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4 days ago

Spider-Man: Brand New Day - Full Spoiler Review Rating: 8.5/10 This contains major spoilers, including the identity of Sadie Sink’s character, the ending and the post-credit scene. After watching Spider-Man: Brand New Day, I came away feeling that this is the first Tom Holland Spider-Man film that completely trusts him to carry Peter Parker without hiding behind high-school comedy, Tony Stark’s shadow or multiverse nostalgia. It is not a flawless film, and at 145 minutes it sometimes tries to carry more story than it needs, but it is easily the most mature and emotionally honest performance Holland has given as the character. What impressed me most is that the film does not treat the ending of No Way Home as a temporary inconvenience that can be reversed before the second act. Peter’s decision had consequences, and Brand New Day makes him live inside them. Four years have passed, MJ and Ned still do not remember him, Aunt May is gone, and Peter has built an existence in which Spider-Man is no longer one part of his life. Spider-Man has effectively become his entire life. He lives alone in a dull, cluttered apartment, spends his nights protecting New York and quietly watches MJ and Ned’s lives at MIT through social media. They are living the future the three of them once planned together, while Peter has become a spectator to his own missing life. One of my biggest fears was that the film would romanticise Peter’s isolation, as though sacrificing every personal relationship had made him a purer or more heroic Spider-Man. Thankfully, it does the opposite. Peter is effective at stopping crime, but emotionally he is barely functioning. The city knows and appreciates Spider-Man, yet nobody knows Peter Parker. That distinction becomes the entire heart of the film. New York is full of people calling for Spider-Man, photographing him and tracking his movements, but the person underneath the mask has nobody waiting for him when he returns home. There are small details that communicate this loneliness better than any dramatic speech could. Peter still has the coffee cup from the doughnut shop where he last spoke to MJ at the end of No Way Home. He buys flowers for Aunt May’s grave. He has spent years writing a letter to MJ explaining who he is, what they meant to each other and why he disappeared, but he cannot bring himself to deliver it. The letter is not simply a romantic gesture. It is Peter’s attempt to prove that a version of his life existed even though he is now the only person who remembers it. Peter, MJ and the cruelty of being forgotten The sequence in which Peter follows Ned from the local bodega to the apartment he shares with MJ is one of the strongest parts of the film. Ned has become fascinated with Spider-Man and has constructed a ridiculous investigation board trying to work out who he might be. He remembers that Spider-Man saved him and MJ during high school, but he cannot remember that his best friend was beneath the mask. His leading suspects apparently include Flash Thompson and their former teacher, Mr Harrington, which is funny, but there is something painful underneath the joke: Ned is unknowingly searching for someone who is standing directly in front of him. Peter introduces himself as “Maynard” and pretends to be a neighbour. He gives MJ flowers, and she casually calls him a “friendly neighbour,” a line that means nothing to her but almost everything to him. Then he sees that she has moved on romantically. I liked that the film does not turn MJ’s new relationship into a cheap rivalry or make her boyfriend an unpleasant obstacle for Peter to defeat. From MJ’s perspective, Peter is not an ex-boyfriend returning to reclaim her. He is a stranger behaving as though they share an intimacy she cannot remember. That makes Peter sympathetic, but it also makes MJ’s discomfort completely reasonable.

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