Film Review – Spider-Man: Brand New Day

August 2nd, 2026 | POSTED BY Allen Almachar

***Minor Spoiler Warning: This review assumes you have seen Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)***

There are multiple story threads happening throughout Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026). The most compelling one involves Peter Parker, aka our Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (Tom Holland) reeling from the events of No Way Home (2021). We find Peter alone. He lost his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei). His best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) and the love of his life, MJ (Zendaya) had their memories of him erased. There’s also the responsibility of living up to Spider-Man’s reputation as a protector of New York City, taking down criminals on a near day-to-day basis. It’s not easy being a superhero – it’s harder being a superhero with no one to confide in. That’s the burden Peter must bear: when he wears the mask everyone loves him, but when he takes it off no one knows who he is.

If we count The Avengers films, this will be the seventh outing for Tom Holland, nearly six years since he starred in a solo Spider-Man project. That experience has paid dividends, as this is easily his best performance as the character. Holland still inhabits a boyish look, but it is now coupled with the weight of longing for human connection. Some of Brand New Day’s best scenes don’t involve the big set pieces, but the interactions in which Holland delivers real emotionality. We see this through Peter’s (kind of former) friends. Ned and MJ allow Peter to draw out his human side separate from his superhuman abilities. This is especially true in regard to his relationship with MJ. Maybe it’s due to Tom Holland and Zendaya’s real-life relationship, but whenever Peter and MJ are together we can see their chemistry. We can also see how much it hurts Peter that he was responsible for her memory being erased.

Part of why I had a disconnect with the previous Holland-starring Spidey films (as fun as they were) is because they were always a little too dependent on fancy tech, gadgets, and nifty suits. His father/son dynamic with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) caused Peter to be a kind of “Iron Man, Jr.” Director Destin Daniel Cretton (who cowrites with Chris McKenna) resets a lot of Spidey’s lore, bringing him back to basics as a struggling student, being socially awkward, but determined to protect his loved ones even if they don’t remember him. Despite this being a big budget blockbuster, much of its aesthetics are grounded in reality. The previous films relied way too heavily on special effects, often having actors noticeably perform in front of green screens. This time, several scenes were shot on real locations and sets. Brett Pawlak’s cinematography captures images with tangible, colorful textures. The scene where Peter bumps into Ned and MJ at a house party was full of energy partly due to it taking place in a physical environment. Audiences are savvy to what is real and what isn’t, so the extra effort does add up to an overall positive.

There was once a time where an MCU film told a contained story about one single superhero. Any tease for future adventures happened during the post credit sequence. Those days are long gone, as the teases and surprise cameos have now exploded to full length storylines themselves. That is the task Cretton struggles with in Brand New Day. The narrative is at its best when it focuses on Peter’s journey. It suffers anytime we stray away from him. There are too many sidelined characters here, including Bruce Banner/The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Frank Castle/The Punisher (Jon Bernthal), and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh). The additional names and faces clutters the story unnecessarily. Much has been made of Sadie Sink’s mystery character. She plays such an integral part that she is probably a co-lead with Holland, if not deserving of her own separate film. I understand how the character’s story mirrors that of Peter, but it is obvious that Sadie Sink was introduced as a launching point for future endeavors.  

I’m a millennial, so Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy caught me at just the right time to solidify my appreciation for the character. I don’t know if Destin Daniel Cretton feels the same, but there were some striking similarities between Raimi’s trilogy and Brand New Day. The biggest example is Peter’s changing personality, going from a wisecracking kid to something far darker and dangerous. In Spider-Man 3 (2007), this was caused by Peter bonding with the alien symbiote. Here, we learn that Peter’s body is going through a natural change that not only makes him more powerful, but more aggressive. He uses an inhibitor chip placed on the back of his neck to suppress that side of him. This isn’t too unlike the chip used by Doctor Octopus to control his mechanical limbs in Spider-Man 2 (2004). There are also smaller examples, like Peter’s newly develop organic webs, a slow motion shot of him web slinging a key macguffin in the middle of a fight, or the introduction of a blonde woman who lives in the same apartment complex as Peter. These instances kept adding up to the point where I wondered if it was all coincidence or if they were intended homages to Raimi’s trilogy.  

There aren’t as many action scenes as we may expect, but each one delivers a nice variety in setting and choreography. An early sequence features Spidey chasing (of all things) a tank through New York. A face-off between Spidey and The Hulk was welcomed, especially since Bruce Banner spent so much time as a calm and collected version of himself. He was basically the Jolly Green Giant through multiple MCU installments, so seeing him finally getting back to smashing things was fun. Surprisingly, the best set pieces take place in smaller, confined spaces. The highlight is Peter’s confrontation with The Hand (a ninja organization most associated with Daredevil) inside of a locked prison room. The combination of real stunt work and CGI make the choreography immediate and visceral. The fight scene moves up and down the walls, with Spidey spinning and flipping his way around attacks while The Hand manipulate their bodies like a coordinated dance routine. Are any of these scenes in the upper echelon of MCU action scenes? I don’t know, but in the moment they were thrilling. 

Peter’s feelings over MJ, Ned, Aunt May, and the push and pull between his desires and his superhero duties is what drives Spider-Man: Brand New Day. This is the best Tom Holland Spider-Man film so far. And yet, it still suffers from having to remind us of the larger world outside its borders. Everything not associated with Peter feels like the MCU machine setting up a payoff that will come later. The only thing that holds it back from true greatness is the insistence on what’s coming as opposed to what is happening in the here and now.

Brand New Day, Brett Pawlak, Chris McKenna, Daredevil, Destin Daniel Cretton, Featured, Florence Pugh, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Marisa Tomei, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Sadie Sink, Sam Raimi, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Spider-man 3, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Avengers, Tom Holland, Zendaya