Spider-Man: Brand New Day

We absolutely loved this movie.

The biggest reason is simple: Tom Holland finally owns the film.

That’s not meant as criticism of his previous movies, because we’ve loved watching his version of Peter develop. But look at what surrounded him.

Spider-Man: Far From Home gave Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio an enormous amount of the limelight, while No Way Home became a cinematic event largely because Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield returned as Spider-Man.

We were as excited about that as everyone else.

But Brand New Day needed to be different.

It needed to be Tom’s movie.

And it absolutely is.

Interestingly, early reactions from critics landed in a similar place, praising the movie for returning to a more grounded and character-driven Spider-Man story and highlighting Holland’s more mature performance.

Tom Holland Has Grown Up – And So Has Spider-Man

One of our favourite things about Brand New Day is simply seeing how far Holland has come.

Go back to Civil War and he’s this skinny, excitable teenager being recruited by Tony Stark.

Now look at him.

Peter has been through Thanos, the Blip, Tony Stark’s death, Mysterio, the multiverse, Aunt May’s death and finally having everyone he loves forget he ever existed.

He’s no longer a kid playing superhero.

He’s a man carrying everything that’s happened to him.

Holland physically looks more mature too, and the transformation works brilliantly alongside Peter’s character development. He’s gone from the baby-faced Spider-Man of Homecoming into a confident, well-defined adult hero.

Even Sony’s pre-release description explicitly positioned Peter as an adult living alone four years after No Way Home, rather than attempting to continue the high-school version of the character.

For anyone who’s been a Tom Holland admirer since his MCU debut, there’s plenty here to appreciate.

An Emotional Rollercoaster

The movie grabs you from every direction.

There’s sadness, happiness, excitement, humour, nostalgia and some genuinely emotional moments.

That’s something Spider-Man movies do particularly well when they’re at their best.

Peter Parker isn’t interesting because he can climb walls.

He’s interesting because underneath the mask he’s somebody constantly being knocked down by life who somehow keeps getting back up.

Brand New Day understands that.

Rather than attempting to outdo No Way Home with another twenty cameos and collapsing universes, it deals with the consequences.

That gives the emotional moments room to breathe.

Punisher and Spider-Man Are Brilliant Together

Bringing Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle into a Spider-Man movie could easily have gone wrong.

Punisher and Spider-Man operate at completely opposite ends of the superhero moral spectrum.

Peter believes people can be saved.

Frank believes some people need putting down permanently.

That’s exactly why having them together works.

Bernthal’s return had been confirmed well ahead of release, but seeing that contrasting philosophy actually collide with Peter gives the movie another dimension.

We know one criticism doing the rounds concerns Frank’s behaviour toward the end and whether someone in his position—particularly as a wanted man—would really hang around as events unfold.

We can understand the argument.

But did it ruin the movie?

Not remotely.

Sometimes you’ve got to accept the comic-book logic and enjoy what’s happening in front of you.

Welcome to the MCU, Sadie Sink

And then there’s Sadie Sink.

What an introduction.

Marvel somehow kept the speculation going right until release, but Brand New Day finally reveals Sink as Jean Grey, bringing one of the X-Men’s most important characters into this new era of the MCU.

She smashed it.

Jean Grey isn’t just another superhero either.

This is Jean Grey.

Telepathy, telekinesis, enormous latent power and, hanging over everything for comic readers, the potential of the Phoenix.

Introducing her alongside Spider-Man rather than waiting for an X-Men movie is an exciting choice because it immediately makes mutants feel part of the wider MCU rather than something being bolted onto the side.

And now we want more.

If Sink represents the standard Marvel intends to achieve when recasting and rebuilding the X-Men for the next generation, we’re excited.

Marvel potentially has 10–15 years of mutant stories and crossovers ahead of it.

Cyclops. Storm. Rogue. Gambit. Beast. Nightcrawler. Wolverine. Magneto. Professor X. And eventually perhaps the Phoenix.

After decades of watching different Marvel characters separated by studio rights, the possibility of Spider-Man, the Avengers, Fantastic Four and X-Men existing and interacting within this wider universe is exactly what many fans have been waiting for.

From Tobey to Andrew to Tom

There’s also something brilliant about looking at the three generations of live-action Spider-Man.

Tobey Maguire started something special.

For an entire generation, Tobey was Spider-Man.

Then Andrew Garfield took the character somewhere different, giving us an incredibly agile Spider-Man with brilliant movement, humour and emotion.

And then Tom arrived.

It has taken several movies for his Spider-Man to completely escape the shadow of Tony Stark, the Avengers and the wider MCU.

Brand New Day feels like the payoff.

Tom was handed the movie, and he took full advantage of it.

For us, this is his defining Spider-Man performance.