Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)
Directed by: Destin Daniel Cretton
Premise: The fourth standalone Spider-Man film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Following the events of No Way Home, Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland) fights crime and tries to reconnect with his friends MJ and Ned (Zendaya and Jacob Batalon). Meanwhile, New York City is threatened by a telepathic villain (Sadie Sink).
What Works: The superhero genre has gone through a difficult period lately in part because of disjointed storytelling, uninteresting characters, and sloppy visual effects. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is much better on most of these fronts. It looks great. The influence of the animated Spider-Verse pictures is definitely felt here especially in the energy and visual flair. The film is shown theatrically in 3-D and Brand New Day is one of the better looking stereoscopic films in a while. The scenes of Spider-Man plunging through urban canyons has impressive depth. Brand New Day also does well with its characters. This iteration of Spider-Man has been so appealing because of his friendships with MJ and Ned. The end of No Way Home required Peter Parker to cut ties with them and Peter’s loneliness is effectively realized on screen. There is an interesting emotional trajectory for this series. In Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter and friends were high school students but now they are past college and Brand New Day has an observable maturity, playing to the difficulty of young adulthood. This film also includes a number of other Marvel characters and they are used well, figuring into the story in a meaningful way. Several of the movie’s best scenes are about the unlikely friendship between Spider-Man and The Punisher (Jon Bernthal).
What Doesn’t: Some themes and plot points of Brand New Day are either dropped or underdeveloped. When the story begins, Peter Parker is suffering headaches and other physical maladies. It’s suggested that Peter’s body is going through the equivalent of a spider molting. Peter tries to stop this physiological process with an electronic device but he’s warned by Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) that this suppression may ultimately do more harm than good. It’s an interesting idea, although one that seems like it belonged in an earlier story when Peter was still an adolescent. The film never really resolves the issue. The villain of Brand New Day is a character with telepathic powers played by Sadie Sink. The filmmakers gradually complicate our understanding of her character, making her sympathetic. But the filmmakers and Spider-Man ignore the fact that Sink’s character has directly and indirectly caused the deaths of lots of people, including civilians. There is a difference between being morally ambiguous and being thoughtless; Brand New Day leans toward the latter.
Bottom Line: Spider-Man: Brand New Day is one of the better entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Some of the plotting is rickety but Brand New Day succeeds as a superhero adventure and there is a human warmth to the film that’s very appealing.
Episode: #1111 (August 9, 2026)