“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” Review: The MCU Finally Lets Tom Holland’s Peter Parker Be Miserable And That’s A Good Thing

It really didn’t seem that long ago when Peter Parker picked a perilously precarious position (thanks, Doctor Strange) and asked the multiverse to forget he ever existed.

Or maybe that was just the calm before the storm. “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” picks up four years later with Peter (Tom Holland) living out the consequences of that wish. No MJ (Zendaya). No Ned (Jacob Batalon). No May. No Happy. No one who remembers the boy under the mask. Just a guy in a red and blue suit, swinging solo through a city that owes him nothing.

Given how badly people wanted to see that story, maybe it’s no surprise the film’s marketing broke records on its way here, the trailers pulled in numbers no Marvel release had seen before, and opening-day ticket presales were the strongest they’ve been since “No Way Home” itself. The appetite was clearly there. The question was always whether the film could match it.

It’s exactly what we’ve been asking for, whether we knew it or not. Sad, depressed Spider-Man is back. No trust fund, no Stark tech, no found family to catch him when things go sideways. Just Peter, a suit that’s seen better days, swinging through a world that’s forgotten his name. Cretton takes this “brand new day” premise seriously, and it shows. This isn’t another breezy homecoming story. It’s Spider-Man stripped down to the basics, for better and occasionally worse.

As we know, Aunt May passed. MJ and Ned graduated, moved in together, and built the future Peter once pictured for the three of them, minus him. At some point he crashes their party under a fake name (Maynard, if you’re wondering), gets nothing but blank stares, and leaves with the confirmation he already dreaded.

His isolation runs deeper than that too. He keeps tabs on Ned’s four years at MIT through social media, but never once comments, close enough to watch, too scared to reach out. When a neighbour in his building tries to flirt with him, he practically retreats to the attic to avoid it. And despite living out of a duffel bag by the end of his last outing, Peter’s oddly flush now, his apartment stacked with monitors and a 3D printer, funded, we’re guessing, by a full-time Spider-Man schedule that leaves no room for anything else. The closest thing he has to an actual friend these days is Jean DeWolff, who spends a fair chunk of her screen time trying to talk him into having something resembling a life outside the mask.

On the crimefighting side, that partnership extends to work too, DeWolff’s been teaming up with him to bring down Scorpion (Michael Mando) before he tears through the city any further. (Sharp-eyed viewers will also clock a returning face from “Daredevil: Born Again,” a small but welcome reminder that this corner of the MCU is paying attention to itself.) But there’s a bigger threat running through it too, something that’s gotten inside people’s heads, hunting a MacGuffin called V-Max, and able to turn any stranger on the street against him at will.

Meanwhile Peter’s own body is turning on him. His arachnid DNA is spiking, bringing headaches and blackouts he can’t explain, along with webs now spinning straight from his own wrists, no cartridges, no Stark tech required. Desperate, he tracks down Professor Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), hoping the Hulk might know a thing or two about losing control. Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) enters the picture too, not a friend exactly, just the guy Peter’s stuck with because they’re chasing the same target.

t’s also a nice touch that the film doesn’t pretend those four years were quiet. A montage early on runs through some of Peter’s other brushes with the wider rogues’ gallery, Tombstone, Ramrod, Scorpion, Boomerang, Tarantula, and does it by recreating a handful of genuinely iconic comic book covers. Blink and you’ll miss it, but comic readers will clock it instantly.

Now, onto how it all actually plays.

The swinging is back in full force, and it’s the strongest opening argument the film makes for itself. From the jump, we get the kind of wild, kinetic movement that was sorely missing from the “Homecoming” trilogy, set to TV on the Radio’s “Wolf Like Me,” an art-rock needle drop that sets the tone for the sequence and makes for a genuinely enthralling opener.

Tobey Maguire’s swing was majestic, sweeping arcs through a golden-hued Manhattan. Andrew Garfield’s was scrappier, more physical, more night than day. Tom’s finally earns a seat at that table too, POV shots and all, loose and untethered in a way the character has never been allowed to be on his watch. It’s a deserved evolution.

That same freedom shows up in how the film treats New York. Under Destin Daniel Cretton, the city actually gets to be a character, not just a backdrop (save for that one guy who asks him to do a backflip). It feels populated again too, like an actual city full of actual people, rather than a green-screen playground Peter happens to swing through.

Part of that comes down to how much of it was shot practically. There’s a sequence swinging through streets shot on location in Glasgow standing in for New York, and it shows. The whole thing feels tactile, tangible, grounded in a way CGI-heavy blockbusters rarely manage anymore. The cinematography backs that up too, frame after frame genuinely gorgeous, and a small but smart touch: you can actually see Peter’s eyes through the mask in several shots, just enough to remind you there’s a person under all that spandex.

That groundedness carries into how the camera treats the city itself, not just as a backdrop for action, but as something Peter actually lives in. There’s a shot of him taking the metro like anyone else, no fanfare, just a guy getting from one place to another. Elsewhere, the film frames him resting quietly over the cityscape, taking it in rather than swinging through it, and those quieter compositions do as much work as any of the action beats.

Cretton, who directed the electric “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” and gave us an underrated “Wonder Man,” has spent years quietly building people inside this universe. That instinct shows here too, giving Peter and MJ room to just exist for a beat before the next set piece crashes in.

