COLUMN: Spoiler-free review: 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day'

To get lost in a good movie is a special thing. Lost in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” I certainly became.

Spider-Man largely excels in its quieter moments. It has me thinking a lot about the Disney-run Marvel universe. Not to get too deep in the weeds, but I haven’t cared about Marvel movies since “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019 (and in an interesting box office note, Spider-Man just bested “Endgame’s” first-day sales record).

Spider-Man is giving us what the other Marvels are not: sincerity. We are in a cynical age. Where being “cringy” is the biggest crime in culture.

Spider-Man’s feelings for his friends run deep. Other superheroes in his universe can’t help giving a wink and a nod as if to say “I know this is silly.” I prefer my characters to be invested and to care, because if they don’t, why should I care?

Cynicism has a chokehold on popular filmmaking and, in turn, culture at large: nothing being more uncool than caring, genuine emotion and expression. This movie, and its massive success, signal that chokehold relaxing.

“Brand New Day” tries to give compelling reasons to watch other Marvel movies. But I am simply left looking forward to the next installment of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, not the universe at large.

The only times I checked out of Spider-Man were during foreshadowing of future non-Spider-Man projects. These asides leave behind the ick of a friend trying to sublet their time share or sell you on a groupon for botox injections. Those moments are thankfully brief and short-lived.

The previous Spider-Man entry heralded the return of the moviegoing experience post pandemic. Injecting a much needed shot in the arm for the art form I so love. Garnering just under two billion dollars worldwide. This, just after Christopher Nolan’s pandemic gamble to save movie theaters with 2020’s “Tenet,” returned the closest thing to box office failure he is likely to ever see.

So, six years later, Nolan, with “The Odyssey,” and Spider-Man are back in theaters. The overlap is all the more fascinating because the cast of both these current films share not one, but three major actors–Tom Holland, Zendaya and Jon Bernthal–playing their parts well in both blockbusters. Why do I point to the box office returns so much in this review? Because you very much vote with your hard earned dollar.

Hollywood is notorious for not learning the right lessons. “Obsession” turned a $750,000 budget into a $4 million phenomenon. “Backrooms” similarly turned a relatively small $10 million into another blockbuster. And now Spider-Man is about to be one of the biggest movies of the year.

I fear Hollywood’s takeaway will be that big-budget superhero movies are back. What if, instead, the lesson learned was that you could make 200 small handcrafted films for the cost of just one Spider-Man? The success of “The Odyssey” is its loving, handmade feeling, not just its spectacle.

In this fourth entry of the Tom Holland Spider-Man saga, we find film culture at an interesting crossroads. The old is new with Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” and Disney’s Marvel juggernaut is limping. Large, tentpole movies do have their place, and I’m glad to see earnestness return in pop culture.

On a local note, the Historic Tivoli Theatre’s new 4k laser projector is a big upgrade over the 2k that served us so well over the last decade. Go slap your five dollar bill down at our Historic Tivoli Theatre, and see “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” playing for the second weekend August 7-9, 2026. Or, if you prefer, it is also playing at the Cinema 67 Drive-In near Gosport this Friday and Saturday.