With its newfound status as the highest-ever grossing film in the US, it’s clear audiences are loving Spider-Man: Brand New Day. For all its virtues, though, Marvel’s latest also isn’t quite perfect. The film still succumbs to the franchise’s more grating instincts, once again sidelining Peter Parker (Tom Holland) to focus on the origins of a completely different character. Brand New Day also feels strangely disconnected from the corners of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe that Spider-Man should be intimately familiar with.
After Daredevil: Born Again and Disney+’s Punisher special — neither of which felt in step with the MCU — many hoped that Brand New Day would somehow bridge the gap between the larger universe and the remnants of Netflix’s Defenders-verse. Unfortunately, the film is more content to swing in the limbo between those two worlds: its attempts to fold more Defenders characters into the MCU, like Rosario Dawson’s Claire Temple, were unfortunately cut for time. Of course, there’s no telling if a mere cameo would have fixed that disjointed feeling between Daredevil, Punisher, and Spider-Man — but with Brand New Day heading back into theaters for a victory lap, we may get the answer very soon.