Michael Giacchino’s score matches that shift. It’s more weighted this time, leaning into his horn-heavy register, not unlike what he did reinventing “The Batman.” It still borrows cues from the “Homecoming” trilogy, but strips a few notes out along the way, a small musical echo of a Peter who’s had pieces of himself stripped away too.

The hand-to-hand work deserves its own mention too. The Jackie Chan stunt team worked on this film, and it shows in every frame of close-quarters combat. It’s easily the best fight choreography a live-action Spider-Man has had, maybe ever.

It’s also a real upgrade for Holland’s version of the character, and not just narratively. He’s more street level now, grounded, literally, to the pavement. Past films kept pulling him into Avengers-sized business, other people’s fights, other people’s stakes. “Brand New Day” doesn’t fully let go of that (his current problem is still Avengers-adjacent, let’s be honest), but it keeps him tethered to New York at eye level. It suits him.

Peter is lonely, and sad, and that loneliness is the emotional engine driving the whole film. As Spider-Man fans, there’s an admittedly uncomfortable pleasure in that. We don’t necessarily want him happy. We just don’t want him destroyed either.

What the film gets right is how it handles his longing for MJ and Ned, especially MJ. He still cares, deeply, he just does it from a distance, watching over them without ever letting them back in, because getting close again means risking losing them for real this time. That’s not indifference. That’s fear wearing the costume of restraint. It shows most clearly in the instinct itself: the second MJ’s in danger, Peter’s there, no hesitation, no questions asked. There’s a rooftop scene between them that plays your heart like a fiddle, right up until it yanks the rug out from under you. And the film doesn’t let that instinct to protect from a distance go unquestioned either. It gets directly challenged later on, and it’s the right call, one of the few moments here with genuine emotional weight.

So, how do we feel about it overall? Good, though not without real reservations.

The visual design is exceptional, the action genuinely stellar, and Holland delivers a knockout performance that earns every bit of weight the script hands him. This is easily the most personal story Peter’s had in this iteration, one that banks directly off the stakes “No Way Home” left behind.

Pacing’s the issue. This is a loaded pizza of a movie, and the script struggles to keep it simmering evenly. We’re thrown into loud, colourful chaos almost immediately, yet our de facto co-lead isn’t properly introduced until roughly 40 minutes in.

A bigger spoiler than usual here, consider yourself extra warned: that co-lead is Sadie Sink, playing Jean Grey. Yes, that Jean Grey. It’s a franchise-spanning reveal that says a lot about where the MCU’s mutant era is headed, and it lands with real weight in the moment.

Once she’s introduced, her storyline more or less takes over, and that’s where the film gets shaky. Not because her arc is weak, and honestly, it’s not really a tone issue either. It’s more that it’s a big pivot, one that noticeably detracts from the film’s pacing in the moment. Her grief and isolation mirror Peter’s closely enough that she practically functions as his reflection, and it’s genuinely compelling material on its own terms. Necessary and important to where the story ultimately goes, sure, but the shift in focus is still felt.

Despite that pivot, Sink herself is more than strong enough to carry it. We’ve seen what she can do in “Stranger Things” and “The Whale,” and she brings that same weight here, the kind of screen presence that doesn’t need much explanation to feel earned. Given she’s set to be a major player going forward as the MCU’s Jean Grey, it’s a genuinely good thing the film starts her off this strong.

Part of that’s a bigger franchise problem too. “Brand New Day” is often more interested in what’s next than what’s in front of it. The best superhero films manage both, setting up the future while standing on their own. Seen that way, even the modest steps this film takes toward a more grown-up tone for one of its most beloved heroes deserve some credit. And for all its stumbles, it never loses sight of what makes Peter Parker endearing.

One more gripe, and it’s a small one: Frank Castle does feel tamed here. Bernthal’s still Bernthal, but even something like “One Last Kill” gave him real menace. In “Brand New Day,” he’s a little closer to comic relief, which is a strange choice for a character built entirely around not being funny. They skirt around some of his usual foul mouth with a gag where Spider-Man webs Castle’s mouth shut every time he tries to swear, a workaround for keeping him “authentic” inside a PG-13 rating. But Castle gets outright goofy in a few scenes with Peter too, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing on its own. It’s just not a version of Frank Castle we’re used to seeing.

Yet, “Brand New Day,” true to the title, feels like a new start, not entirely fresh, more old-school than reinvention. It’s a story about Peter finally putting down the baggage he’s carried for years: the regrets, the guilt, the constant sense that he’s had to carry everything alone.

The film’s quiet argument is simple. Even when you’re protecting the people you love, you can’t spend your whole life pushing them away. No matter how strong you are, life isn’t meant to be lived alone.

More than a superhero film, this one’s about healing, and choosing to begin again. Maybe that’s why this Peter stuck with us more than the action did, and why it’s such a promising sign of what’s still to come under Cretton.

If this is the start of a brand new trilogy, we’re all for it. Cretton is showing exactly what he’s capable of here, raw and unpolished in places, sure, but the talent is unmistakable. Tighten the pacing, sharpen the focus, and there’s something truly special waiting in whatever comes next.

If nothing else, it’s a brand new start, in more ways than one, and it leaves us curious rather than certain about what Tom has in store next.

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is currently swinging in cinemas.