Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the return of the mid-tier Marvel movie

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the return of the mid-tier Marvel movie Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 1:05pm It's a bold move to subtitle your Spider-Man movie Brand New Day, then spend most of the run time fixated on the previous films. A quick recap for those who missed No Way Home: Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has erased himself from collective memory to protect his friends MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon), leaving behind no trace of Peter and committing to being full-time Spider-Man. He is beloved by New York City, but completely anonymous beneath his mask. Without Parker's billionaire benefactor or Avengers connections, Spider-Man's remit is now "small potatoes", according to a New Avenger in her requisite cameo. But after an opening montage jam-packed with recreations of classic Spider-Man comic covers, the film quickly falls into Peter reconnecting with MJ and battling a telepathic villain who presents an existential threat to humanity, while undergoing his own transformation into a literal Spider-Man. It's not small potatoes, and that means the film lacks the grounded reality that was once Spider-Man's biggest strength. There's plenty to like about Brand New Day — Jon Bernthal reprises his role as a machine-gun toting Frank Castle/The Punisher from Marvel's TV universe, providing an absurdly hard-edged foil to Spider-Man. A handful of beloved TV actors like Stranger Things' Sadie Sink, Severance's Tramell Tillman and The Bear's Liza Colón-Zayas round out the cast. Holland continues to be a likeable Spider-Man and sympathetic Peter, and he has undeniable chemistry with MJ (played by his real-life wife), but it all coasts on the previous films while veering dangerously close to a soap opera's amnesia subplot. There are hints of real drama: one scene where the villain takes control of MJ gives a glimpse of the kind of performance Zendaya is capable of, and the film's big finish is a rare Bechdel test-passing finale. But there's simply too much going on; the disparate plot lines dilute each other and never allow the film to focus on one core story. Arguably, the most interesting narrative aspect passes by in the opening montage, with Spider-Man thriving while Peter scrapes by in an asbestos-riddled loft. Visually, Brand New Day is deeply disappointing: the Spider-Man films have a history of big swings (if you'll pardon the pun), but the swoop and sweep of Spider-Man web-slinging his way across New York has lost its sparkle. The telepathic villain's ability to hack into other super-powered bodies means the film has Spider-Man taking on The Hulk and a handful of his other classic characters, but it leaves the fights feeling distant and rote; a box checking activity rather than compelling combat. (Marvel and Sony have scrupulously tried to keep the villain's identity secret — the reveal got a gasp in the cinema, but it won't surprise any comic fans who know their red-headed telepaths). The new film looks particularly dull when compared to its animated Spider-Verse counterpart, in which every frame jumps off the screen and grabs you by the throat in a riot of colour and sound that pushes the very limit of technology. Brand New Day looks like yet another Marvel movie, shot mostly on green screens. Holland's Spider-Man movies have suffered from serious green-screen creep on both a visual and narrative level. In Homecoming, Peter knows the name of his local bodega cat and rescues it from a burning building, but the New York of Brand New Day feels like a background rather than somewhere Peter actually lives. Brand New Day is better than director Destin Daniel Cretton's previous superhero film, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, but it doesn't hold up to Cretton's more recent Marvel TV show Wonder Man, which brought life back to the tired genre. Wonder Man covers much of the same ground as Brand New Day — a likeable but isolated superhero loses control of his powers, an odd-couple friendship with a fan favourite character, the bureaucratically evil Department of Damage Control — but Wonder Man felt fresh where Brand New Day treads the same ground as the multitude of Spider-Man films that came before it. More than anything else, Brand New Day feels overstuffed and under-done. Even at almost two and a half hours long, there's still a grab-bag of characters and plot lines that go under-explored. Many elements of the film feel like they were borrowed from other comics — Peter's struggle with his new, animalistic Spider side looks and concludes like a Venom arc, while Sink's mind-controlling villain belongs in an X-Men film. Ultimately, Brand New Day has more in common with a filler episode of TV than the highs of Spider-Man 2 or Into the Spider-Verse. It's a film for fans who want to spend a couple of hours with Peter, MJ and Ned, but even they will be disappointed by the lack of focus. It's the return of the mid-tier Marvel movie, perfectly watchable but bland and forgettable, the cinematic equivalent of fast-food fries made from small potatoes. Spiderman: Brand New Day is in cinemas now.