“Spider Man: Brand New Day” was directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, is the 38th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the 4th film in the MCU’s “Spider Man” series following 2021’s “No Way Home” and is the 9th live action “Spider Man” film. The film sees Tom Holland returns as the titular character and is joined by his fellow cast mates from the previous films, such as Zendaya, Jacob Batalon but are also joined by other MCU characters including Mark Ruffalo as “The Hulk / Bruce Banner” and Jon Bernthal as “The Punisher / Frank Castle”. Newcomers include Sadie Sink & Tramell Tillman. This film was the first film to not be directed by Jon Watts, who directed the previous 3 films. However, Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers were bought in to write another film after the success of the previous 3. Filming was kept delayed after Tom Holland was casted in Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” in 2026 & with Zendaya filming both the HBO Max series, “Euphoria” & the upcoming film, “Dune: Part 3”.
4 years after the events of “No Way Home”, the world has forgotten who Peter Parker (Holland) is, including his girlfriend, MJ (Zendaya) and his childhood friend, Ned (Batalon) but the city of New York has come to love their friendly, neighborhood, “Spider Man”. He has been saving the citizens of New York from city level crimes with some help from the vigilante known as “The Punisher” who is known as Frank Castle (Bernthal). Spider Man comes across a stolen military vehicle that is barreling the streets of New York & tries to stop be the means at hand. The Punisher arrives, guns blazing, causing more destruction. Spider Man stops the vehicle at the DODC, the Department of Damage Control & notices the driver is an elderly woman who looks to be under the influence of some sort of mind control. Before Peter can confront her, the presences in her seems to jump into another body & begins taunting Spider Man. Peter, quick to follow it as it jump into more nearby people, learn that this presence is not supernatural, but the powers of telepathic girl (Sink) somewhere nearby, who is simply looking to get inside the DODC building looking for something. Peter loses the girl in the mists of her powers jumping into people but also discovers his powers are beginning to mutate in strange way causing him to black out & lose control. Peter turns to a familiar face who has a similar issue. Bruce Banner shows Peter how to control these blackouts with some new tech, however, the telepath returns but this time, she’s not only targeting Peter but also his friends.
Once film was announced and the trailer dropped, you immediately notice a darker tone from the previous 3 films. With a change in director, the film definitely felt darker & I think this film is the best one out of the Tom Holland series. The film was fantastic and really brought out the best performance from Tom Holland. One criticism I hear from about this film series is that it is so bad that had to reset the series by erasing everything in “No Way Home” and start fresh with “Brand New Day”. I disagree cause I believe that Tom Holland is best version of Spider Man / Peter Parker that we gotten on the big screen. The performance here is the best & the film has a lot of callbacks to the previous films. The dynamic between Peter Parker & Frank Castle comes across a sibling chemistry & makes for some of the best comedic moments. Zendaya & Jacob Batalon are also great but do take new approach in this new storyline. Their performances are great & the chemistry with Holland top notch like always. I can’t really speak too much about Sadie Sink without giving away some major spoilers. Here what I’ll say though: her performance was great & her character does bring a new type character to the MCU.
Overall, this was a great movie & in my opinion the best one of the Tom Holland series. Sony had announced that this film was the beginning of a new trilogy & after a massive box office success in just its first weekend, the future looks extremely bright for Spider Man. This film does peak my interests for the upcoming “Avengers: Doomsday” film coming out later this year & really raises the bar for the MCU.