SPOILER ALERT: This article contains very specific details about Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
f the Spider-Man franchise didn’t star Tom Holland and Zendaya, I wouldn’t care as much. Besides the two global superstars proving their names can put butts in movie theater seats, Holland and Zendaya are a couple I am rooting for.
As for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it has become a chore. Sure, it is my civic duty as a critic to share my thoughts about Spider-Man: Brand New Day — me and about a million other “critics”. I hope my contribution to the final frontier of criticism carries like my karaoke voice and rises above the noise. As a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, it’s just an honor to be considered.
At this point, I’m in too deep into the MCU to quit. I am a completist, and it is my life’s mission to stick with this comic book journey till the world ends. I have been on board since Iron Man was distributed by Paramount Studios and you could still get a job in Hollywood.
As superhero exhaustion crept in, the MCU TV shows, no matter how good or bad, further diluted the almighty comic book franchise.
The MCU TV journey kicked off strong with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and had some great moments of potential (Luke Cage, Jessica Jones) and many speed bumps (Let’s not forget about the unfortunate Iron Fist and the ambitious Inhumans ordeal? ) along the way. When WandaVision and Loki came along, the MCU gang established plans for an extensive railway line of TV series that looked as though there was plenty of track to last — but there wasn’t. And the track that was available was not as reliable.
Enough with the train analogy.
Daredevil: Born Again looked great, and Charlie Cox is a cutie, but I barely watched that. Ironheart deserved a better rollout and more support, and I totally forgot about Secret Invasion. She-Hulk, Moon Knight, Echo, Hawkeye, Agatha All Along — all were entertaining (some more than others), and none were particularly horrible. It’s as though with each passing show, Marvel Studios was looking at us with an excited, endearing smile saying, “Here you go! We are SOOOO good, aren’t we?”
Then Wonder Man happened.
With the appeal of the Emmy-winning actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in the titular role (he is also nominated for the Disney+ show), this series felt like a new direction for the MCU. Wonder Man had the energy of a Euro-chic series sun-kissed by the delusional warmth of Hollywood — all co-created by Destin Daniel Cretton.
Cretton is no stranger to the MCU. He directed Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and was supposed to direct the now-defunct Avengers: Kang Dynasty. With Wonder Man, there was a shift. It was as if the MCU was telling us, “Oh, we aren’t as good as we thought. Here’s something less married to our rushed obsession with building another Infinity War and something with more personality.”
The Short Term 12 director continued this sentiment with Brand New Day. With Cretton at the helm, the latest Spidey installment equalizes the imbalance of spectacle, character, and story that has been plaguing the MCU as of late.
Cretton is the ringer… and he has taste that reflects in the sequel.
Because they are all grown up now, Cretton brings a sense of patience and maturity to the Spider-Man universe. Focusing on character is very much Cretton’s forte, and Brand New Day grounds itself with Holland’s Peter Parker as its anchor. With him as the center, everything just felt right. (Yes, Holland is my favorite Peter Parker).
At one point, our hero has to ask himself, “Am I Spider-Man? Or am I Peter Parker?”
We haven’t had a solid existential superhero movie in a while, and with global crises, the downfall of humanity, and lettuce diarrhea taking over, now is the best time to have a movie like this. Brand New Day is cut from the same cloth comic book cinema like Logan, Unbreakable, Joker, as well as the Watchmen series. It’s on par with the OG Spider-Man 2 from 2004.
Brand New Day is mindful of its screen time real estate and uses it well to build a story in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where the emotional stakes sink its pincers into you and are felt from the jump as Peter navigates his new anonymous life post-No Way Home.
He is constantly scrolling through Ned’s (Jacob Batalon) Instagram stories as he and MJ (Zendaya) live their best MIT lives with no knowledge of his existence.
Peter has a severe case of FOMO and just can’t help himself.
Doctor Strange’s spell didn’t do much, because Peter ends up putting Ned and MJ’s lives in danger anyway.
Lacking a healthy work-life balance, Peter’s powers — and body start to change. It’s like a second puberty… or a… mutation. As in X-Men mutation! Hence the introduction of Sadie Sink as Jean Grey, the “villain” of the movie.
