Review of SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY: Delving into Darker Directions

July 28, 2026

At the end of the third film, in order to keep MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon) safe, Peter (Tom Holland) had Dr. Strange to erase him from their memory. In the next few years,  Peter kept himself in obscurity, continually fighting crimes and developing more improved tech for his superhero work. Spider-Man has become a recognized hero of New York City, even gaining himself a friend in the NYPD, Jean DeWolff (Liza Colon-Zayas). Meanwhile, Peter only updated himself about MJ and Ned through their social media posts. 

One day, Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman), head of the Dept. of Damage Control, an agency that kept individuals with special abilities in check, called on Spider-Man to help them with yet another attack on their facilities. The enemy turned out to be an invisible being who can jump around controlling the minds of various unsuspecting individuals to do his bidding. Through all this, Peter was realizing that his extreme loneliness is causing enough stress that was already causing his spider-powers to evolve in a darker direction. 

"Spider-Man: Brand New Day" is the fourth Spider-Man film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, following "Homecoming" (2017), "Far From Home" (2019) and "No Way Home" (2021), all starring Tom Holland as our friendly neighborhood web-slinger, with Zendaya as his girlfriend MJ, and Jacob Batalon as his best friend Ned. For this new film, Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" (2021), took over the directorial chores from Jon Watts, director of the first three films.  

Cretton kept the energy of the film high with all the spectacular web-slinging action sequences, featuring Spider-Man and his mysterious unseen enemy. In addition, Jon Bernthal had a lighter take on his role as Frank Castle, the Punisher, who had some shared history with Spider-Man because of a so-called Staten Island incident. It was great to see Mark Ruffalo's Smart Hulk persona, which he kept in check with a device that he developed. Florence Pugh's Black Widow Yelena assisted Peter from her makeshift bath-house "office." The red ninjas of The Hand also get into the action with their elegant brand of martial arts violence. 

However, as it was in all prior Spider-Man films, it was still its sincere emotional connection that we are truly invested in. Holland, Zendaya and Batalon really have us rooting them as we are brought along on Peter's seemingly hopeless quest to reconnect with his two best friends, and we feel his frustrations and his depression along that rough road. In this new adventure, "Stranger Things" breakout star Sadie Sink enters the MCU with another emotionally-powerful character, whose exciting arc we will likely be seeing more of in future films. 

Here is our bird's eye view up from Row M. 

I was able to watch this much-anticipated film in ScreenX at the SM Mall of Asia, which gives audiences a 270-degree panoramic cinema experience. This is the first film ever where the ScreenX team went directly on-set during production to capture raw peripheral footage for select scenes. My initial worry that our seats on the extreme right of Row M might not give us a good view was for naught. ScreenX expanded those exhilarating action scenes so much that we actually feel Spidey's sensory overload first hand, well-worth its extra value. 9/10