Spider-Man: Brand New Day Review

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is exactly how you do these movies. While the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe has gotten convoluted and unwieldy, Brand New Day doesn’t require all those other movies to keep up with the story, except perhaps the last one.

When that film ended, the world had forgotten Peter Parker (Tom Holland), including his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) and MJ (Zendaya), the love of Peter’s life. Four years have passed since then, and Peter spends most of his time fighting crime as Spider-Man but has avoided Ned and MJ as they take courses at MIT, instead quietly following them on social media.

Peter doesn’t have much of a life outside of crimefighting, a fact that New York City detective Jean DeWolff (Liza Colón-Zayas) constantly reminds him about. But Peter can’t risk his friends being put in danger. When a series of attacks on Damage Control, led by Bill Metzger (Trammell Tillman), seem to escalate, Peter is drawn into a conflict with an unknown entity that can leap from person to person, and all the while his powers seem to be changing and causing him to lose control.

And that’s all I can safely say about the plot of Brand New Day, because the surprises in the movie are best left for the audience to discover. If you’ve seen the trailers, you know that Jon Bernthal returns as Frank Castle, and that Mark Ruffalo returns as Bruce Banner, but their roles in the story are best revealed in the movie.

I do have to give Marvel and Sony credit for playing it close to the chest when it comes to plot twists, because in this day and age it’s harder and harder to keep those away from prying eyes and prying websites. But there is a lot that happens in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Although the action is superb – one particular sequence in the middle of the movie gives us something we’ve been clamoring to see since Spider-Man returned to the MCU, and it delivers on every front – Brand New Day truly soars in its quieter moments. Destin Daniel Cretton got his start in small independent dramas like Short Term 12, a movie about troubled and traumatized youth coming to terms with years of abuse and damage, and that’s not far from what Cretton is doing here.

In fact, this feels almost like a spiritual sequel to that film, although it has much more webslinging and hero-punching. I only half-joke; these emotional scenes are powerful and give Brand New Day a ton of heart that isn’t as present in the other Holland Spider-Man films.

In fact, if you stuck Short Term 12 and Spider-Man 2 in a blender, it would probably come out much like this film. Without revealing her character, Sadie Sink feels very much a part of what Short Term 12 was trying to accomplish. She’s excellent, and if I don’t talk more about her, it’s also best revealed in the film.

Tom Holland keeps getting better as Peter Parker/Spider-Man. He brings the humor that is so important to the character, as well as the physicality, but most importantly, he brings the heartache and the moral fortitude that has made Spider-Man probably the most beloved superhero in comics.

Here’s the thing – as the MCU grows larger and populates itself with more characters and stories, Spider-Man has remained essentially true and relatable. It’s not easy for audiences to step into the shoes of billionaires, gods, super soldiers, and brilliant scientists, but Peter is still very much us – struggling with money, trying to keep his friends safe, fiercely lonely and still in grief, but with a pure heart. Holland gets this character like few can.

It’s also nice to see Holland and Zendaya still have a natural chemistry between them, even as their characters have been forced apart. Their scenes together are outstanding, and Zendaya simply is MJ to Holland’s Peter. It’s also very easy to believe that Jacob Batalon’s Ned has been missing his best friend, even if he can’t remember him.

This one is only difficult to review because I can’t get into details without spoiling the movie, and this is a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie that deserves to have its story revealed to those who don’t see it coming. It expands the MCU in many ways, some anticipated and some unexpected. It’s best not to try to get ahead of the movie’s reveals and instead let it play out as it does. The action is top-notch and feels grounded but also knows when to soar. It helps that Brand New Day isn’t a story about saving the world but repairing a damaged soul.

One hopes that the MCU starts telling more stories like this – single stories that don’t try to spin too many plates. Of course, you can’t make one of these movies without hinting a little bit about what happens next, which the one post-credits scene we got does in a very fun way.

As this was a press screening, there may be more post-credit scenes coming, but we didn’t get them, although there seemed to be spaces in the credits where they might appear. But I hope that they don’t really add anything, because Brand New Day doesn’t need it.

It’s too early for me to rank this in comparison to the other Spider-Man films, but this one felt much closer to my personal favorite, Spider-Man 2, than the others, and not just in story, but in heart. I’d say so far the Holland Spider-Mans are 4 for 4 – everyone will have their favorite, but the best aspects of this one are that Destin Daniel Cretton knows how to give the quieter, emotional moments real grace and beauty, and they may be what people remember most about this film when they think back on it.

As it is, it’s nice to get a great superhero movie again, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day is one of the better entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, because it remembers why we love these films in the first place. Not for the spectacle, but for the heart.

SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY REVIEW RATING: 8.5 OUT OF 10

Sony Pictures will release Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Brand New Day in theaters on Friday, July 31, 2026. The film has been rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association (MPA) for sequences of action/violence and some language.