter has to really come to terms with the fact that he played around in people’s heads in order to protect them and how that means some parts of his old life can never come back again.
You can definitely feel Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a much more adult story for Spider-Man, there’s a grittier feeling to everything. It’s all street level, very contained to a small area of New York. It’s not the standard apocalyptic story that Superhero films seem to do again and again, it could certainly get to that level if things went unchecked but keeping everything contained gives the film a kind of energy that elevates it so much. It allows fun little moments of banter between Spider-Man and the police, it lets them have fun bodega scenes with major characters, you feel like this is a real place and a real small area where people are just kind of used to Spider-Man flipping about the place and makes it much more intense when the main antagonist of the film appears and makes things go to hell.
It also really helps that the central cast are great. The interactions between Spider-Man and The Punisher feel like the most insane comic book mashup you could imagine and it genuinely works, there’s a chemistry between them that’s palpable and any scene with those two in it is hilarious. Then there’s anything involving MJ and Ned, this film doesn’t completely undo the whole “forget Peter” element from the last movie but tackles it head-on, and the way those two react around Spider-Man is a fascinating thing to behold. All the performers absolutely kill it, though this is probably the best work Tom Holland has ever done with the character and officially the moment he went from my second favourite Spider-Man to the actual favourite because he just masterfully blends the emotional trauma and flippant comedic banter that’s made the character so fascinating.
Without going into detailed spoilers for the ending, I appreciate that Spider-Man: Brand New Day really is just a big story about finding your family and friends, about building a community that can support you. It’s against the idea of isolating yourself because you think that’s what’s best for everyone and shows the power and importance of having people around who you can connect with. Basically, it’s the cinematic version of the song (You’ve Got To Have) Friends by Bette Midler and it’s just as fun as that song is. It would also allow for several readings of this film that smarter people than I might try to make sometimes (Let’s just say there’s a reason why the meme ‘Bisexual Spider-Man Confirmed’ has been floating about).
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a glorious return for the webbed wonder, letting him evolve in new fun ways that hopefully we’ll be able to see more of soon. It’s proof that this version of Spider-Man still has a lot of energy in him still and that this team really have nailed just how to treat the character. It’s absolute top tier Spider-Man and top tier Marvel in general.
Movie Meister Reviews 