Spiderman: Brand New Day (2026) Review

The first of Tom's films not to use "Home" in the title, inspired instead by Brand New Day in the comics, the series that followed One More Day (also known as "undoubtedly the worst comic Marvel published in 2007").

I'm going to level with you, dear readers: I'm not a particular fan of Tom Holland's Spider-Man. Not because of Tom, he's a solid actor, but because of the way his Spider-Man was created, and for that we can, at least partially, blame Dan Slott and his hatred of MJ and the "adult" Peter Parker. So from that angle, we got a child Spider-Man when his peers like Iron Man were in their thirties and forties. It's also a poorly kept industry secret that the first drafts of Homecoming were intended to bring Miles Morales into the MCU, before Marvel expected to land the deal with Sony. Things like "Ned Leeds," the gritty journalist Peter knows from the Bugle, actually being Miles's best friend Ganke in looks, personality and hobbies. There's no Harry, no Norman, Flash isn't Flash, MJ isn't MJ. Peter's a teen at a magnet school, like Miles, when the Avengers are already established, and his costume is a gift from them, like Miles. He calls people "sir" and hero-worships Tony. All characteristics of the Miles Morales Spider-Man.

But this is film number four, breaking Tobey's record, and I went in with an open mind. We've had a mind-wipe reset, so if there was ever a chance to give us our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, this was it.

The film opens by establishing that Peter is rich. He's got an impressive computer setup with EV the AI and high-end folding phones (which he uses to stalk his friends who don't remember him). He also delivers a pretty pathetic voiceover note to MJ. There's some blatant foreshadowing of organic webs as he keeps rubbing his wrists. He also somehow rents an entire loft in New York. Again: rich, somehow. His AI can do genetic-level scanning. Rich. It's never made clear how; Iron Man inheritance money, I guess.

He's finally in a much more Spider-Man-like suit, with a mask, rather than the shiny nanobot nonsense we've been getting from the MCU. We also get Pete waking up in a cocoon and discovering he's got organic web-shooters now. My assumption is we'll get some Morlun in the next film or two, if they're really committing to Brand New Day and The Other.

New York loves Spider-Man. So we're not getting comic-book Spider-Man, I guess. He's a MENACE! A MENACE, I SAY!

We get a lot of Spider-Man fighting villains in a recap-style montage, including Tombstone. I hope we see him again. Then we speed-run through MJ and Ned heading off to MIT. So we're looking at roughly three years, and Peter's still not moved on from his high-school girlfriend. It makes sense when it's Gwen, since he was the one who killed her, but this isn't even actually MJ he's pining for.

MJ's dating someone. They don't even bother giving him a name, so it's hard to believe he's anything at all. Pete thinks a lot about kissing his high-school sweetheart, but remembers he didn't tell her who he is for a reason. This, at least, is real Peter: choosing suffering. When she finally finds out about them, he tells her he loves her, and she just kind of shrugs and says, "Well, I don't know you."

He gets hit by the Punisher's van while chasing an armoured truck. They banter; Punisher's more grumpy uncle than deranged killer. The person in the truck is a little old lady, obviously being controlled by mind powers, but it's possession rather than psychic, since it's moving person to person like a force. It's entirely unnecessary for a telepath (though she's actually more of a telekinetic, so this whole thing is off-kilter) to hop between bodies like this; that's not how her powers work. Jean then tries to get the soldier she's possessing to kill himself, saying "save me, Spider-Man." She can't possess him. The tank blows up, killing dozens of people. We don't see it, but it was a crowded building.

This Jean's a monster. She kills an old man just for the drama.

Peter visits Yelena, who's in a Russian banya. Tom wears underwear; it's very American. Yelena claims the New Avengers do "big potato stuff" while Peter does "small potato stuff." Given the only thing we've seen the New Avengers deal with is one of their team being sad and needing a hug, her attitude is doing a lot of work to make the New Avengers seem important rather than a laughing stock.

