‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Engagingly Spins a Dark Web

Hard as it may be to believe, there are a lot of us superhero fans still around who were born around the same time that Spider-Man was first introduced. Subsequently we spent our childhoods and most of our adulthoods lamenting that there could never be a decent cinematic adaptation of our favorite web-headed hero.The original animated series was dismal — except for the music; the 1960s were the years when even the shoddiest cartoon shows had great theme songs — and the various attempts to create a live action Spider-Man were even worse. The technology just did not exist to put a convincing version of Peter Parker’s alter ego on either the big screen or the small.It wasn’t until the character turned 40 in 2002 that Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man,” starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, with its then-groundbreaking CGI imagery, gave us the cinematic incarnation we’d been waiting all those years for. Since then, Spider-Man has perhaps become even more meaningful as a feature film franchise than as a comic book character.In the last 25 years, we’ve had nine standalone Spidey movies, two perhaps even more sophisticated “Spider-Verse” pictures, a bunch of villain spin-off movies (of which the “Venom” trilogy was by far the most successful), and the character’s appearance in a bunch of “Avengers” flicks and other Marvel Cinematic Universe entries.Therefore us old-timers still feel grateful that we are given any decent representation of Mr. Parker and company on screen. We’ve already had three different actors in the role, and even though the cast remains the same for the brand new “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” the fourth appearance of young British actor Tom Holland in the lead role, may signify another pivot for the franchise.This is the darkest and most serious entry yet, which is something of a surprise as the previous episode, 2021’s “No Way Home” was perhaps the lightest. There’s also been a tendency to get increasingly epic with the character, which is a contrast from his familiar status as our “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.” Part of the appeal was the local urban setting, and there are moments here where we do indeed feel like Spider-Man is firmly grounded in Soho or Williamsburg.Like Daredevil or Batman, over at DC, Spider-Man was usually saving the city, whereas other teams were going much more grandiose; the X-Men were saving the planet and the Avengers nothing less than the whole universe. Lately, costumed heroes have grown ambitious enough to first invent and then save the multiverse.So how do you give Spider-Man a larger canvas without making the whole affair somewhat pretentious? One cool trick is to bring in guest stars. This time we have Jon Bernthal as The Punisher, a Dirty Harry-inspired vigilante with no apparent superpowers other than a gruff attitude and extreme sarcasm, Florence Pugh as the new Black Widow, who may have the unique honor of being the first super heroine to induce Spider-Man into joining her in a schvitz, and Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk.The latter is especially welcome as this time we get not the intelligent chartreuse colossus but the original recipe 1960s-style not so-jolly green giant with the mind and vocabulary of an aggressive six-year-old. And there’s an X-Man who makes a surprise appearance; I won’t spoil that one for you, but I will tell you that she’s played by Sadie Sink.Despite all the darkness and heaviness, there are light moments and the customary snappy wallcrawler one-liners galore: the story begins with our hero stopping a villain called the Scorpion by bashing him over the head with a grand piano. (Talk about a fine way to treat a Steinway.) There are also easter eggs for old-school fanboys, like a visual recreation of Spidey’s first appearance in “Amazing Fantasy” #15. Tom Hollland and Zendaya in ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day.’ Sony PicturesConsidering that both Mr. Holland and Mr. Bernthal as well as Zendaya, who plays Peter’s love interest — a less prominent role this time than in the three previous Tom Holland films — were all in the blockbuster version of “The Odyssey” that opened two weeks ago, it’s tempting to make the comparison.In this outing, more than any other, Peter Parker undergoes a true hero’s journey, experiences an epic fail but ultimately finds redemption in a way that — dare I say it? — is substantially more moving here than in Christopher Nolan’s film.Here’s hoping that Tom Holland keeps playing the character for years to come. Surely no other actor has succeeded in helping an audience in the hundreds of millions all channel our inner Spider-Man.

‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Engagingly Spins a Dark Web

‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Engagingly Spins a Dark Web

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