THE BLUE AND WHITE

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is likely to be one of the biggest blockbusters of 2026, and I watched it on its premiere day in China, the earliest date possible. My goal in writing this review will be to help you determine whether it’s worth it to go to the theatre based on the attributes of this movie beyond the plot. Hopefully, I can provide some unique insights as a young person that may be interesting to you. Disclaimer: There will not be spoilers.

Three-sentence summary:

You won’t have to think very hard about the film to find holes. Despite this, the film gets the big questions right. It certainly does not hurt that Tom Holland’s superhero is a character that readily jumps off the screen and into peoples’ hearts.

Spider-Man or Peter Parker?

A preview of what the movie is:

Spider-Man (Tom Holland) would be in the incel pipeline if he wasn’t Spider-Man: he voluntarily isolated himself from all of his friends, including his erstwhile girlfriend MJ (Zendaya), and has an AI assistant that he talks to every day. Otherwise, he is living the life of his dreams, downing criminals like they are mice, until suddenly, he gets thumped by a mind-control genius. You might ask: why am I not mentioning the other co-stars of the movie? Well, that would reveal too much. But expect there to be some interesting major twists, and don’t expect a simple black-and-white morality tale.

Who should watch Brand New Day?
If you’re looking for something exotic, don’t watch this movie. Brand New Day does not deviate very far from a standard film structure. Most tropes that exist in superhero movies also exist here, and some will be painfully obvious if you watch any movies at all. Don’t expect Spider-Man to be killed off this movie, because there is another movie next year and it would be awfully imprudent. Experimental storytelling with nuances is not the strong suit of this type of movie. The exotic and experimental description would fit The Odyssey more. Another flaw worth considering is that although the namesake character is developed very well, some of the newer characters, especially Jean Grey (Sadie Sink), do not have properly developed backstories. When they should be 3D characters that jump off the screen, they are sometimes a little bit flat, because we are only given quite generic sob story backgrounds. If you are a little bit pedantic and care about details, this film will fall below your standards in certain parts. In my opinion, this roughness around the edges is the biggest weakness of Brand New Day. 

There are many strengths, however, that appeal to different types of people. Most pertinently to our age in general, this Spider-Man is a very modern Spider-Man. On a superficial level, he gets FOMO from checking Instagram reels and is often depressed and socially awkward, struggling with his identity. He also has a supremely powerful AI chatbot! If only we could do assignments with his chatbot and not Flint AI… This man is clearly Gen-Z. Although the film is not about coming-of-age, it’s pretty close, and your impulse might be to check your phone as well when you hear that Instagram notification ding. On a deeper film-history level, this portrayal of Spider-Man will be remembered positively as one that does not fall behind the tides of time. Spider-Man does some things that are questionable at best in certain parts of the film. I will not tell you exactly what it is, but it is related to relationship ethics and could land you in deep legal trouble in Ontario if you were to do it. Instead of being glorified or normalized like it was in many older movies, this behaviour is quite clearly rejected in this one. Values-wise, Brand New Day is in the 21st century.

Secondly, if your main goal is to see good acting, this is your movie. Tom Holland has, among other wonderful abilities, a wonderful ability to show the mortal in the superhero, and the superhero in the mortal. Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) is the perfect chaotic good complement, and left a particularly strong impression on me personally. No one feels out of place in a cast that covers all nine squares of the alignment chart, and they work together to maintain a high level of suspense throughout the entire movie. Last but not least, Brand New Day is not exactly a cookie-cutter feel-good movie. Spider-Man is vulnerable on basically all fronts in this film. Whether you struggle with depression and are taking meds, or are coping with the loss of someone dear, or suffer from loneliness due to a lack of relationships, or get weird looks by others because of who you are, or are simply in the process of going through an early midlife crisis, you will find that Spider-Man is dealing with the fallout of all of these issues at the same time. The portrayal of those problems is realistic: those problems don’t magically go away simply because he has a suit. It’s quite the opposite, which actually makes the film a better watch than if it was a generic feel-good movie.

Overall Rating: 

7/10. If the default is 10/10, then two points get docked for the predictability and cardboard character syndrome. One point for not being the G.O.A.T of movies. That’d be Who Killed Captain Alex. If the default is 5/10, then two points get added, one for the acting of Tom Holland and another for the acting of everyone else.