Since his last outing (the wildly entertaining Spider-Man: No Way Home), Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is now dealing with the consequences of his poorly thought-out idea from the last film: asking Doctor Strange to make everyone—and I mean everyone—forget about him. We catch up with Peter living alone in a crappy apartment, tinkering with technology, and pining over the social media profiles of his two lost loves, who have no memory of him (his girlfriend MJ/Zendaya and his best friend Ned/Jacob Batalon). While they’ve gone off to college and are having the time of their lives, Peter has retreated from social life, throwing himself into fighting crime as Spider-Man full time.
In addition to his horrific loneliness, Peter is also dealing with some unusual growing pains. It seems that the arachnid DNA in his system has inexplicably started going wild, giving him bursts of next-level strength as well as uncontrollable (literal) black-eyed anger. When some innocent bystanders are wounded during one of his bad-guy interventions, poor Peter is horrified.
Meanwhile!
A new menace is, well, menacing the city. A new villain is wreaking havoc, intent on breaking into the super-high-security Department of Damage Control, and no one can really figure out why… except that it would be a very, very bad thing. This villain is more like a presence, “possessing” individuals by hopping from body to body, gaining control and manipulating them frighteningly easily. (I think every drama club going forward should practice how to “throw” a presence from one body to another, kind of like a flailing zombie wave. Great fun to watch!)
Without giving things away, Peter enlists the help of Frank Castle, aka The Punisher (Jon Bernthal), a cantankerous antihero with a penchant for BFG-type firepower, who tends to shoot first and think later. Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner/Hulk makes an appearance, as does Florence Pugh’s always-welcome Yelena Belova/Black Widow. To say more would spoil the fun.
Did I say fun? This chapter is more than a little tinged with melancholy. If it weren’t bad enough that Peter has lost his closest friends, he is also dealing with the horror of losing his beloved Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) in the last film’s carnage. I know I said last time that Tom Holland is very, very good at wringing out big, wet tears. There are a couple of moments in this film when he absolutely breaks, and you really feel for the guy.
Clocking in at about 2½ hours, Spider-Man: Brand New Day actually feels a little longer. Like another beloved chapter in superhero-dom, it goes the route of The Dark Knight, with the last third of the film almost feeling like a standalone story because of its shift in focus. That’s not to say it isn’t good, but it introduces a character and a concept that I can totally see spiraling into another well-known corner of Marvel lore. Perhaps that will happen in the bloated, all-the-things universe of the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday? Believe me, something is being set up here.
I got to see the film in a Dolby theater, and if these movies are your jam, you should absolutely do the same. The action sequences are pretty tremendous, and the sound design is top-notch. (At my screening, there was a filmmaker intro encouraging the audience to immerse themselves in the big-screen glory of the action, especially the moments highlighting Peter’s intense and ever-evolving Spidey-senses.) It’ll all blow your hair back.
I do not think it’s an accident that there is a nod to The Empire Strikes Back (the film is playing in the background in Ned’s apartment), as this dark chapter seems to be a bridge pointing toward the next incarnation. Or reboot. Or new timeline. Or overlapping Marvel universe. We know it will go on and on, and the film ends with a promise of even more to come.