Cretton brings an intimacy to Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers script that brings the MCU back to Earth and out of the cosmos. In the post-Endgame MCU, the movies blasted off into space and overstayed their welcome. There’s a grounded humanity in a narrative about humans mistreating and abusing other humans who are different from them. There’s a reality audiences connect to — even if it does have a man shooting webs out of his wrists and girl who can read minds. In other words, Spider-Man’s evolving powers — or “mutation”, from a cinematic standpoint- is an ideal vehicle to usher audiences into X-Men territory.
On the other hand, X-Men purists may get their yellow spandex panties in a bunch about how Jean Grey is folded into the Brand New Day narrative and into the MCU in general. The storyline doesn’t exactly match up with the Jean Grey origin story in the comics, but there’s enough wiggle room for forgiveness.
Brand New Day introduces the right amount of new Marvel characters and plot points to keep you interested (Tramell Tillman as new anti-mutant baddie William Metzger, the Department of Damage Control); ropes in familiar figures in the MCU (Florence Pugh’s Yelena; John Bernthal’s Punisher, Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner, and The Hand from the Daredevil world); and throws a couple of comic nerd bones along the way: the return of Marc Mando as Scorpion, Marvin Jones III as Tombstone as well as blink-and-you’ll miss it cameos of popular Spidey foes Boomerang, Tarantula, and Ramrod.
Even though the film is bursting at the seams with tertiary characters, the focus does not stray from Peter’s crises — a metaphor for the life of the MCU’s post-Endgame. Peter, who was once comfortable with a glorious life as a superhero boyfriend, has to navigate a new, lonely life based on a decision he made for the greater good — and for his love of MJ.
Like Peter, the MCU was once comfortable as the premiere cinematic superhero juggernaut. After realizing their schedule of releases was overzealous and oversaturated, the MCU took stock and slowed down. They re-evaluated, and Brand New Day is the result.
There was satisfying predictability to Brand New Day, but I’m fine with that. You don’t always need to re-invent the wheel. It’s as if many of these superhero movies are trying too hard to impress with spectacle when sometimes making your audience anticipate the inevitable with style is enough — and Brand New Day had lots of it.
Just tell a good story. That’s what audiences want.
The action scenes were frenetic with spectacle, and the fight choreography with the Hand was giving Crouching Tiger, Hidden Tiger energy. The cameos weren’t shocking, but exciting. The banter between Spidey and Frank felt nostalgic – and let’s face it, MJ and Ned are bound to reconnect to Peter. The rumors of Sadie Sink taking the role of Jean Grey turned out to be true. And the way Jean controlled the minds of a large chunk of New York was very reminiscent of Wanda Maximoff’s witchy control of Westview.
The way in which the most powerful telekinetics in the Marvel universe were incorporated into the Spider-Man narrative didn’t make sense, but the movie made it make sense. Jean and Spidey haven’t really mingled much in the comics, and to see them interact was a pleasant surprise.
Cretton’s introduction of the X-Men was intentional and sets up a solid foundation with Jean. Using her as the starting point as opposed to the expected Wolverine gives us a new, fresh perspective that the X-Men has toyed with but never got right: the story of Jean Grey and the inevitable Dark Phoenix.
This particular Spidey ensemble (or “Spideysemble”) has not lost any steam since Homecoming. It’s the only franchise in the MCU that doesn’t make me feel like I’m watching a flashy, overproduced video game meant for Marvel fans who think they know better than everyone else – and I don’t mind movies like that.
Just not all the time.
Perhaps the Spider-Man movies are more tolerable because the franchise is not under the thumb of the Mouse House — er — I mean, Marvel Studios (Shout out to Sony). It’s further proof that studio monopolies on IP dilute output. Give one company total control over every franchise and everything starts to taste the same. Brand New Day feels familiar, but fresh. With Holland not showing any signs of fatigue, the Spider-Man franchise could be the linchpin holding the MCU together.
Superhero fatigue might have reached its peak (or rock bottom, depending on how you look at it) when there was a major box office decline for movies like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels. MCU boss Kevin Feige even admitted that the MCU rollout and pacing of its projects went off the rails.
Thunderbolts* and Fantastic Four: First Steps were better than the films before it. But let’s face it, the bar has been low for a while. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the first time an MCU movie has felt like a superhero movie, not an obligation.
It’s also the first MCU film that makes me think of The Wiz every time I say the title.
