Laura's Miscellaneous Musings: Tonight's Movie: Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)

It's been a busy couple of weeks, including attending the D23 Expo, so I'm only now reviewing SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY (2026), which I saw earlier this month.

BRAND NEW DAY is the fourth of Tom Holland's Spider-Man films of the past decade, following SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (2017), SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME (2019), and SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME (2021).

It's hard to believe it's been half a decade since the last film, and after the long wait -- including something of a cliffhanger ending -- I was particularly excited to see it. Right from the start I loved Tom Holland's welcome to the theater, in the style of some of Tom Cruise's introductions, saying "We made it for you."

As Marvel fans know, the previous film concluded with Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) casting a spell to make the world forget Peter Parker (Holland), aka Spider-Man.

Those who have forgotten Peter include the love of his life, MJ (Zendaya, now the real-life Mrs. Holland), and his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon).

Peter leads a lonely existence in his apartment, though he emerges regularly to fight crime as Spider-Man. Indeed, that's really all he has in his life at this juncture.

As Spider-Mann, Peter has a professional relationship of sorts over the phone with a New York police detective (Liza Colon-Zayas) and he sometimes interacts with his "frenemy" Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), aka the Punisher, but Peter is now very much a loner.

As MJ and Ned graduate from MIT and move back to New York, Peter sees them and yearns to reach out, but he's also dealing with serious problems in the form of a telepath (Sadie Sink) who hops from body to body while causing mayhem.

Spider-Man reaches out to Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) for information regarding the telepath, but while she's able to provide a bit of useful information, Peter's problems are growing: His superpowers are acting very strangely. Perhaps Peter can get ideas from Professor Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), though Bruce no longer has any idea who he is...

Needless to say there's much more to the story, but I'll leave off with that as I don't want to be spoiler-y given that the film was just released.

Holland is excellent as an older, sadder Peter/Spider-Man; he's quite endearing in the role. The viewer aches for his losses and loneliness -- viewers will remember that he also lost Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) in the last film -- and wants to see him happy.

The movie presenting Spider-Man and Frank as having a backstory was confusing, inasmuch as Frank has never before appeared in a Spider-Man film; apparently he and Peter became acquainted during the years since the last film. Thanks to my daughter, at least I knew who the Punisher was before seeing the film!

The movie also makes great use of Yelena; Pugh is seen only briefly but has some very funny line deliveries about dealing with "big potato stuff" while Spider-Man is dealing wtih "small potato stuff."

I was particularly impressed with the way Aunt May is creatively woven into the story in ways that are both natural and moving; May is ultimately a significant key to the plot.

One of the film's strengths is an excellent theme about isolation and the human need for others; indeed, Holland improvised a line Peter delivers at Aunt May's gravesite, "You'd be happy to know that I've decided I'm not going to do this alone anymore."

Given that we often heard during lockdowns that moviegoing was dead and in the future everyone would stay home and stream, there's sweet justice in a movie about the perils of human isolation earning absolutely staggering box office returns.

One of my only criticisms of the film is that although I liked the film's final scene, the audience is left hanging regarding Peter's relationships with MJ and Ned, which was unsatisfying after waiting five years.

Other than that, my main critique of the movie is that the telepath's villainy, taking over bodies, feels like a cheat, rather how I feel about the multiverse concept in general; nothing means anything if nothing is guaranteed to be real and anything can happen anywhere. There's a scene midway through the film with Peter, MJ, and the telepath which I frankly found cruel to viewers.

Otherwise, SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY is pure entertainment. It was quite long, at 145 minutes, yet the time flew by. It was wonderful to spend time with characters we've come to care about deeply, and hopefully it won't be another five years before the next movie!

SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY was directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and filmed by

Brett Pawlak.

The movie was scored by Michael Giacchino, who I had the pleasure of seeing interviewed by soundtrack historian Jon Burlingame at the D23 Expo a few days ago. Giacchino has described removing notes from the usual Spider-Man theme to give it a more "lonely" sound.

Parental Advisory: This film is rated PG-13. It has the usual "classic Marvel" level of non-graphic violence mixed with positive themes about caring for others.

A trailer is here.

As a postscript of sorts, I especially enjoyed this film as, despite my enjoyment of Marvel films over a great many years, as seen below, I skipped all of the releases from 2021 to 2025, which uniformly looked dark and unappealing. Marvel has returned to form with THUNDERBOLTS* (2025), THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS (2025), and SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY.

Unfortunately, if the latest trailer is a good indicator, the upcoming AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY (2026) looks like a very dark return to the style of films such as DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS (2022) and ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA (2023) which were among the titles I skipped. If a leaked DOOMSDAY plot point I read was accurate, I won't be seeing it, but I'm still hopeful it was a false rumor. We'll find out in December.