Too Much of a Good Thing?

(081226) Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the biggest hit of the year and the most critically acclaimed Marvel U film in a long time. It even broke Infinity War's opening-weekend record and earned over a billion dollars in its first week. This clearly shows that even after the disappointing box office of The Thunderbolts and Supergirl, a good superhero film based on a popular character can still be a massive hit. But while Brand New Day is often exhilarating and does many things right, the praise seems a bit overblown.

The film is much more solid and features better action scenes than Marvel flop busters such as Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), Antman & Wasp: Quantumania (2023), or Captain America: Brave New World (2025). But it has less consistent character development than The Thunderbolts (2025). Also, it never quite achieves the storytelling heights of Marvel’s The Avengers (2012), Black Panther (2018), or the first three Captain America films.

Brand New Day features appearances from the Punisher (Jon Bernthal), Tombstone (Marvin Jones III), Bruce Banner/the Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), the Scorpion (Michael Mando), the new Black Widow (Florence Pugh), as well as a mysterious mutant menace (Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink). In addition, it features the supporting characters, MJ (Zendaya), Ned Leeds, played by Jacob Batalon (with no Betty Brant), Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), and a new Latina police officer, Jean De Wolf (Liza Colón-Zayas), who interacts with Spider-Man kind of like Jim Gordon interacts with Batman. She is one of the film’s most likable characters, but if future films follow the comics, bad things lie ahead for her. Most of these depictions are fine, but the film feels over packed with too many characters, and it would have worked better as a full season of a TV show. The multiple characters help keep viewers interested, but the film is just as much a commercial for the whole Marvel universe as it is a Spider-Man movie.

Brand New Day was directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, an American filmmaker best known for directing Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021). He also appeared in the recent TV show Wonderman (2026), which did not quite qualify for a second season.

The film tells a compelling story that does not seem to fit any single comic storyline, despite borrowing its title from the comics. At the start of Brand-New Day, Peter Parker/Spider-Man feels alienated and isolated. Although he has succeeded as a superhero, he deeply misses Aunt May, who sometimes speaks to him in dreams, and he has become largely friendless. Because of events in the previous film, everyone’s memories of him—including those of his ex-girlfriend MJ and former best friend Ned Leeds—have been erased. Can he reconnect with them and make them remember? These three characters are among the most realistic and human in the Marvel Universe, and the film handles its soap-opera elements flawlessly. The situation, in which only one former lover remembers the relationship, recalls the Gamora/Peter Quill storyline in Guardians of the Galaxy 3 .

This all brings Spider-Man back to the loser/underdog/loner status he had in the early Stan Lee/Steve Ditko comic stories, which makes the character more interesting than he’s been in quite a while, although even this Spider-Man has a support system made up of Marvel U heroes. In the now-playing The Odyssey , Holland is still basically playing an immature boy, but here, for the first time, he is convincing as an adult.

Peter tries to get on MJ’s good side by bringing a housewarming gift when he attends a dinner party at her apartment. It is obviously painful for him to see that she has no trace of romantic feelings for him. She is dating a nerdy jerk named Paul (Eman Esfandi), who, like his comic book counterpart, is instantly annoying, and there are some hints that there are plans for Paul. There's a green label that says “Jackal” on his duffle bag, and the character is shown wearing green, which has been associated with Spider-Man villains like the Green Goblin, the Vulture, and, most importantly, the Jackal. This has led some bloggers to speculate that Paul would become the Jackal, who was linked to the Punisher early in the comics. Despite his part in the terrible, overextended clone saga, Jackal, as written by Gerry Conway, was one of Spider-Man’s best foes. I was kind of hoping that he would be the secret villain in this film. No such luck, but this might still happen in future films.

If Peter’s social problems weren't bad enough, he also starts mutating and begins to lose control of his powers. His senses become overloaded, and his body begins to produce webbing naturally, which interferes with his artificial web-shooters. This makes him less effective in battle, and when he gets worried, he tracks down the former Hulk, Dr. Bruce Banner, who is now leading a normal life and lecturing at a university. Since Banner has found success in reigning in his Hulk powers and destructive personality, Peter hopes Banner can also help him do the same.

Soon, even stranger things (get it?) start to happen around Spider-Man, and an odd force seems to possess or inhabit many of the people around him. The force reactivates the savage Hulk, who has an obligatory fight with the wall crawler. Recent films have turned the Hulk into a joke, but Brand New Day restores some of the dignity and respect that earlier Marvel films destroyed, making the Hulk scary and threatening once more. The Hulk looks like he could annihilate Spider-Man if he just sneezed on him or brushed up against him.
The secret villain also possesses Spidey’s old foe, the Scorpion, as well as members of the Asian assassin group, the Hand, who normally torment Daredevil. These characters get very little screen time, and it seems like a waste to reduce them all to mere puppets controlled by someone else.

It turns out the possessions are carried out by a mysterious mutant who is very skilled at body-hopping and is connected to the X-Men in the comics. When she directly threatens MJ, Peter seeks help from an unlikely ally, his antihero frenemy, The Punisher, and Castle helps hide MJ. Jon Bernthal is again perfect playing Frank Castle in one of the MCU’s finest and most comic-accurate portrayals. The best parts of the film are the interactions between the cynical antihero and the more optimistic traditional hero, Spider-Man, and they have perfect chemistry. Like Peter, the audience can tell there is a caring person somewhere beneath Castle’s cold-blooded killer façade. The PTSD-damaged Castle seems saner here than he was in The Punisher: One Last Kill, which is recommended viewing as prep for this film. Jon Bernthal is so convincing in the part that whenever I see him in any role now, I automatically think, “Hey, there’s the Punisher.”

The film’s weakest element is its portrayal of the secret mutant telepath villain. Her depiction here contradicts much of what has been written about her in the comics. The issue is not Sadie Sink’s performance, but the writing. In the comics, this character often serves as one of her team’s moral compasses; in the film, however, she acts in ways that feel completely out of character. She possesses people, violates their minds without considering the consequences, and appears responsible for many deaths. The film seems to imply that members of a government-oppressed minority are justified in doing anything to anyone, even if it means callously risking or destroying ordinary human lives. A usually heroic character is reduced to a somewhat sympathetic mutant terrorist, only marginally better than Mastermind or Cassandra Nova. That choice soured the film for me.

Brand New Day is not the best Spider-Man film or the finest film currently in theatres. The Odyssey, which also features Holland, Bernthal, and Zendaya, is a far deeper, thematically richer film. But overall, the film is entertaining and chock-full of both convincing action and effective tragic drama. It mostly lives up to the previous lofty standards of the Spider-Man franchise, which is one of the more satisfying and consistently excellent Marvel film series. See it on the big screen if you can swing it.