Yelena also says it sounds more like possession than mind control, which again means this isn't actually Jean Grey. Even though it is. The method is really obvious, and there's no reason for Jean's power to work this way other than to service this dumb race. He gets to MJ and rescues her, but it's obviously not her, since she's not afraid of the web-swinging. Jean-as-MJ manipulates Peter, sexually assaults him (and MJ, in the process), pretends to remember him, and then shatters his heart. It's needlessly cruel, but that is something the real Jean Grey would do.

When he goes to see Damage Control, Spider-Man allows himself to be scanned at the cellular level, which later leads to anti-Spider-Man weapons in the film's back half. It's really stupid, and not something he'd actually do. Peter walks along the floor with the Damage Control chief, which is weird; I think that's one reason I don't like this Spider-Man. He rarely does the actual Spider-Man thing of walking on ceilings or hanging off walls casually. He uses it only when needed, rather than it being part of who he is. Turns out Damage Control have "suicide-squadded" the Hand. Terrible idea. They're also repurposing Shocker's gauntlet. They're being so overtly evil it's annoying.

"I have every camera in the city running a facial scan." Peter's violated everyone's civil liberties to a horrifying degree here; even Otto Octavius's Superior Spider-Man only had his own camera drones out there, rather than hijacking every camera in the city. So this Peter's not great either. Pete builds the Universal Inhibitor. He's going to be responsible for a mutant genocide. That's not very "with great power comes great responsibility" of him.

Jean can control the Hulk, but not Spider-Man. She takes over Punisher and lets Hulk rampage. Damage Control are using non-lethal rounds. How are the obviously evil guys the least evil people here?

Jean is searching for V-Max (basically her sister, with some dumb writing). So apparently they've invented a telepath system, for no reason. When we see them together, with Sara teaching Jean possession, they steal people's bodies and make them dance like puppets for their own amusement, stripping their autonomy and identity. It's horrifying and abusive. Sara gets arrested, which is fair; she's been committing a lot of abusive crimes. I think we're supposed to feel the arrest of this dangerous psychic who's been puppeteering humans for her own amusement is unjustified? But naturally Damage Control pivot straight to mega-evil torture, because they'd been making too much sense up to that point.

Finally, after the torture, we get her telekinesis and her breaking the silly limits her sister imposed. Turns out Jean was just copying her sister's power rather than actually exploring her own. "The only hands that will wield this power are mine" is a very Jean Grey statement, and it's followed by a massive disaster, which is also very Jean Grey.

Pete struggles against five members of the Hand, despite being able to solo the X-Men together (excluding the psychics, and maybe Iceman). It's embarrassing; the MCU is terrible at consistent power scaling. But it's also an excuse to get him to remove the Inhibitor, and we finally get him properly using his Spider-sense, after four films.

"You're not a killer, Jean," Peter says at the end. Dude, you've literally watched her kill a bunch of people.

Jean experiences an incredibly targeted montage from Pete's memory of Aunt May. There's no situation in which she'd have said those words to Peter.

Pete's such a wholesome boy that Frank cries, laughs, and calls him a friend. Guess the Punisher's fixed.

There's way too much body comedy in the film: him falling and hitting things, which, given his agility and Spider-sense, is annoying and clearly just played for laughs. There's a genuinely awful scene with pigeons that I assume is meant to be a 3D gimmick.

This Peter has sensory overload problems, something the real Peter has never faced. He complains about it in the first Avengers film, and it happens again here. It triggers Peter's "arachnid hormones." It's as dumb as it sounds. Peter's journey here really should have been the Symbiote; it's a much closer match for what's happening to him than the Man-Spider or Other body-horror stories it's currently aping.

There are way too many cameos in this film: we've had Yelena, Hulk, Punisher, Tombstone, Scorpion. It's overloaded.

The cinematography still isn't a patch on The Amazing Spider-Man. If Tobey's the definitive film Spider-Man, Andrew's films nailed the way Spider-Man moves, and the shots were gorgeous in a way the MCU just doesn't bother trying to match.

All in all, it's a solid MCU film, typical of the genre, but once again a disappointing Spider-Man film. He's not got the quips, he's not got the attitude, and there's too much super-science, wealth and happiness in Tom's portrayal.