Spider-Man: Brand New Day Review: Tom Holland’s Superhero Confronts Existential Pangs In Muted Return

Picking up four years after the events of No Way Home, Spider-Man: Brand New Day doubles down on the sad loner life Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is now saddled with. Everyone he loves has forgotten him, thanks to the spell Doctor Strange cast. Parker made the ultimate sacrifice. For mankind to get by, he annulled what his own life carried. Memories were erased, but of course, he’s clutching on. The love of his life, MJ (Zendaya), still bristles in his heart. He misses his best friend, Ned (Jacob Batalon). Parker zips through New York City, scrubbing away one attempted robbery after another. However, he gets a jolt when an enigmatic telepathic entity advances on Damage Control. Severance star Tramell Tillman commands the room as the Damage Control head, but honestly, the film offers him little apart from a groan-inducingly predictable reveal.

This film is essentially a reckoning with Spider-Man’s fragility and keening humanity. It’s a confrontation Parker has with his mortal self beneath the superhero appendages. He has to realise who he is, embrace himself along with all that it takes. But to make reckonings accrue a dramatic emphasis, you need a solid aftermath to clasp onto. Consequences can’t just be vagaries subject to pleasing the unending, all-consuming appetite of a relentless fandom. Admittedly, there’s a handful of striking sequences like Spider-Man’s duel with the Hand. To witness the ninjas gracefully swish midair and rain a barrage of attacks can elicit few gasps.

Brand New Day tends to be clouded by superhero movie fatigue. A degree of recycling past iterations can only go so far if there’s no gesture to stake out new territory. The burden is huge. Not only must an instalment endure as a satisfying standalone but also weave into the canon, hark to the past and usher in the future. The multiverse legion of superheroes, the particular fan baggage all cleave in to feed a grand narrative. Sorely sticking out is Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk. Florence Pugh, as the Black Widow, fares better, dishing out especially memorable bits of wry humour. Jon Bernthal’s Frank/Punisher ribbing with Spider-Man over choosing a more violent tactics still boasts enough amusement.

In between, director Destin Daniel Cretton does land some sincere emotional moments. A late turn from Sadie Sink brings just the right flare of unpredictability. However, I’d be lying if I claimed I cared much for the telepathic hopping. The conceit bewilders the masked crusader, leaving him outwitted. It puzzled me that he, who has encountered and endured so much variety of threats, is frazzled by a telepath. As crushingly sweet and irresistibly endearing Holland is, it’s grown a bit tiring to watch him deal with a coming-of-age trajectory for a decade. He does appear more relaxed in the role than even a minute as Telemachus in The Odyssey. He’s accustomed to the tone and rhythm of the character. The film’s central hook is Parker caught in the throes of a split with his Spider-Man avatar. When his human DNA starts getting affected, he’s sent into a tizzy. Brand New Day siphons some genuinely arresting moments of immediacy when Spider-Man is leaping from one rooftop to another. The shift to a breathless, dizzying first-person POV is exhilarating.

Holland and Zendaya have a bunch of heart-tugging moments. The actress is remarkable even more when her MJ is hijacked by the supposed villain. She culls forth a spikiness, an edge, nicely contrasting with Holland’s vulnerability. Bittersweetness that tinges their scenes linger. Parker has to come to terms with his own self, own up to the duality. He tries to evade it. The mutating effects terrify him until he learns to accept and partake in the strength of both.

However, these superhero movies really suffer from a crisis of fate. Death hovers but the makers always ensure the door remains open for retrieval, renewal, some form of return. Hence, things can never be as bad as they initially posture. You know these special beings will ultimately be saved or save the day themselves. Naturally, this whittles down a likelihood of taking any danger with due seriousness. Scope of heart-thumping suspense risks being ditched. For every franchise entry that closes with gloom and doom, rest assured the next chapter will reverse-engineer, rouse the very thing teased as lost forever. Menace flickers sporadically before it’s doused dutifully. Spider-Man might sustain severe casualties, but things can never turn too terrible or entirely unsalvageable.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day heads for a profoundly moving climax, a rare spark of connection. It’s a sobering departure from all the noise and fury, but it feels too little, too late. The pathos gets lost amidst all the hand-wringing over Parker’s maintaining no-contact with his loved ones when it easily and comfortably backtracks by the close.