Spider-Man: Brand New Day review

We’ve seen a rocky few years for comic book movies, part of the dip has been attributed to superhero fatigue, the audience has got bored of superhero movies and we’ve seen it all. Well this film proves that wrong, it’s easily going to be the biggest movie of the year and it proved that the audience isn’t bored of superhero movies, it’s just the bar has been raised so high since movies like the Dark Knight and End Game that we just expect more nowadays.

This is Tom Hollands fourth Spider-man movie and that’s not including the three Avengers movies he’s been part of too. Thats seven movies and it feels like his Peter Parker is still finding his feet and it’s the start of his story.

It’s a brilliant film, it’s made a billion USD in it’s first week and it’s still going strong, it’s got a good rewatch factor due to all the blink and you’ll miss it cameos and fast paced story. It’s also got some of the best action scenes I’ve seen in any comic book movie.

Saying that it’s not perfect, I left the cinema in excited but also a bit disappointed.

The movie felt like it’s been in development for years, either that or Marvel and Sony jut had their best people on this movie. I think the fact Supergirl was original seen as a bit of a threat they might have tried a bit harder to make this movie as perfect as possible.

Cast wise we’ve seen most of the main cast before but I think what makes this film really amazing is all the cameos, they literally delivered so much, it felt like every other scene was an easter egg or comic cover recreation. The movie has so many characters crammed in the original cut was around 6 hours long and it had to be cut down for the theatrical release, that means everything in there is the best of a very intricate story.  I’d love to see the full version, to think they even had to cut a scene with Rosario Dawson helping Peter in the hospital makes me wonder what else we missed.

The best bits are probably the depth of the story, it’s just just Peter Parker and his close friends with a main villain, it’s Peter Parker in a well established crime fighting career. We see loads of world building in this movie and it’s opened doors we’ve never seen in any of the Spider-man movie, I’d say it’s opened up more doors than any comic book movie. We see the first introduction of the new MCU X-men with Sadie Sinks Gene Grey. The Hulk is in there along with the Punisher. A collection of B tier Spider-man villains who come and go. Even though the Avengers and coming to a natural end with their movies, Spider-man feels like he’s still at the start.

Now on to the disappointing bits.

Even from the first trailer it looked like we were guaranteed to see Man-Spider in this movie, the whole mutating DNA storyline seemed like a waste of time, it had a huge build up then fizzled out like a dud firework. It would have been a perfect point to show that darker evolution of Spider-man. Yet they pulled that punch and I don’t think it was a good move.

The main villain wasn’t Gene Grey it William “Bill” Metzger and the Department of Damage Control. In the comics they were an anti mutant task force. I’m sure we will see them show up again in the X-men movie but maybe they we’re a bit of wasted potential for the movie, a risky move for sure. Considering they could have used any of Spider-mans A tier villains as the main baddie.

Bruce Banner felt a bit forced in this movie too, we’ve seen a lot of character swaps in Tom Hollands Spider-man movies, he doesn’t have a Mary Jane or Gwen Stacy, he doesn’t work for the Daily Bugle, his aunt may was a hottie, he didn’t even have an uncle Ben. But replacing a part that looked like it was made for Kurt Conners / the Lizard and giving it to Bruce Banner / the Hulk was just a bit of wasted potential.

One thing I do love about this movie is the setting, it’s filmed a lot the outdoor scenes in Glasgow which is the same Scottish city where they have filmed the Batman movies, it’s got a really nice gothic looking atmosphere and really helped tell a darker story than we’re used to.

Overall it was an amazing movie, I was hoping for a more grounded movie in the Spider-man universe but this one had a lot of great action scenes but I think Marvel are using Sony a bit to sell their own movies, in this one he’s got the Hulk forced in the role, The X-men are starting to form but I’m still left waiting for Man-Spider, Symbiot Suit, Venom, his own A lister villain like Doc Ok or Green Goblin.

Posted by Adi Mursec on August 6, 2026