Check out my full review @ movieswetextedabout.com/spider-man-brand-new-day-movie-review-destin-daniel-cretton-delivers-peter-parkers-most-personal-story-yet Rating: A SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY had every excuse to become a bloated victory lap for the MCU’s biggest names, and instead it turns out to be the most emotionally mature, personal Peter Parker story we’ve gotten yet — one that treats its sprawling cast as tools in service of a single, aching question about isolation, identity, and what it costs to keep pretending you don’t need anyone. Tom Holland has never been better, Sadie Sink announces herself as a genuine star, and Destin Daniel Cretton proves that even inside Marvel’s most crowded corner, a story can still belong entirely to one person. With some of the best Spidey action I’ve ever witnessed, a standout Michael Giacchino score, and terrific performances across the board, this is definitely top-tier MCU.

The name "Brand New Day" is very much a misnomer, there is nothing new in this film, you've seen it all before. The film REALLY drags, is boring and I zoned out multiple times, the film didn't hold my attention at all. It feels like its twice the length of its runtime it goes on, and on, and on, and on. I think that Spiderman worked better when it was separate from the MCU shared universe goofiness, there is some really cringy MCU stuff shoehorned in. Not a bad film, its a perfectly competent routine superhero film, the heroes are introduced, the villain is introduced, then the superhero wins, same plot as every superhero film. I was hoping for something Brand New - it did not deliver.

I enjoyed this, but I have a few glaring issues. SPOILERS AHEAD: 1. How many times are we gonna do this !@#$ where folks don't say what the !@#$ their problem is? We spent half of the movie with Jean terrorizing Peter simply because he got in her way. At no point does she think to reason with him and say, "DEM MOFOS HAVE MY MOFO-ING SISTER, YOU MOFO-ING ARSEHOLE!" Really? Really? We "SSAAVVVEEE MMAAAAAARRRRRRTTTTHHHHAAAAA"-ing this up again? 2. Damage Control has been out of control since WandaVision and Ms. Marvel. How the flying !@#$ are they still operating without oversight? Furthermore, how the !@#$ is Metzger still on the loose? It's like Kingpin at the end of Daredevil Season 2: a whole bunch of philosophical bull!@#$, and no justice. No justice for Sara, no justice for Jean, no justice for Metzger's crimes. 3. I don't accept "small potatoes" excuses. Were the events of Daredevil Season 2 too small potatoes for Yelena to cameo? Also, where is Xavier? Is it too "small potatoes" for him too? I might drop my rating from an 8 to a 7, because these "glaring issues" irritate me a whole lot.

When I watch a movie, I expect to be entertained, enlightened and/or informed (not necessarily in that order or all at once). But what I *don’t* want is to be treated like a marketing prospect. And that, unfortunately, is one of the problems with many of the releases in the Marvel Universe, including this latest installment in the Spider-Man franchise. Given the studio’s intricate web of properties (no pun intended) in this overlapping assortment of superhero franchises, there are considerable character and storyline cross-overs in virtually all of its film projects. Now, because of that, some cross-pollination of the narratives is bound to occur. But, when this practice becomes a key element in developing the plots of these offerings, it begins to feel more like marketing manipulation than bona fide storytelling, as is the case here. I don’t particularly appreciate using existing efforts to purposely promote upcoming productions. It tends to make these movies somewhat formulaic and cookie-cutter in nature. And, even though that’s not carried to an extreme in this release, it’s present nevertheless, no matter how much director Destin Daniel Cretton may try to enliven whatever other distinguishing characteristics might have been incorporated into the script. In essence, the film continues the current Spider-Man mythology with protagonist Peter Parker (Tom Holland) working largely as a solo undercover crimefighter in New York going after bad guys in a world where he and his past accomplishments have been intentionally forgotten as part of a selfless protective initiative. Only he retains recollection of what came before, leaving him alone where this knowledge is concerned, since old colleagues, including his onetime love interest, M.J. (Zendaya), retain no personal memory of him. It causes him a certain sense of emotional weariness, but it’s also something that he doesn’t have the luxury of time to focus on, given his workload and the fact that he’s going through transformations of his own while battling a menacing new nemesis (Sadie Sink). True, he secures some assistance from past superhero kindreds (Mark Ruffalo, Florence Pugh), but they don’t remember him either, compromising their effectiveness. Can he overcome all of these challenges? That’s a question as much for viewers as it is for Spidey himself, given that, in telling this story, multiple narrative threads are introduced (and not especially clearly), a problem that plagues the flow of the material in the opening half. This could potentially hamper viewer understanding until the picture’s back end, when it finally finds a firmer footing to tell its tale (even if some of it isn’t always adequately explained). Judicious editing may have helped here, but then that may have meant trimming some of the marketing material for future releases (and we can’t have that now, can we?). In short, “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is probably best seen as a mediocre Marvel offering that features some modestly entertaining enhanced character development but that nevertheless covers a lot of action-adventure ground we’ve already seen before in countless other studio releases and that could certainly use some shrewd pruning of its overlong 2:24:00 runtime, too. Diehard fans of the franchise will no doubt love this (or virtually anything else that Marvel chooses to put up on the screen) no matter what, but I can’t help but take issue with that assessment. After all, there’s quite an undeniable irony here in the bold wording of the film’s title, which would seem to promise something new but doesn’t follow through on that pledge as well as it might have.

