Spider-Man: Brand New Day      Director: Destin Daniel CrettonCert: 12AStarring: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Tramell Tillman, Michael Mando, Mark RuffaloRunning Time: 2 hrs 25 minsThe recent trilogy of Spider-Man films – well, the first two anyway – sit somewhat outside the churning self-importance of the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Sharper, friskier, less weighed down by lore, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home dared to risk giving “fun” a good name. The fan-servicey No Way Home, from 2021, was a tad more bloated, but, given that it hit a “restart” button in the closing minutes, we can reasonably look forward to a blast of summery fun. Right?Well, the new film still has something like a heart. Or twinned hearts. To this point, the aw-shucks charm of Tom Holland and the charismatic petulance of Zendaya have kept the series alive with fizzy chemistry. At the close of No Way Home (for reasons too convoluted to reiterate), the whole world – Zendaya’s MJ within it – found itself forgetting the very existence of young Peter Parker, but the writers here make sure to get them together pretty sharpish. Peter hangs around her apartment in the guise of an unrecognised neighbour. Before long, suited up as Spider-Man, he rescues her from another potentially planet-annihilating peril.The scenes between Holland and Zendaya (married in real life, of course) offer reminders of what these films can accomplish when they embrace old-fashioned cinematic values. Destin Daniel Cretton, director of Short Term 12 and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, also does good work connecting the film with New York City at street level. A satisfying crunch and creak accompanies Spidey’s swings through the urban canyons. There is, however, no escaping the sad realisation that the Spider-Man franchise is now, more than anything else, a cell in the corporate matrix that powers the MCU empire (a jurisdiction that, on the evidence of recent stumbles such as The Marvels and Captain America: Brave New World, looks to be poorly lit by a dying sun).This becomes clear early on when, as some mysterious mind-occupying menace takes over the city, Spider-Man visits a Russian bathhouse to commune with Florence Pugh’s Black Widow. Mention of “The New Avengers” (no, not Purdy and Gambit) will cause MCU veterans, remembering feeble efforts at renaming last year’s Thunderbolts* thus, to mouth the words “Lordy, are we still doing that?” beneath their breath. Apparently. And Pugh’s presence serves as shameless advertisement that more is on the way.[ Thunderbolts* star Florence Pugh on getting her way: ‘I was very sassy. I cornered a few people’Opens in new window ]The activities of the principal antagonist are trickier to discuss. Brand New Day doesn’t really have a stand-alone villain. Even someone who has never seen a film before will quickly twig that the Department of Damage Control, a government agency run by Tramell Tillman’s smooth bureaucrat, is not entirely benign, but its full unpleasantness does not emerge until late in the day. To that point, the chief threat looks to be a young presence, caught in shadowy surveillance footage, whose motivations are intriguingly oblique. What you ultimately make of that character, about whom we will say no more, depends on your tolerance for how Marvel habitually goes about its business. There are certainly good times to be had in Brand New Day. Jon Bernthal offers gruff entertainment as his version of Bronsonian vigilante The Punisher. Holland’s sweet charm generates real poignancy as Peter negotiates a world that knows him only in his super-powered incarnation. But there remains a sense here of lost innocence. Nobody would pretend that the cinematic Spider-Man project – which began a quarter of a century ago with Sam Raimi’s contribution – was anything other than a corporate enterprise. The film-makers did, nonetheless, allow us to pretend otherwise for a while. The current episode could scarcely be more recognisable as product if it had a barcode stamped on every scene.In cinemas from July 29th