Spider-Man is back, but he ain’t fighting the Rhino or the Chameleon or Jamie Foxx’s Electro. It’s Spidey vs the Male Loneliness Epidemic in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Tom Holland’s fourth film in the series and director Destin Daniel Cretton’s first. Spoilers ahead, as usual, though there’s a lot to unpack beforehand.
It’s been a few years since the world forgot Peter Parker’s secret identity, courtesy of a spell by one Stephen Strange. Our friendly neighborhood single man has been keeping his shoulder to the wheel at keeping his beloved NYC safe, dutifully suiting up every night to combat the city’s helpfully color-coded supervillains, which now include a literal team of ninjas (“The Hand,” which you might recognize from Daredevil). During the day, however, things are far less cheery; Peter spends his time stalking the Instagram stories of his former friend group, comprised of best friend Ned and the love of his (previous) life, MJ (Zendaya).
If the situation comes across darker in tone than it is in reality, it’s intentional—Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers’s script draws from the experience of thousands of young men (and women) today, which is the feeling that time is simply slipping away despite being relatively young. There is a sense throughout Brand New Day that Peter is obsessed with yesteryear. Stuck in the coulda shoulda woulda, Peter is unable to form new connections or let go of people that he planned his life around, which also includes the recently deceased May, and so he resorts to pushing everyone away.
The safety of the “mask” (and its accompanying anonymity) reminds us that what young people fear is having their failure and rejections be immortalized in a post-internet world, and the busywork of being Spider-Man also parallel nicely with the grindset endorsed by the Andrew Tates of the world—that simply working harder and longer than anyone else will give them the peace they seek without having to be vulnerable. There’s also a subplot involving Peter’s hormones going haywire due to stress, resulting in a more powerful but much more unhinged alter ego. It’s all reminiscent of Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, mostly in how it ties Peter’s mental health into his persona implicitly, but also in how it presents a crossroads for this newly of-aged young man. The conclusion of Peter’s arc is hearing that this new MJ doesn’t care about him like that—and then accepting an offer to hang out anyway, realizing he still has emotional needs to be met even as he tries to take responsibility for everyone else’s.
What makes Brand New Day a solid film is that it attempts to find some nuance within these metaphors. It is true, after all, that shutting your heart off and giving no quarter to the whims of the world is effective. Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle might seem like little more than a fun cameo on paper, but he’s welcome here as the polar opposite role model young men tend to gravitate to these days: an uncaring, ice-cold killer who deals with pesky emotions with the same lethality he imparts on the baddies. When Frank chides Peter for being a pussy halfway through the film, he simultaneously takes issue with his isolation, reminding Peter that he himself would be trying to love his loved ones if, you know, any of them were still around. Like so many Spider-Man films before it, Brand New Day understands that responsibility makes Peter’s life a thousand times worse even as it makes his city a thousand times a better, which will always leave the character in conflict with himself.
However, also like so many Spidey flicks, “overstuffed” threatens to be a useful descriptor as well. Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk is here as another Jekyll and Hyde, and his conversation with Peter about suppressing and repressing desire is a nice but abbreviated touch, while the big fight scene arrives too early but still delivers on the spectacle. But it’s the film’s inclusion of the vengeful Jean Grey (Sadie Sink) where the story starts to sag under the weight of so much thematic material. I appreciated how Jean’s anger is misdirected, as her beef actually lies with a middle-aged suit who callously tortured her sister. (That a film focused on male mental health would seem to paint a young woman who mocks the protagonist’s struggles as the “villain,” before revealing she, too, is suffering, is a nice touch). I also appreciate that the film doesn’t acquiesce to the obvious route of Jean restoring MJ’s memories herself, although some sort of recollection is teased at the end.
It fits nicely thematically, but I can’t say the same logistically. The final act and its tacked-on big disaster movie climax are yet another example of the MCU taking the intelligence of its audience for granted. The Marvel method is increasingly to put characters in a situation where the only solution is to talk someone off a ledge, which is sort of the opposite of what makes action exciting. It reminded me of thunderbolts* and the way that movie literalized a mental health episode into a battle sequence, which made the former far too obvious to find interesting and the latter completely suspenseless.
Still, even if I consider the ending of a film the most important part, that doesn’t mean everyone else will. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is mostly pretty darn good, but more importantly, it’s exactly the type of film this generation needs. Peter Parker is a loser, and that’s precisely what makes him a fantastic character. His inherent desire to help others, which includes himself, is something young men need to aspire toward more than ever. If that cultural relevance can be maintained, then maybe superheroes movies aren’t dead just yet. Growing up is tough for everyone, especially if you can hang from the ceiling and shoot webs out of your wrists. 8-9-26
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