GenerationofSwine

7.0/10

@GenerationofSwine • Aug 2, 2026 •1 day ago

Haven't seen a Marvel Movie in a long time, haven't really wanted to either. Last one I saw was Spider-Man... which I think is the case with a lot of people. Tom Holland is carrying what is left of a once great franchise now in it's death throws, lost in an attempt to court the nonexistent "modern audience." But that's what happens when you sacrifice your fanbase on the altar of the woke gods, you end up making movies no one wants to see by trashing the franchises everyone loved. And now Tom Holland is left carrying the weight of it. So, what was the movie like? Well, it was badly in need of an editor. This is one of those movies where the directors cut should make it shorter not longer. The pacing sort of sucked, there were cameos in it that didn't need to be in it. The side story of Spidey leveling up didn't need to be in it. The police captain didn't need to be in it. If they cut some of the fat, the movie would have been a lot better. It would have flowed a lot better, you wouldn't have had to wait so long for the plot to get moving, and the entire thing would have been far better. Instead it was bloated. They tried to put too much into it, and people are giving it a solid "meh." But, at the end of the day it's a heck of a lot better than the MCU we have gotten post End Game. But then it's Spider-Man, and Sony has a say in it, and I suspect they had a lot of say in not putting a chick in it, making it lame and Gay and undermining the only Hero the MCU has left.

JPV852

8.0/10

@JPV852 • Aug 2, 2026 •1 day ago

Well made and all around fun and entertaining entry in the Spider-Man franchise features fine performances all around and nice twist (thankfully I avoided spoilers). It's not amongst the best in the comic book genre or anything (though still ranks in my top 15 in that category), but I had a good time. Tom Holland is still perfect in the role and I liked his scenes with Zendaya. **4.25/5**

Max Borghetti

@maxbor_omg • Aug 2, 2026 •1 day ago

SPOILERS AHEAD: I loved the movie, I’m not going to lie. It feels different, daring, and genuinely confident in its own identity. Jon Watts should be taking notes. That said, I do feel that Hulk/Banner deserved a much larger role. The character had the potential to contribute a great deal to the story, but they never fully took advantage of him. The Bad Bunny reference made me laugh, and honestly, it also made me happy. Whether you like him or not, he is a Latino artist and represents us. It even reminded me somewhat of the cultural energy and pride embodied by Miles Morales. What didn’t I like? For starters: where the hell is J. Jonah Jameson? The movie is packed with news broadcasts discussing Spider-Man and everything happening across New York. We saw Jameson at the end of *Spider-Man: No Way Home*, and here he simply vanished. Nothing. Not even a mention. Completely erased from the map. The same applies to the references involving the inhibitor chip and Doctor Octopus. A single comment or joke delivered by the suit’s own artificial intelligence would have been enough to acknowledge that connection without interrupting the story. And what about Daredevil? Exactly the same problem. I would have been satisfied with just a few frames of Matt Murdock sitting behind the bars of his cell, sensing that Spider-Man was nearby. It did not require a full scene or a gratuitous cameo. One carefully constructed image would have been enough to excite the audience and connect both worlds. There is also a major problem during the final act. Our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man risks his life to save Jean Grey from a shot fired by the Punisher, and Frank ultimately takes him to the hospital. Sometime later, we see Peter lying in a hospital bed while Frank explains that the doctors had to completely destroy the suit in order to save his life. That means they necessarily saw his face and discovered his identity. And that is where the plot hole appears: once they learned who he was, they should have discovered that Peter Parker practically does not exist in any recognizable public record as a consequence of what happened at the end of *No Way Home*. So what was the point of that entire storyline and everything Peter sacrificed? The problem becomes even more obvious in the final scene, when Peter casually walks out through the hospital’s main entrance dressed as Peter Parker. If the doctors had to remove his suit and saw that he was Spider-Man, how is it possible that nobody recognizes him, questions him, detains him, or at the very least reacts to such an enormous revelation? Anyway… I did think that Ned unconsciously remembering Peter through their handshake at the end was a beautiful and emotionally intelligent detail. It subtly suggests that, even though his memory was altered, certain emotional connections remain buried somewhere inside him. But it is time to move forward. I want to see Harry Osborn. I want to see Gwen Stacy. I want to see Peter finally become a photographer and build a life of his own, rather than constantly depending on the legacy of the Avengers. I hope *Spider-Man 5* has the courage to explore that stage of the character’s life with the maturity, drama, and cinematic ambition it deserves. Peter Parker has already lost far too much. Now it is time to watch him grow, rebuild his life, and finally become the definitive version of Spider-Man.