Spider-Man Brand New Day (Photo – Jay Maidment, Marvel Entertainment/Columbia Pictures)
Growing up in the early 1960’s I read Marvel comics, back when they were twelve cents a pop.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton – 2026
Reviewed by Garrett Rowlan
My favorite was the Fantastic Four, possibly because their sometimes dysfunctional “family” suggested the tension under our own roof.
When Spider-Man came along, he was never a particular favorite, though sixty years later, as Marvel has moved into superhero movies, he seems to be the last man standing—or, in his case, clinging to the wall.
My last Spider-Man movie was Spider-Man 2 back in 2004, but since then I’ve lost interest in Marvel movies (Guardians of the Galaxy back in 2014 being an exception), so I came into the recent Spider-Man: Brand New Day skeptical.
I was pleasantly surprised, but then I’m a sucker for New York locations in film. The movie’s air shots are spectacular, and the street-level sequences have a grittiness that goes all the way back to films like Serpico and includes recent films like Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest and Stealing Home.
The film’s action sequences were good too, at least those involving Spider-Man suspended over New York streets. While I knew I was watching computer graphics, I still felt my vertigo kick in.
Tom Holland, who I thought was the weak link in The Odyssey, is better here, and as the love interest, Zendaya gives a repeat of the role she played in the recent Drama, as a wary New York girl with whom Spider-Man had an affair, as seen in flashback clips. At times, I wondered if the clips were necessary; they seem to throw off the flow.
There are Marvel hero or anti-hero guest shots. Here Florence Pugh, Michael Mando, and Mark Ruffalo make space for previous characters recycled.
What distinguishes this movie, certainly from the 2004 version, is the atmosphere of loneliness and the need for connection. Its protagonist Peter Parker (Spider-Man) lives alone in a loft of gadgets and eats takeout or delivered pizza, maybe too pooped to cook after battling various evildoers all day. Having dispatched several baddies, he is urged to get away from his profound isolation and “rebalance.” The fact that he wears a mask gets the appropriate metaphorical nudge. He’s a hero for our times.
The plot involves attacks on a government tower called Damage Control, and there are references to telepaths and something that is called V-Max and to mutating genes. I figured out what an inhibitor was, and a universal inhibitor, but I couldn’t summon the energy to care. By the second hour, I just wanted to see things blow up, and they did.
Feeling the unwelcome blast of heat as I left the air-conditioned show after three hours, I figured that the movie, in its brute, basic way, did what it was meant to do.
> Playing at Landmark Theatres Pasadena, Regal Paseo, Regency Academy Cinemas, Regal Edwards Alhambra Renaissance, AMC Atlantic Times Square 14, AMC Santa Anita 16, Regal UA La Canada, and Laemmle Glendale.
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