Spidey Watch: Spider-Man Brand New Day (2026)

Watched:  08/02/2026

Format:  Regal Cinema

Viewing:  First

Director:  Destin Daniel Cretton

Look, I'm respecting that the movie-advertising is asking that we not discuss this movie publicly on social media, so I'm doing what I can here.

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS

No, really.  Don't read this if you haven't seen the film.

Nope.

Keep walkin'.

Okay, you did this to yourself.

This movie isn't going to win over anyone who doesn't like superhero movies.  If you're already crossing your arms with disdain just thinking about Spider-Man, move along.  But if you have followed the Spider-Man movies, if you like Marvel - especially from the now long-gone pre-Endgame better age of Marvel, this one reminds you someone out there can still make it seem like these movies and this universe are coherent and matter.  It's a reminder that at their best, these movies work best when there's an emotional truth, even if the story on paper is absurd.  

And, indeed, this movie feels very much like what it is to walk into comics mid-stream at age 12 and have to run very fast to catch up from context clues, because this movie relies on knowledge of what is now nearly 20 years of movies (Bruce Banner/ Hulk), with the more recent movies (Thunderbolts*), with the Netflix and Disney+ TV shows (Punisher) and, of course, three different versions of Spider-Man movies.  

In some ways, it's one long story unwinding the completely weird decision at the end of the last movie to erase everyone's memory of Spider-Man (something they do in the comics sometimes, and I always wonder how that's supposed to work on a practical level.  Like, does Peter's yearbook photo just vanish?  Does he no longer have a Social Security number?).  

But what that decision did was *finally*, four movies in, give us a Spider-Man who isn't a middle-class kid with a particularly hot aunt who goes to college prep science school.  

Personal Rant:

I *enjoyed* the prior three Spider-Man movies, but you could also feel that no one working on them wanted to deal with Peter Parker as an actual working-class loser.  Instead, Peter was a special kid who went to a special school and had special best friends.  Sure, he had challenges, but it wasn't "I need to buy Aunt May her heart pills, earn some scratch for web-fluid materials, keep Flash from giving me a wedgie and stop Electro".  Those movies featured *a* Spider-Man, but it was not *my* Spider-Man.  

If you aren't complaining about "the 'ol Parker luck", what are you even doing?

Now, there was a sea-change in Peter's world a few years into the comics when he graduated high school and enrolled at Empire State University. Now we had Harry, Gwen, MJ and a sort of buyable gang Pete was hanging around with where he ditched the nerd-togs and became a tad cooler.  But the Parker luck dogged him right through his girlfriend getting tossed off a bridge.

Rant End

And this version of Spider-Man at least touches on that - a Spider-Man I haven't seen since Spider-Man 2.  

Your blogger and Peter Spiderman after our 11:00 AM screening

While the movie flatly refuses to inform us how Peter is making a living (no Daily Bugle?), it is telling us what he's up to - and it's largely: being Spider-Man.  Which is great.  I get one of my favorite old-school Spidey villains in The Scorpion and even Tombstone makes an appearance.  It makes the ongoing adventures of Peter feel a bit more lived in.  

The past four years have seen Spider-Man taking care of his city while Ned and MJ made their way through MIT.  They've returned to New York, are living as platonic roommates, and Peter has to deal with the fact they're back.

One bit I particularly liked was Liza Colón-Zayas showing up as Jean De Wolff - a cop on Spidey's side who also is trying to get him to take care of himself.

Meanwhile, a ghost-like supervillain is moving from body-to-body, and they're focusing on trying to take down Damage Control - a government agency that first appeared in Spider-Man: Homecoming and has made appearances here and there.  They're who shows up to deal with the damage after super-battles, cleaning up the alien technology, collecting villains' equipment and basically dealing with a world overrun with supers, aliens and ninjas.  Oh, yeah, for some reason a little faction of The Hand is here.

But, much to *my* surprise, the movies works as a backdoor introduction to mutants and the eventual inclusion of the X-Men in the MCU. 

They blend in a bit of a story about Peter's DNA getting out of control as he leans too hard into the Spider-Man and not enough into being Peter Parker, and it has notes of Peter's powers doing the opposite of all this in Spider-Man 2 when he sort of loses his spider-mojo.  Fortunately, the movie never turns into body horror and remains a threat but nothing that slogs the pacing - it's just... a very Spider-Man sort of concern.  

What's shocking is how organic all of these pieces are.  I mourn the loss of the Marvel that existed where each superhero was the only super in their movie, and they were special in that way, and had rich casts of supporting characters who were just... people, at least if we're going to bring in all of these costumed characters, the movie was smart enough to make sure whomever was there, Yelena, Bruce Banner, had a real narrative or emotional function.  

So, was it any good?

Yeah, I think so.  

You can't really judge these movies like anything else at the cinema, even movies with sequels.  Spider-Man expands even beyond the films of the MCU to cut across two reboots that are, impossibly, within continuity.  The character is part of the rich tapestry of the Marvel Cinematic Universe which has exploded and expanded across dozens of films, a truckload of television and probably video games I've never seen.  

Fortunately, I come pre-loaded with a background in funny books, and contextualizing in this sort of framework is no big whoop.  

And, yeah, within the structure of the MCU, this is a phenomenal installment.  

If the measure of these movies is whether they defy the nonsense of the premise - and in the case of this movie, the multiple, stacked absurdities - to get to that emotional core, then, yeah.  I was all in.  Peter's struggle to not lose himself in the grief over his past mistakes and what it cost others, to find what is essentially work/life balance as he uses work to cover his trauma, lest he literally lose himself in the job, is shockingly resonant.  After feeling No Way Home was a neat trick but traded cosmic-level fan service for a story that got under my skin, I think Brand New Day sort of gets us back there.  While also giving us a Spider-Man that feels more how Spidey should be.  

It doesn't hurt that, visually, this movie is one of the best conceived Marvel movies in a long, long time.  I want to write more about that, but feel like I'd need to see it again to do it justice.  Just absolutely stunning stuff.

Also - someone confirm for me that they were re-using locations from prior Spider-Man movies - and not just from the MCU ones.

Marvel has done a great job of not taking narrative short cuts or leaving plot holes, and here that lands in MJ confronting Peter and saying she really has no memory of Peter - she has no love for him.  How could she?  And I look forward to seeing what Marvel and Sony do with these characters now.  It both feels like a chance for less of a high school love story and more of an adult love story - but also, opens the door for Black Cat, etc... 

I'm not sure what to say about the reveal of Sadie Sink as Jean Grey.  There was definitely a ripple that went through the crowd at my screening.  I was expecting a name actor with a shaved head to roll up in the post-credits sequence, but that didn't happen.  But, yeah, Jean is the first X-Man, if memory serves.  So, here we go.  

Gimme Scott Summers, pronto.