.

Unfortunately with this Brand New Day comes brand new problems. This latest movie with Tom Holland in this role is easily the weakest and I’m afraid it falters in ways that none of the others did.

Let’s get into it and then I’ll talk about where it succeeds.

First off there are parts of it that don’t make sense. Why, for example, if Peter Parker is very concerned with keeping his identity a secret and it has been established that he is regularly spotted when he is swinging around New York, does he do so without his mask on?

Similarly, how is it that after previously being so badly let down by Mysterio, not to mention the misplaced trust he placed on the Green Goblin, Peter still blindly believes the integrity of an organisation that is clearly dodgy and has previously detained and interrogated him.

Also, don’t get me started on the post credit scene that is so badly thought out that I can only assume they initially forgot that they were supposed to do one and got the new intern to put quickly something together.

Oddly, for a series that has been built around ties to characters like Tony Stark, Nick Fury and Doctor Strange and brought all of the different Spider-Man series together, it seems confused about how it fits in the larger Marvel universe. It underuses The Hulk, too often misuses The Punisher (although I loved their fight) and has Spider-Man once again considered small potatoes by the main heroes even after he helped bring down Thanos. It does introduce a major Marvel comics character into the MCU and does it well, but this seems a surprising place to do so as they have never been associated with Spider-Man before. I wasn’t happy with Florence Pugh doing her scene, apparently naked, in a bath either but maybe I’m still smarting from Margot Robbie’s cameo in The Big Short (although the camera does focus more on Tom Holland’s body in this scene than hers so she’s the less objectified of the two).

There’s too much obvious CGI in the web swinging scenes as well, it’s like it’s 2002 all over again.

I might be nitpicking but a lot of this did feel clumsily written with too many things left unexplained and with a few plot points that seemed to be set up as twists but were very obvious from the start.

Yet with all of this it is still an enjoyable film due to the one aspect that has been the best thing about all of these movies. It seemed at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home that Zendaya and Jacob Batalon were being neatly written out, she in particular being a much bigger star than when she started in the role. Fortunately not though as the interplay between these three central characters is once more a total delight. Due to the events at the end of the last movie, theirs is now a different dynamic but this adds an interesting layer without stealing it of what works. Zendaya and Tom Holland clearly have incredible chemistry and they get a couple of great moments with just the two of them. Jon Bernthal’s Frank might be very different to how he’s been in his other appearances (so perhaps it’s better if you’ve not done your homework on this) but the characterisation of Peter, Ned and MJ is still totally consistent. The absolute best moment here reminded me of that lovely scene in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix where Harry, Hermione and Ron are just hanging out in the Gryffindor common room and laughing genuine unscripted laughs. These three have that same relaxed and believable energy together. Ned is a bit marginalised, so is MJ to some extent, but they save the film. 

It should be said that Sadie Sink is also a great addition to the cast and her story drives the plot more than the issues Peter seems to be having with some kind of delayed arachnid puberty. 

There is unquestionably too much going on in Spider-Man: Brand New Day and much of it doesn’t work but what does really does. There was a better, shorter movie they could have made here but in the end I am pleased that the foundation it is all built on is the characterisation. It is this that made the early MCU films so successful and what the more recent ones might have been lacking. 

It seems that the movie we won’t see MJ and Ned in, or Peter come to that, is December’s Avengers: Doomsday. Based on the box office for this film that might be a mistake but when these players do return, even with the issues, I’ll be back too.