Spider-Man Brand New Day: The Stakes Are Low, Just The Way We Like It

By Chris Knight

Rating: A-

It’s getting harder by the movie to walk the tightrope (or spider’s web) that is the ever-crowded Marvel Cinematic Universe. But Spider-Man: Brand New Day, fourth in the Tom Holland Spidey-series, manages it. Just.

The trick is to make the stakes high enough for you to care, but low enough that the fate of the universe (or the multiverse) doesn’t hang in the balance, a situation that causes viewers to wonder why none of the other superheroes bothered to show up for this one.

It’s been done before, in the Ant-Man movies and Holland’s first standalone Spider-Man movie, 2017’s Homecoming. And it’s been botched, as when Thor failed to show up in Captain America: Civil War and had to explain to his colleagues that he’d been out on the Bifrost, which has notoriously bad cell reception.

Brand New Day, set in New York, does not involve any intergalactic shenanigans, alien baddies or doomsday weapons. Heck, it barely leaves Queens.

Instead, we find the webslinger doing what he does best — fighting local crime — but also moping over his ex-girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and former bestie Ned (Jacob Batalon). They didn’t have a falling out; it’s just that in the last movie, No Way Home, Doctor Strange cast a spell for him that would make everyone forget that his alter ego was Peter Parker. Alas, that included his nearest and dearest.

No Way Home also robbed us of Marisa Tomei’s Aunt May, whom I’m hereby classifying as an AILF, or Aunt I’d Love to Friend. She appears in this one in a kind of dream/memory cameo, and the less I say about cameos the more the folks at Columbia Pictures will like me. Suffice to say there are surprises beyond those revealed in the trailers.

So, what’s at stake in this one? Spider-Man starts the movie by chasing a tank that’s been stolen by a mysterious criminal mastermind who has the power to master minds — she can jump into anyone’s brain (except Spider-Man’s?) and operate them like a puppet. This makes catching her something of a chore, given that she has a readymade string of alibis.

Spidey is aided by Frank Castle, a.k.a. The Punisher, a.k.a. actor Jon Bernthal, a.k.a. the film’s comic relief. They seem to have met between movies when Spider-Man saved the guy’s life, so now they’re awkward comrades.

Also helping out is Liza Colon-Zayas as Detective DeWolff, Spidey’s NYPD contact. Oh, and Tramell Tillman from AppleTV’s Severance as Bill Metzger from Damage Control, a department that more superhero movies could use.

There’s an additional subplot if you’ve got time. (The movie does, running an MCU standard two hours and 25 minutes.) Spider-Man is starting to become a little more spider than man, often at inopportune moments.

Looking for advice on taming his powers, he visits Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), who is teaching at a university. Picture Neil Armstrong trying to lecture at U Cincinnati in the 1970s after landing on the moon and you can imagine how rowdy his classes are.

There are a couple of cringey/confusing moments in the mix, mind you. A scene in which Spider-Man battles a group of red-clad ninjas seems to lose track of just how many of them there are. And a gorgeous wide shot of them all leaping at him is spoiled by the superhero remarking: “That is so cool!” Take it easy, Spidey — you’re not Deadpool, you know.

But director Destin Daniel Cretton (2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) and longtime Spidey-writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers do a good job keeping all these threads together without losing sight of the endgame. Will Spider-Man unmask the mystery mind-controlling madam? Will he conquer his inner spider-demons? And will he get the girl that he once had and then lost in a freak memory-erasure?

All will become clear in a film that (and I mean this in the best way) you can enjoy seeing but don’t HAVE to see in order to keep up with events.

And trust me, events are coming. A two-part Avengers story begins in December with Doomsday. (Thor makes it this time.) There’s a Ghost Rider reboot happening, and a Black Panther III in the works.

And producer Kevin Feige has teased that he has a plan to carry the MCU into the 2040s. The stakes are going to get very high soon. Enjoy this one while you can.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. Starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jon Bernthal. In theatres July 31.