Everyone’s favourite Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man, Tom Holland, has swung back into cinemas worldwide in Spider-Man:Brand New Day (BND), his fourth outing as the titular character and the first in the next trilogy of Spidey’s onscreen adventures:
Starring Holland, new wife Zendaya as MJ, Jacob Batalon as Ned, Mark Ruffalo as Dr Bruce Banner/The Hulk, Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle/The Punisher, Sadie Sink as Jean Grey,Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova/Black Widow with Naomi Watts as the voice of Spider-Man’s trusty AI E.V., BND is directed by the amazing 😉Destin Daniel Cretton in his second major Marvel feature after Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
BND continues Marvel’s foray into delving into the mental and emotional cost of being a superhero for its characters and teaching the younger generation that with great power comes more than just great responsibility. Picking up four years after the erasure of Peter Parker’s identity across the multiverse in Spider-Man No Way Home, our downtrodden hero is isolated from Ned and MJ, the remaining Avengers, and is barely surviving as Spidey fulltime.
Dealing with sudden new body changes that indicate the spider mutation is growing and taking over his body and mental state, whilst uncovering a seemingly new baddie in the form of the teenage Jean Grey, and thus bringing the X-Men fully into the MCU, Peter has his webbed hands full. Could team ups with The Hulk, The Punisher, Black Widow and the assistance of the NYPD and Damage Control, the new government agency taking over the superhero clean up duties from S.H.I.E.L.D, be the way Peter defeats Omega telepath Jean Grey and finds his way back to Ned and MJ? Let’s find out!
Superfans SA Review: Adult Themes, Action, and MCU Phase 6 Setup
This movie is definitely giving us adult Peter with adult issues – loneliness, depression, a body that is full of aches that it didn’t have previously, heartbreak and working so hard that you never have any downtime – and I am here for it!
Holland has always brought the best balance between Peter and Spider-Man and now that he can utilize his full adult abilities for the role, he brings his true A game to the role. He has also buffed up significantly for this part of Peter’s superhero journey and, judging from the absolute thirsty comments on the Internet, the world and I thank him and his trainers 😈
From a stylistic perspective, comic book fans are living in geek heaven. The shots of Spider-Man facing off with The Hand (the elite ninja fighters first introduced to audiences in Netflix’s Daredevil, Iron Fist and The Defenders), The Scorpion, Tombstone and even Savage Hulk (the form of Hulk we last saw in The Avengers) are lifted straight from comic book covers and issues and they are beautiful. If this is the direction Marvel Head Kevin Feige and his team intend to go for Phase 6 of the MCU, I am glad of it. Don’t f*** this up, Feige.
The introduction of a younger Jean Grey, who by comics’ standards is the correct age to be a peer to Spider-Man, allows for Marvel to build towards a new X-Men cast that can play the roles for the next 10 to 20 years. Feige and his team are playing the long game here and, if they are wrapping up Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen and the rest in Avengers: Doomsday in December, this opens up the next phase of the series. Sink brings a clearer and quicker focus to where Jean Grey’s eventual evolution into Dark Phoenix begins and I enjoyed the dynamic between her and Holland.
Holland’s Peter Parker is very much the embodiment of a 2020s evolved man who is kind, conscious of consent (him telling MJ that he kissed her while she was under Jean’s mind control, even after MJ rejected him is a welcome and appreciated scene), caring and still secure in his masculinity without being toxic. I cannot overstate how important it is for Gen Alpha to grow up with these characteristics modelled for them onscreen. Hollywood, we need more of this, please!
My heart bleeds for The Hulk, who by the end of BND, is institutionalized. Ruffalo has played this complex character’s heartbreaking journey from Savage Hulk to Smart Hulk to a balanced version of his two personalities with such grace over the past decade and a half and I am so keen for him to have his own standalone film. Here’s praying to The Watcher that Universal Pictures, who has first rights to refuse to distribute any standalone Hulk feature film, eventually agrees to a Sony (who owns the rights to Spider-Man) -like deal with Marvel in the near future and we can finally find out what happened to Hulk’s son, introduced in She-Hulk.
My favourite duo in this Spidey outing is him with Bernthal’s The Punisher. The actors’ natural chemistry, and their decade-long IRL friendship, really shines through in their big bro, little bro dynamic and gives poor Frank Castle a break from the hardships he’s experienced on our screens thus far.
Final Thoughts: Is Spider-Man: Brand New Day Worth the Hype?
Yes, it is!
What I appreciated most about BND is that it brought all of the various teams, universes and characters into a cohesive story that both furthers Spider-Man‘s personal story whilst opening up stories for the rest … like a comic book! Yes, there are some major plot holes (like how is Peter earning money if his erased identity means he cannot access his inheritances from Aunt May – Marisa Tomei, who makes a heartwarming cameo in BND – and Tony Stark?) and I was irked about Yelena telling Peter he deals with small-level threats (dude has faced off with Thanos, the Winter Solider and reset the multiverse!), but overall, this is a great first film for the next trilogy.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day has grossed $1.67 billion worldwide as of today and is worth all of the SUPER hype. Get your tickets and swing into your nearest cinema to see it soon!
