Tom Holland’s fourth stand-alone film as the most famous web slinger of all time is his best installment and easily ranks at the very top of the very long list of MCU films. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a movie full of emotion, depth, and conflict ablaze in outstanding action sequences that reach new heights. Finally, the Kevin Feige machine serves Tom Holland a hundred percent correctly. There is not one weak moment in this new picture. If anything, it serves as a reminder of what the recent Supergirl neglected in its construction.
The story jumps to around four years after the complicated events that overflowed with experimental multi-dimensional fun in the last picture, No Way Home. That movie opted to surrender to fan service with every favorite Christmas ornament on the tree. Brand New Day delivers an assortment of new characters to progress a solid storyline of curveball surprises. Thankfully, the narrative stands on its own with a grounded sense of maturity. Tom Holland is no longer portraying Peter Parker as a klutzy dweeb whose silly carelessness leads to mountains of unamusing mishaps.
A sinister new kind of villain is terrorizing Peter/Spidey in a post age where no one has any recollection of Peter Parker, including his love interest MJ and his best friend Ned (Zendaya, Jacob Batalon). As well, his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) has now passed on while he’s left only with daily visits to her grave to offer solace. Peter’s isolation as a super-hero crime fighter in New York is now that much more troubling as he cannot fathom how to approach this new antagonist who has a novel way of hiding within the populace of the city while staying right on Peter’s tail with disturbing torment.
As well, returning writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers weave in a very popular storyline from the classic silver age comics as poor Spidey seems to lose concentration of his powers and thus some frightening inconveniences occur. To aid the web head with these new challenges is the acerbic anti-hero Frank Castle aka The Punisher (Jon Bernthal, graduating from the Netflix/Disney + Marvel streaming series) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) who seems to have a proper stronghold on his Mr. Hyde, green goliath persona. For now!!!! There’s also the superhero clean-up crew known as the Department Of Damage Control, led by actor Tramell Tillman (from the inventive Apple + series Severance, which I strongly recommend). A phone call away is a likable police lieutenant (Liza Colón-Zayas) and the new Black Widow aka Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) has an unsuspecting “office” nearby.
Everything looks improved in Brand New Day. The Hulk is bigger, fiercer and angrier. He’s much more well defined in his action scenes. Frank Castle is not a hi & bye character. He blends into the storyline of the film, with just enough backstory to care about his relationship to Spider-Man, unlike the fruitless contribution of Lobo in Supergirl. All other characters are served valuable purpose to the transitions of the screenplay.
Spider-Man actually occupies most of the film with the mask on. Finally!!!! What frustrated me tremendously about the first two Holland films was that the hero was hardly shown wearing the familiar threads of bright blue and red with the web stitching. When I am watching a Spider-Man movie, I want to see Spider-Man. At last, McKenna, Somers and new director to the franchise, Destin Daniel Cretton get it right. The mask stays on. The costume stays on. Webs are shooting out all over the city and their various designs are wildly imaginative found in the best comic book issues.
The choreography of the action sequences is superb frame for frame with punches, kicks, acrobatics and deflections. Web swinging goes to new heights and across wide diameters. Everything looks like a perfect design.
The second half of Brand New Day opens up some wonderful twists that lead the film down new paths. What I’m grateful for is that this time Peter Parker works to solve all the dilemmas on his own. He doesn’t turn to guys like Iron Man, Dr. Strange or Happy Hogan. There is a wealth of Marvel favorites here, but this picture truly belongs to the title character Spider-Man following a promising formula used with Chris Evans in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Cretton wisely closes the film with a feel-good salute to Spidey’s hometown of New York City. No special visuals or dazzling sci fi or animation. Just sites of the most popular city in the world. After a whirlwind experience of a breezy two and a half hours, this was the most suitable way to close out this outstanding chapter. No needle drops of pop music. Rather, sensitive instrumentals and bright visuals that lend to positive outlooks for the world we all share together. Movies are not just for escape. Movies also have the magic to make us feel good about ourselves.
Tom Holland has wonderful chemistry with the whole cast. I believe the scenes he shares with Zendaya are the couple’s best to date. On rooftops high above the city and later in a confined room, the two actors have focused emotions accompanied with dialogue that never feels hammy or something built for daytime soap opera. Just great acting from both leads who embrace how serious millions of fans are about the best in comic book film adaptations. No one in this cast is cashing in a paycheck here. They are looking to do great work that will stand the test of time when this movie is popped in the blu ray player ten or twenty years from now.
As the third act of this film began, I told myself this is easily in the top five best films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and without question the best Spider-Man film to date. Anyone who frowns on comic book movies (Martin Scorcese, Terry Gilliam) need to become more open minded. The best ones look for internal conflicts, remorse, love, hate, insecurity, trauma, grief, happiness, duty and responsibility. Spider-Man: Brand New Day covers all of these bases.
One of the year’s best films.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 