Holland Returns in Ambitious but Arduous Spider-Man Sequel
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- Tom Holland returns as a workaholic, isolated Peter Parker in "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," now 30 and living alone in a corroded attic apartment after MJ (Zendaya) and Ned had their memories wiped by Doctor Strange at the end of "No Way Home," with Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) killed in the prior film.
- Destin Daniel Cretton directs, following his Marvel debut on "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" (2021), aiming for a "mature," thoughtful superhero drama that the reviewer says works too hard at the goal.
- The 2021 predecessor "Spider-Man: No Way Home" earned $800 million domestically and close to $2 billion worldwide, per the review, which describes that film as both a "brilliantly orchestrated" nostalgia play and a headache-inducing multiverse spectacle.
- The cast adds Mark Ruffalo's Hulk (working with the dark side, "mostly there so we can have some Hulk time"), Jon Bernthal as a "disgruntled action-prole" Punisher, and Sadie Sink as a villain whose motives turn out to be sympathetic.
- Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers wrote a screenplay the reviewer calls "clunkily episodic," with an amnesia plot that becomes "dramatically frustrating" and a temporary power-loss subplot resolved by a neck-mounted "inhibitor" device.
- Holland and Zendaya, who married earlier this year, lend the Peter-MJ stranger scenes a "meta teen-idol dimension" that the reviewer says adds poignancy before the premise grows thin.
Why it matters: The film is "destined to make a boatload of money" even as Variety calls it "arduous" and half an hour too long, meaning Marvel and Sony's bet on a more contemplative, less multiverse-driven Spider-Man sequel will likely be tested at the box office by audiences who made "No Way Home" a $2 billion global hit.
