Web-el Yell
This movie version of a Marvel Team-Up annual could not feel more like MCU business as usual — or a set-up for bigger crossovers
With great corporate intellectual property comes great responsibility, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day has a lot to carry a lot on its red-and-blue-suited shoulders. It’s coming off a Spidey film, 2019’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, that was a highlight of the series, but left our friendly neighborhood hero and the narrative in a weird place (memory erasing, M.J. pining, multiverse yadda yadda yadda). It has to tee up the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s next big swing, the all-hands-on-deck Avengers: Doomsday. And it needs to remind folks why they initially fell in love with the MCU’s grand storytelling experiment after several years of superhero fatigue, brand over-extension and way too many brick shots, as well as ensure the financial stability of not one but two conglomerate-owned studios.
There are a few other things on Brand New Day’s to-do list, which we can’t quite get into for reasons to do with spoilers and plot twists and the standard fan-service-surprise ballyhoo. What we can say is that all the manic business on display, all the cross-franchise cameos and referencing, all the shoehorned bits of human contact and attempts at emotional connection in between big bang-pow-boom set pieces — none of it does this fourth Spidey flick any favors. The movie keeps getting tangled in a complicated web of its own making, one that feels all too familiar after several decades of superhero cinema sucking up the cultural oxygen. Calling this Brand New Day feels like a cosmic joke. It’s the same old MCU B.S., coasting by on the considerable charm of its two resident stars and a legacy of good will. There’s nothing new here whatsoever.
