With Brand New Day, Marvel has finally brought Spider-Man back down to Earth. While introducing Tom Holland’s interpretation of Peter Parker with 2016’s expansive, ensemble-heavy Captain America: Civil War may have worked as a flex move on the studio’s part – and its collaborative truce with Sony, who own the rights to the character – it’s been a little strange to the see the quintessentially New York, street level hero so frequently ripped away from the environment that shaped him.They’ve launched him into outer space, across a concrete German airport, and face-first into several of Europe’s key landmarks. But he’s never felt more authentically Spider-Man than he does here, throwing his hands up in frustration because his reluctant pal Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), otherwise known as the vigilante Punisher, refuses to consider any solution more peaceful than firing off several rounds of a machine gun. Brand New Day is not only the best of the MCU takes on the character, it’s flat out the best Spider-Man film since Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 (2004).While Holland’s previous trilogy of solo films had their charms, particularly in the chemistry between his Peter, his girlfriend MJ (Holland’s offscreen partner, Zendaya), and his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), there’s a refreshing commitment to the promise of the film’s own title here. The spell cast by Doctor Strange in 2021’s No Way Home, that ensured the entire world forgot that Peter Parker was Spider-Man, has essentially been used to scrub the slate clean.This is a more mature but no less funny and winsome take on the character, with a flash forward of four years seeing Peter subsumed into the identity of Spider-Man, using his methodical crackdown of local supervillains as a distraction from his own profound isolation. His Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) is dead. MJ and Ned have moved on with their lives, with no memory of him. The extreme stress triggers a change in his DNA. While this version of Spider-Man traditionally formulates his own artificial webs, the sticky stuff is now spurting directly out of his wrists like in Raimi’s films (and, yes, the film indulges in the suggestive body horror element to full effect).Tom Holland in ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ (Sony)Does he embrace the change or try to fight it? It’s a question that comes to sit at the very centre of the film once he starts tailing an invisible, dangerous new threat that can seemingly jump from body to body. Holland has been excellent in these films – he’s the actor who’s always best captured the spirit of the source comics – but the full span of the character, in all his strengths and vulnerabilities, has never been more felt than here.Brand New Day offers a maturation not only of its hero, but of the franchise’s entire vision, too. While returning screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers provide a sense of continuity in the character, its director Destin Daniel Cretton (of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings fame) and his frequent cinematographer Brett Pawlak who’ve simultaneously allowed the series to feel completely revitalised. It’s the first of the Spider-Man MCU films to truly feel like a New York film, even if we’re actually looking at a dressed up Glasgow, with an earthiness and a liveliness to its frames and a lived-in quality to its production design. The action sequences are also the best in the series, largely because Cretton treats them as a joy and not a necessity, drawing from both comics history and the beloved Insomniac Spider-Man games to create striking, slowed tableaux shot in 420 frames per second. It’s striking how much Cretton’s approach allows us to feel the power of these characters on a sensory, immersive level.Zendaya and Tom Holland in ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ (Sony)There’s nothing that can really be written about Sadie Sink’s mysterious role – which has been deliberately, extensively hidden from the film’s promotional materials – without giving the game away. But she is excellent. And Brand New Day’s inevitable crossovers, including the return of Bruce Banner’s Hulk, are refreshingly well done and always with a narrative or emotional purpose in mind. A highlight, in that regard, are the scenes shared between Peter and Bernthal’s Frank. They make for an ideal odd couple in which the Punisher’s R-rated origins are exploited to great comedic effect.It’s hard to guess what the future will hold for the franchise after Brand New Day, considering the supposed universe-imploding implications of this year’s Avengers: Doomsday. But with Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige recently swearing that his studio would, from this point on, be putting quality first, you have to hope he’ll be giving Cretton a call first.Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 dayNew subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.Try for freeADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.Dir: Destin Daniel Cretton. Starring: Starring: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Tramell Tillman, Michael Mando, Mark Ruffalo. Cert 12A, 145 minutes.‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ is in cinemas from 29 July