SPOILERS AHEAD: The new Spider-Man film is about adulthood, grief, and realising that the life you imagined is no longer the life you are living.
Five years is a long time to wait for a Spider-Man film. It is even longer when the last time audiences saw Peter Parker, he had lost everyone who mattered to him. Spider-Man: No Way Home ended with Peter making the ultimate sacrifice: the world would forget who he was, including the people he loved most. MJ, the love of his life, and his best friend, Ned, no longer know him. May has passed, and Peter is left with nothing but a suit, a city to protect, and the burden of being a superhero. Spider-Man: Brand New Day picks up in the aftermath of that decision, and while it may initially appear to be another chapter in the ever-expanding Marvel universe, the film’s greatest strength is surprisingly personal.
This is a superhero movie about adulthood – specifically, the kind that arrives when you have lost people, outgrown relationships, been forced to start over and suddenly realise that the life you imagined for yourself is no longer the life you are living. In other words, Spider-Man: Brand New Day might just be the most millennial Spider-Man movie yet.
With great power comes great responsibility
The film follows Peter Parker years after his final encounter with MJ and Ned. The three have moved on with their lives, with MJ and Ned having gone to MIT as they once planned. They are still the same lovable nerds, only now with degrees, careers, and the looming existential dread that comes with trying to find a job and a purpose at the same time. Peter, however, is in a very different place.
With his identity anonymous once again, he has returned to being the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. He fights crime, helps the local police and keeps New York safe, all while living a life that is almost entirely separate from the people around him. He has become a stranger to the world that once knew him. And that is where the film finds its emotional centre.
Peter is dealing with multiple losses, and the film understands that grief does not always look like sadness. Sometimes it looks like isolation. Sometimes it looks like pretending everything is fine. And sometimes it looks like throwing yourself into work because it is easier to save strangers than to confront your own pain. That is a feeling that will resonate with a generation that has spent years being told to be resilient, adaptable, and productive while quietly wondering whether any of it is actually working.
Of course, most people are not dealing with these problems while swinging between skyscrapers. Peter, unlike the rest of us, has the “luxury” of processing his trauma while possessing superhuman strength. The rest of us have to cope with emotional damage using therapy, questionable coping mechanisms, and the occasional takeaway.
The web of trauma
The film’s most significant development comes when Peter’s Spider-Man abilities begin to evolve. His powers become increasingly instinctive and animalistic. He no longer needs technology to do what his body can now accomplish itself. His web-slinging becomes more organic, his strength becomes part of him rather than something enhanced by his suit, and his spider instincts begin to take over. Even his appearance reflects the change, with the darker, almost predatory imagery suggesting that the man beneath the mask is slowly losing control. But the real question is not whether Peter is becoming stronger. It is whether he is becoming someone he no longer recognises.
The film makes a fascinating connection between trauma and identity. Peter has spent so long trying to suppress his pain that it eventually manifests as something physical. The more he isolates himself, the more he loses his connection to the person he used to be. His encounters with MJ and Ned only make this worse. Seeing the people he loves, while knowing that they have no memory of him, forces Peter to confront the cruellest consequence of his sacrifice: they are still alive, happy and moving forward, but he is no longer part of their lives. That kind of heartbreak is painfully familiar, even without the superpowers.
Grey area
There has been plenty of mystery surrounding Sadie Sink’s character in the film, with fans spending months trying to figure out exactly who she would be playing. And lo and behold — SPOILER ALERT — she’s Jean Grey. Her arrival creates an interesting parallel with Peter. Both characters are struggling with identity and trauma, and both have to confront the possibility that the very thing that makes them powerful could also be the thing that destroys them.
For Peter, the battle is between the human being he wants to remain and the increasingly animalistic instincts taking over his body. For Jean, it is about learning to live with the extraordinary power inside her while carrying the weight of loss — something Peter knows a thing or two about. He understands what it means to lose people and be changed by that loss, while Jean forces him to confront the darker, more instinctive side of himself that he has been trying to suppress.
As an X-Men fan, Jean’s inclusion is particularly exciting. The character has been a major part of the X-Men mythology for decades, particularly for those who grew up with the early 2000s X-Men films. Yet the film is smart enough to make her introduction serve the story rather than simply exist as a nostalgic reference for fans to cheer at.
Examination in process
That said, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is increasingly becoming the sort of Marvel film that rewards homework. To understand every character, connection and reference, audiences are expected to have followed more than just the films. The MCU has expanded into television series, spin-offs and interconnected storylines, meaning that keeping up can sometimes feel less like watching movies and more like maintaining a part-time degree in Marvel Studies.
Frank Castle, the Punisher, is an important presence in the film, while Yelena Belova, played by Florence Pugh from Thunderbolts also adds another layer to the increasingly interconnected Marvel universe. And then there is Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, who appears here in one of his strongest iterations yet.
For committed Marvel fans, that interconnectedness is part of the fun. For everyone else, it may occasionally feel as though they have accidentally walked into a family reunion without knowing who half the relatives are. Still, the film’s emotional core remains accessible even when the mythology becomes complicated.
Visual marvel
Spider-Man: Brand New Day undoubtedly features impressive visual effects, but the film’s strongest moments are often quieter. The scenes where Peter is forced to confront his past carry more weight than the explosions, because they remind audiences that the greatest threat to this version of Spider-Man is not necessarily the villain standing in front of him. It is himself.
Tom Holland’s Peter Parker has always been defined by his youth. What makes this performance different is that Peter no longer feels like a teenager trying to become an adult. He is an adult who has already been through things no person should have to experience and is now trying to figure out what comes next. This Peter is tired, lonely and emotionally damaged, even if he would never admit it. Tom brings that weight to the character without losing the humour and awkwardness that have always made his version of Spider-Man so appealing.
The film’s supporting performances add to that sense of emotional complexity, particularly through the characters who force Peter to confront the life he no longer has. MJ’s presence is painful precisely because there is no grand romantic reunion waiting around the corner. She is there, she is familiar, and yet she is fundamentally out of reach.
Caught in his own web
The film’s emotional approach is what ultimately makes Spider-Man: Brand New Day such a strong success. Beneath the mutants, superheroes, villains, and increasingly complicated Marvel lore is a story about what happens when trauma changes you. Peter’s transformation into something more instinctive and animalistic can be read as a metaphor for the way people sometimes respond to pain. We isolate ourselves, build walls, and convince ourselves that we no longer need anyone because needing people means giving them the power to hurt us. Eventually, the person we become to survive is not necessarily the person we wanted to be. The difference, of course, is that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.
As a continuation of Tom Holland’s story, Spider-Man: Brand New Day succeeds because it understands that Peter Parker cannot remain the same forever. Five years after the last chapter, this Spider-Man has grown up. He has lost people, parts of himself, and now has to figure out what comes next. And if that is not the most relatable superhero story for a generation that has spent the last decade trying to do exactly the same thing, then what is?
Verdict: 10/10 – because despite the flaws, even we’re giving ourselves a solid 10 for making it through the week.