~This review contains spoilers~
I am a relative fan of the MCU; I have been enticed and entranced by a number of their projects. As a freelancer, I have written a few pieces here and there about different Marvel projects. However, I am nowhere near the fan status of comic-con attendees or the YouTubers who dissect every still of a trailer to decipher what the next Avengers’ instalment will bring.
Yet, here I am bringing my opinion to the internet about MCU’s newest release, Spider-Man: Brand New Day. In all honesty, I had some doubts about how this movie would flow story-wise. The screenwriters, Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, have done well with other Spider-Man films, but they have also had some misses. In particular, AppleTV+’s Ghosted—horrible movie, well and truly awful. As that was the last project of theirs I had seen, walking into this movie, I was worried. What brought me hope was director Destin Daniel Cretton, who has brought us not only some great MCU projects like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Wonder Man, but also American Born Chinese, Just Mercy and The Glass Castle.
[Sony]
I can say with certainty that I adored this movie. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is reminiscent of the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies. The characters are older, and the glamour of being a part of the Avengers is stripped away. Peter Parker is alone, anonymous and grinding as the friendly neighbourhood hero. Holland is a fantastic Parker and Spider-Man; there is a flavour difference between the hero and the civilian: New York accent and sass become more prevalent under the mask. Only once or twice did I fear a little bit of Holland’s British accent seeping through, but it flies so under the radar, I think most would have missed it. The emotional scenes are well done, from when we first met Tom Holland’s Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War to now; he has blossomed as an actor in so many ways. Plus, his body has tripled in size, and they were not shy about showing off that figure.
The Punisher makes his feature debut in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. I have never watched the Punisher series, which began on Netflix and continued on Disney+. I still enjoyed Jon Bernthal’s performance. I got what I needed to know about the character and his motivations quickly and concisely; there was no dragging exposition explaining his presence, and the dynamic between Punisher and Spider-Man went right to reluctant allies with funny quips back and forth. I’m not a super fan of Punisher’s reliance on guns… but I guess I’ll forgive and move on.
[Sony]
Ned [Jacob Batalon] and MJ [Zendaya] are notably seen far less in this latest instalment due to the spell cast by Doctor Strange [Benedict Cumberbatch] in the last movie, Spider-Man: No Way Home. The quiet way Peter Parker keeps track of his loyal companions from a previous life isn’t obsessive, but it is prevalent in the beginning of the film, cementing to the audience how alone he is. At the times where we do see Ned, he is his same old self, just a few years older. Batalon’s dedication to the lovable nerdy idiot is remarkable; he’s fun to see on screen. Zendaya is amazing. They elevated her look into a more mature, sophisticated woman who has found more of herself at MIT.
The moments where Holland and Zendaya are on screen together are heartbreaking, little bits with how much yearning he puts in his voice under the mask and in his eyes standing across from her. Zendaya’s performance is subtle, but the weird and awkward MJ lingers despite the grown-up makeover.
[Sony]
The “villain” of Spider-Man: Brand New Day has a switch-up, similar to how Pietro Maximoff [Aaron Taylor-Johnson] and Wanda Maximoff [Elizabeth Olsen] were introduced in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Who starts as a terrorist is later discovered to be a misunderstood government experiment with plenty of emotional trauma. When Sadie Sink’s character’s name was revealed, the audience in my theatre gasped—and so did I. Jean Grey, her appearance in this “sacred timeline” brings up a lot of questions for die-hard fans and has some massive implications for the plotline of the next Avengers installments.
Sadie Sink is a great actress; she has a lot of potential, and she’s shown it time and again with her varying projects and stage work. I think she’s a good addition to the MCU. One thing about her casting, however, is how similar Jean Grey’s powers are to the titular characters of Stranger Things, her breakout role. Even the set decoration in a particular scene where Jean Grey experiences a boost in power has 80s nostalgic tones; perhaps this was on purpose to pay homage to the actress’s filmography. If that’s the case, I think it was a mistake.
A couple of other familiar faces joined the cast of Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Liza Colon-Zayas plays Detective Jean DeWolf—we know her from FX’s The Bear; love to see more of her. Tramell Tillman plays Bill Metzger, the director of the Department of Damage Control—we know him from Severence, another eerie management role; alas, I love him in both. Florence Pugh is Yelena Belova; love her! Mark Ruffalo is Bruce Banner, so fun to see him as a University Professor.
In regard to other castings, I was a little thrown because, from my perspective, Sara Grey [Olivia Booth-Ford] felt too reminiscent of the face of Peter’s blonde neighbour [Taryn Marie Butler] we meet in an elevator earlier, which distracted me; I was waiting for the reveal that Sara has been normified; alas, the case was much sadder for Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey.
There was no post-credit scene in the way we Marvel fans might expect, but if you were to wait until the very end of the credits, you would get to see a short clip with Ned’s Spidey-tracker picking up something in outer space and the words “Spider-Man will return.” Some fans have made connections between this message and the multiverse, to Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man, to how the Fantastic Four were tracked coming in from outer space at the end of Thunderbolts*. I don’t know what to believe, but my thoughts do go to how the Spidey-Tracker was made by Ned, and it’s based on Spider-Man sightings… so like, who’s seeing Spidey in space and making a report in this app? Whatever, it’s pretty much identical to the post-credit scene of Avengers: Infinity War where we saw Nick Fury’s pager pinging Captain Marvel. Just a taste of what’s yet to come.
For 2 hours and 25 minutes, I didn’t feel like the movie dragged at all. I was entirely entertained the entire time, which is tough to say for some of these longer runtimes these days. I’m still disappointed in a lot of decisions Marvel has made about the future of other characters in the MCU, so I won’t say that any obsessive love for this franchise has been evoked in me by this one good thing. In all honesty, in such troubling times economically, environmentally, and politically, I was just happy to escape for a few hours.
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