Spider-Man: Brand New Day Review - Worldbuilding Marginalizes The Hero
· BCPosted in: Kaitlyn Booth, Marvel Studios, Movies, Review, Sony | Tagged: Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Spider-Man: Brand New Day Review – Worldbuilding Marginalizes The Hero
Spider-Man: Brand New Day, like much of Phase Two MCU, focuses far too much on Marvel cinematic worldbuilding and on being a bridge to the next Avengers film, but it fails to come together as a Spider-Man movie.
Published Tue, 28 Jul 2026 08:02:10 -0500
by Kaitlyn Booth
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Article Summary
- Spider-Man: Brand New Day prioritizes MCU worldbuilding and Avengers setup, leaving Peter Parker’s story in the background.
- The film works best when it focuses on Peter’s isolation, street-level heroism, and the emotional pull of MJ and Ned.
- Cameos from Punisher, Hulk, Yelena, Scorpion, and more crowd the plot, though Peter and Frank Castle have strong scenes.
- Spider-Man: Brand New Day delivers strong action and web-swinging, but its overloaded story weakens the overall impact.
THIS REVIEW OF SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY WILL BE AS SPOILER-FREE AS POSSIBLE CONSIDERING YOU HAVE TO TALK ABOUT PLOT POINTS TO REVIEW MOVIES. IF A CHARACTER HAS SHOWN UP IN OFFICIAL MARKETING MATERIAL OR A PLOT POINT HAS BEEN REVEALED BY A STUDIO EXECUTIVE, WE'RE NOT COUNTING THAT AS A SPOILER.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day, much like many entries in Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, focuses far too much on Marvel cinematic worldbuilding and on being a bridge to the next Avengers film, and it fails to come together as a Spider-Man movie.
Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
Summary: It's a BRAND NEW DAY for Peter Parker, fighting crime full-time as Spider-Man in a world that doesn't remember him. The pressure of seeing his old friends move on without him sparks a change in Peter that he may not be able to control. But that transformation might also be the only thing that can stop a shocking new threat to the city and those he loves — a powerful villain no one can even see. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker, but he hasn't forgotten them.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is continuing the pattern of nearly all of the other post-Endgame films. So many of the movies meander through narratives that seem intended for worldbuilding rather than character development. And to make things worse, they're really fumbling the worldbuilding, considering the lack of buildup for Doom. The worldbuilding is now the center of Marvel movies, not something lurking along the edges, and they are all worse for it. The way Spider-Man was introduced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe means he has always been tangled up in relentless worldbuilding and cameos, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day has fallen victim to the same thing No Way Home did: the cameos and references are so much more important than the hero.
The moments when Spider-Man: Brand New Day comes together are the moments when it pulls back and lets Peter Parker be the street-level hero that we know he is. This is a young man completely isolated not only from everyone he once loved but from the entire world, and when we see how that is affecting him, those are the good moments. When MJ and Ned re-enter the picture, you can feel how desperate he is for them, and it's heartbreaking. The new police chief is on the phone with Peter and Mom-ing the absolute crap out of this young man she has never met because she knows his dumbass isn't taking care of himself. All of those moments are fantastic.
The story, however, is all over the place, twisting itself into a Gordian Knot to fit it all in. The two-and-a-half-hour runtime is justified simply because it was a single second shorter, this film might explode from the sheer amount of stuff in it. The list of people who show up in this film from other properties is impressive on its own. We have known about Frank Castle, aka the Punisher, and Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk, for a while now. We also knew that the Scorpion would be around from the trailer. The Hand pops up. In China, Kevin Feige revealed that Yelena has a small role in the film, so she's there, too. There's a dumpster full of various references and characters from movies and TV shows, and some of them work better than others, with the dynamic between Frank and Peter being one of the standouts in the movie. It also makes sense considering the kind of crime they both fight.
Then there is Sink's villain. Ultimately, if there's anything that breaks the movie, it's her, and for many reasons that are impossible to get into without spoiling. She's not bad in the role they have given her, and if this character's origin story is relegated to the B or C story in another hero's movie, that is doing a disservice to this character. She deserves better.
All of this worldbuilding with the cameos and everything means that what should have been the central focus of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Peter's isolation and loneliness, only pops up when the writers remember that this is a big part of this story. He technically goes through a character arc, but all the time we spent with these other references and cameos could have instead been used to make that character arc more impactful. As it is, this really feels like a rehash of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2, as this Peter Parker goes down a very familiar "am I Peter Parker or am I Spider-Man" path, but maybe this identity crisis is a canon event.
The frustrating thing about Spider-Man: Brand New Day is that it isn't bad. That's the thing about nearly all of the movies in this phase of the Marvel universe; they aren't bad, but something is missing from this slate that only seems to pop up in the occasional film instead of almost every single one. Director Destin Daniel Cretton shows off some amazing web-swinging, and the fight scenes are the kind of chaotic we want. All of the actors are bringing these very familiar characters to life in ways we have to come expect, and while they drag the plot down with how present they are, it's always fun to see these Marvel characters bounce off of each other in conversation.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day gets the job done well enough, but whatever magic Marvel wants to capture, recapture, or even create hasn't happened yet. Maybe Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars will be the things that really tie this whole messy phase together. The first phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was unlike anything anyone had seen before, and the fact that it all worked as well as it did might be the greatest example of 'fake it till you make it' ever.
For all that they talked about long-term plans, they were flying by the seat of their pants for a lot of that. The thing that kept so much of it together was the spectacle that they ended up sticking an impossible landing. That spectacle was stunning enough that everything else didn't really matter. The cracks were there, they always had been, but once Marvel attempted to restart the cycle after Avengers: Endgame, it became clear that whatever magic let everything come together the first time around isn't working the second.
The spectacle of a decade's worth of heroes coming together so Captain America can say, "Avengers assemble," cannot be replicated. Even if Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a massive hit, the post-COVID box office says that Marvel Studios can stumble just as hard as everyone else, and even Marvel will eventually stumble one too many times because being "good enough to get the job done" isn't going to keep fans in movie theaters forever.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Review by Kaitlyn Booth
7/10
Spider-Man: Brand New Day, much like many entries in Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, focuses far too much on Marvel cinematic worldbuilding and on being a bridge to the next Avengers film, and it fails to come together as a Spider-Man movie.
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