Spider-Man: Brand New Day

"Are you Peter Parker, or are you Spider-Man?"

Last time we saw Spider-Man, with the help of Doctor Strange, he had successfully separated his secret identity from his superhero identity in the world's consciousness. Brand New Day is a movie dedicated to how a teenage decision manifests in young adulthood. This movie paces as moody, frenetic, introspective, funny, and touching. And it's a very fun time at the movie theater.

I will admit my expectations were low going in. While I was once an avid Marvel fan, my interest has waned in the last five years and I haven't even seen Captain America: Brave New World. So take what I say with a grain of salt. I have always had a soft spot for Spidey and the gang, generally, the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies and the NYC of it all, though. Nothing like the high of seeing Spider-Man web-sling through the boroughs with the city's landmarks in the background. As with all Marvel films, the cast of Brand New Day hums like the best of them, both with the cameos and the featured characters. A quick note – this movie is hard to talk about without spoilers, the movie's villain alone is a huge spoiler, so I am going to do my best to walk up to the line but not over it. If I was surprised by something or someone in the movie, I will not spoil it here. (Basically, if it wasn't in the trailer, it won't be in this review.)

So, what does a Spider-Man without his friends and family do in the ensuing four years after No Way Home? Well, he dives into his crime fighting work! The montage in the first act is an impressive and comical array of Spider-Man's rogues' gallery. Each featuring a single frame that matches a comic book cover of the same subject. A lot of love and reverence was put into these sequences and you can feel it, whether you have a history reading the comics or not. Spider-Man has made acquaintances with the current NYPD police chief, played by the delightful Emmy winning Liza Colón-Zayas (The Bear) and the two work in concert in breathless success by luck, skill and grit. This bring-us-up-to-speed sequence is interspersed with Peter watching a stream of videos from Ned (Jacob Batalon) and MJ (Zendaya) at college. He has tried to fill his days with meaningful tasks to help the city but he's also not going to miss a moment of their lives, running in parallel, but sharing few, if any, similarities. Peter and Spider-Man have a new life and it's largely lacking any real human connection.

But even a lonely Spider-Man has to find companionship, which he does with The Punisher (Jon Bernthal, reprising his iconic role), Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and another Marvel darling. (Their unusual and hilarious office set-up provides some of the movie's comedic moments.) All three get their own arc within Brand New Day and that's a real credit to the writing and, perhaps, a nod to the criticism that Marvel sometimes puts characters in its movies solely for nostalgia. I have to admit I didn't know if Marvel could pull off a PG-13 Frank Castle, but they did and they did it well, I thought. It is a clever stroke to contrast these three personalities with what Peter is experiencing. Frank is an all gas, no brakes vigilante, whose own isolation has made his life much much worse – a cautionary tale for Peter, while he struggles to get a handle on the so-called work/life balance. (The mirrors between The Punisher: One Last Kill and Ari Aster's Beau Is Afraid were certainly a choice!) Frank comes through in the clutch and dare I say, organically reveals a few more shades of himself in the process.

Peter seeks advice from Bruce about suppressing his emerging arachnid hormones (a big storyline within the movie). He's eye to eye with a fellow mutate who has had no other choice but to suppress his own nature, and lament the horrors he has wrought in perpetuity. There's a sadness and a cautionary tale here, too. But what you feel with these featured characters, in their aforementioned arcs, is, well, a brand new day in the future of Marvel and it feels fresh and interesting.

While grappling with all of the things a young adult does, Peter must also contend with a lot of grief. What happens to Peter is a kickass metaphor for what grief does to your body, mind and heart. He's out of sorts, forgetting who he is, and what he is doing, at any given moment. It's times like these, where the ground has dropped out from underneath you, that you need the people who know you the most, to remind you of who you are. But MJ and Ned do not remember him. And the ripple effect of a decision made years ago, without understanding its far-reaching consequences, has come home. The movie maybe has more 'life experiences for a human' than for a superhero on its mind. My working theory is that Peter becoming more Spider than Man is a way to dramatize this in an upside-down nuanced way: who has time to grieve the loss of their whole support system when their body isn't working correctly. I think the movie is at its strongest when it leans into this.

Spider-Man sorts through the new kinks of his arachnid DNA. He literally rebuilds himself on a cellular level and it happens in one of the film's most glorious action pieces, set at the Damage Control detention center. The head of Damage Control, played with glee by Emmy winner Tramell Tillman, is conducting some not so above the board experiments and Spidey must intervene. This is another plotline where Peter must grow up. Is he going to go along with the status quo, even willfully ignoring that a government agency has gone from the EPA to DHS? It's a bit 'touching a live wire' for Marvel, a Disney owned company, who specializes in making entertainment for the broadest audience possible. Personally, I think it can lead to some very interesting storytelling down the line, for all involved, but also Peter, because there's a maturity in acceptance of what this means for him going forward.

And that brings me to my final point. The villain of this movie has unimaginable sweeping possibilities, with a million miles of runway for the MCU. It seems like this villian was very fortunate to cross paths with Peter when they did; it might have even saved their life. The last act of the movie is bittersweet. Peter does something so empathetic I found myself in tears while watching it, it's beautifully human and I don't know if there is anyone other than Holland who could have pulled it off with the weight it has. The story ends with things very much up in the air for Peter and MJ. They have a long road back to love, but the very last scene is an inspired and hopeful choice that left me thinking things are going to be okay in Earth-199999... until they're not!

What did everyone else think? Let the spoilers rip in the comments.

Other thoughts:

*Sadie Sink is extremely well-cast and the MCU is lucky to have an actress on board with her emotional depth. She's very interesting to watch.

*This movie has some of the pathos of Thunderbolts*. (Personally, I liked Thunderbolts*, and its characters' interiority.)

*My whole showing was sold out on Friday. This movie has made over 900 million dollars worldwide, so far, in its single opening weekend.

*Brand New Day changes directors and Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi, Short Term 12) steps in for Jon Watts, who did the Home trilogy. He's an excellent fit for these stories and there were multiple moments in the movie that I was completely immersed in his direction.

Four out of four Scorpion's tails.

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