Spider-Man: Brand New Day remembers what the comics have always been about—a man who keeps getting back up, even at his lowest. If you are looking for a typical superhero flick, hitting action beats and cameos and not much else, look elsewhere.
Brand New Day, which hits theaters July 31, is a deeply emotional, more mature Spider-Man film than anything in the “Home” trilogy. The characters have grown up, Ned and MJ have moved on, and Peter Parker is trying to make his way in the world alone—a difficult feat with or without superpowers.
The movie speaks to the current moment on multiple levels. The age of connection is also the age of isolation, and the themes of loneliness and longing for genuine connection resonate in an era where relationships are mediated by screens.
On another level, the movie parallels our cultural struggle with AI. It’s easier than ever to generate content that looks like a movie, or a photo, or a comic, without feeling like one. Box-office results for superhero movies are far from their 2019 peak, and simply churning out assembly-line blockbusters that hit their beats and follow the formula does not guarantee results.
Instead, Brand New Day feels lovingly made by people who understand the characters, who love Marvel, and who trust the audience to feel something rather than to simply watch something. It reads as a continuation of what Thunderbolts (i.e. the New Avengers) started—superhero storytelling grounded in darker, more emotional territory.
Brand New Day leans on what it means to be human: to grieve, to long, and to care for one another. The audience is pulled into the film’s longing even before entering the cinema, thanks to the extended wait since No Way Home, which released in December 2021. As a persistent hater of long stretches between installments in a series or trilogy, I have to admit that, in this case, it serves the plot, the actors, and the movie as a whole.
Not only does it make sense for time to have passed in Spider-Man’s New York, it makes sense for the audience to have spent time missing Peter and MJ and Ned, to have spent time wondering how they’re doing, and to long to see them together again. This makes the emotional beats in the movie that much more resonant.
It has also served the actors well. Since No Way Home came out in December 2021, Tom Holland and Zendaya have had a incredible slate of roles—most recently, both in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey—lending their characters the benefit of their experience and grounding the entire movie in convincing and emotional performances.
This is Holland’s best turn as Peter Parker. He brings a depth and sincerity to the character that reminds us why we root for him, feel for him, and relate to him. Further lending to this is the incredible chemistry between Holland and Zendaya, with an emotional intensity rooted in their real-life relationship and translated through the screen.
Sadie Sink’s character brings a great deal to the movie’s emotional tenor. The way her character works alongside Holland’s Peter, and the way their emotional arcs echo and answer one another, is one of the film’s great strengths. The script ties their threads together in deeply satisfying, much-needed catharsis, and their scenes give the movie some of its most affecting beats.
It’s not all longing and sadness—there are cameos, plot twists, fun action sequences, and plenty of Easter eggs for fans of the comics and games. The set pieces aren’t as enormous or impactful as we’ve come to expect from bigger Marvel and Avengers outings, but they are entertaining, with a handful of visually striking moments.
Crucially, moments of levity don’t feel forced. They feel true to each character and comfortable within the scene. The typical Marvel joy is still here, it has just grown up a little.
This movie is doing a lot and at moments seemed to drag, but it was ultimately satisfying and sets up exciting possibilities for the future of the wider Marvel universe.
There are beats you will expect and inferences you can make early on, but the plot unfolds in ways I didn’t anticipate. (My theater audibly gasped on more than one occasion.) The emotional heart of this film does not land where you expect it to, and that made the ending all the more moving.
At its core, this is a love story: between friends, between family, between Peter and a woman. The film is anchored in the power of community and the deep grief we feel in its absence—and in the age of social media, and the age of AI, those anchors hold.
This article originally appeared on WIRED Middle East.
