Summary
Spider-Man gets the most Spider-focused adventure of the MCU to date, stuffing the plot full of familiar faces and reveals but still staying true to the characters.
Spider-Man has had a rough trot through the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Over the course of seven appearances, he’s been put through the wringer, gone to space, blipped and met his multiversal counterparts. Yet, despite all that, viewers have rarely had the chance to get to know him outside the demands of the wider MCU, even across his three solo films.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day lives up to its title by opening a new chapter for the wallcrawler, albeit one necessarily tied to what came before. It’s been a couple of years since the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home and, with Aunt May dead and his friends Ned (Jacob Batalon) and MJ (Zendaya) having forgotten him completely, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has thrown himself into his work as Spider-Man.
Just like in Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, the emotional and physical strain causes Peter’s powers to go haywire. Needless to say, it’s terrible timing, because there’s a mysterious villain who can literally jump into anybody. Peter turns to some old allies, including Frank Castle/The Punisher (Jon Bernthal), while quietly hoping that one day his old friends might remember him.
From the opening, it’s clear that Spider-Man’s rich lore is being honoured. From a montage that directly pays tribute to the cover of Amazing Fantasy #15 through a rogues’ gallery of encounters, we finally get to see what the day-to-day life of the MCU’s Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man actually looks like.
Yet Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers are caught between a rock and a hard place. They must firmly re-establish this hero in his native New York while also introducing a slew of Marvel characters, both familiar and new. Some amount to little more than glorified cameos, one is literally phoned in, while others provide terrific action scenes or feel like half-plots waiting for another film. It’s difficult to elaborate without wandering into spoiler territory, but once again Spider-Man is asked to help launch another corner of the Marvel universe in his own movie. (After all, “brand” is right there in the title).
On a technical level, it looks and sounds terrific. The action is swift, acrobatic and grounded in the “street-level” approach that was much touted before the film’s release. Director Destin Daniel Cretton, returning after Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, gives many of the key fights a satisfying martial arts sensibility. As a sidebar, I saw this in a ScreenX cinema, which expands the image across a 270-degree panoramic screen. While Brand New Day includes sequences shot specifically for the format, it’s initially distracting, eventually easy to ignore and ultimately adds very little.
Looking back at my review of No Way Home, I wrote that it left the franchise “finally ready to cut loose and do its own thing.” Brand New Day isn’t quite ready to let go of those crossover connections, but its focus is now squarely on Peter Parker. We can probably expect him to turn up in whatever cosmic adventure the Avengers find themselves in next, but this film is proof that New York should always be his primary playground. Quibbles aside, if this isn’t quite a spectacular Spider-Man, he remains an amazing one.
2026 | USA | DIRECTOR: Destin Daniel Cretton | WRITERS: Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers | CAST: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Florence Pugh, Tramell Tillman, Marisa Tomei, Mark Ruffalo | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing | RUNNING TIME: 145 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 30 July 2026 (Australia), 31 July 2026 (USA)