‘Brand New Day’ is the best live-action Spider-Man movie since ‘Spider-Man 2’

Greetings, Popculturology fans. Welcome to the “Oops, all trailers!” edition of the Friday newsletter. (Seriously, there are 16 trailers in this newsletter.) You ready to talk about Spider-Man: Brand New Day ... and watch all those trailers?

Welcome to Popculturology!

This publication is a free newsletter, but it’s fueled by readers like you. Support independent news, reviews and more for just $5 a month.

Upgrade to Paid

Includes full access to Snackology and The Cold Open.

A truly amazing Spider-Man

I’ve seen every Spider-Man movie in theaters. The Tobey Maguire ones. The Andrew Garfield ones. The Tom Holland ones. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the best live-action Spider-Man movie since Spider-Man 2.

Matching the magic of Sam Raimi’s second Spider-Man movie is a ridiculously lofty task, especially in the mind of a newsletter writer who spent the summer after graduating high school driving around with his friends as “Vindicated” was on loop in a car CD player.

But Spider-Man: Brand New Day easily outdoes the two Amazing Spider-Man movies (sorry, Andrew Garfield) and feels not only more complete but more representative of what Spider-Man can be than the previous three Holland movies.

It feels like we have three people to thank for this: Holland, Destin Daniel Cretton ... and Christopher Nolan.

After playing Spider-Man in six movies, Holland is finally the star of his own film. There’s no Nick Fury, no Tony Stark, no Avengers and no other Spider-Men to share the spotlight with in Brand New Day. He’s grown into and up with this role, and it finally pays off.

This is Cretton’s first Spider-Man movie, with the Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director taking the helm after Jon Watts led the first three Holland movies. It’s no surprise that the director who crafted Shang-Chi delivered the Spider-Man movie with the best fight and flight choreography we’ve gotten in one of these movies. In Brand New Day, it always feels like Holland is in the Spidey suit. He’s never rubbery, and he battles his enemies in a way that’s reminiscent of how Spider-Man moves in Sony’s Spider-Man video games.

And I guess we need to thank Nolan for casting Holland in The Odyssey and giving him a taste of what it’s like to be in a film that doesn’t take greenscreen and CGI shortcuts? It sounds like Holland was inspired by his experience on The Odyssey and returned asking Marvel and Sony why Brand New Day wasn’t doing things that way too.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is cohesive in a way that many recent MCU movies haven’t been. It’s the opposite of Captain America: Brave New World where you could see the seams of how different versions of the film and reshoots had been sloppily stitched together. All of the guest stars — Jon Bernthal’s Punisher, Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk ... and one other fun cameo that has been kept out of the marketing — feel like they have a purpose in guiding the story. Brand New Day is as close to the comic book version of Spider-Man who naturally lives in a greater Marvel universe as we’ve gotten so far. Yes, we’ve seen Spider-Man and the Avengers save the world. But now we’ve seen what it’s like to actually live in Spider-Man’s New York City.

I’ve long thought that the Amazing Spider-Man 2 suit was the best Spidey suit we’ve ever gotten in a movie. Brand New Day’s suit is better. It wrinkles. It emotes. Holland (or his doubles) is in the suit with its mask for a substantial amount of Brand New Day. There were so many moments, big and small, where I felt like I was looking at a comic book panel of Spider-Man. (There’s a scene that involves a Lego set that I thought was perfect.)

Spider-Man: Brand New Day left me feeling the most hopeful I’ve been about the MCU in a few years. It’s unfortunate that we aren’t getting an Avengers movie directed by Cretton. He brought a voice and an authenticity to Spider-Man that I hadn’t realized was missing. The cinematic universe could use more of that.

You oughta see The Odyssey

I saw The Odyssey on Sunday night, and that film absolutely lives up to the hype.

The Odyssey is a masterpiece from Christopher Nolan on every level. (I also recommend this piece from Slate’s Sam Adams if you’re looking for something to chew on after seeing The Odyssey.) Congrats on your upcoming Oscar nominations, Nolan. I had purchased a ticket to the fake IMAX at my regular AMC before I secured a ticket for the glorious six-foot-tall screen at the Airbus IMAX in Chantilly, and I’m so, so happy the latter worked out.

• “My teenagers had a good time”: You could also read the critique of The Odyssey from Emily Wilson, the woman whose English-language translation of the epic poem is on track to now sell a million copies thanks to Nolan’s movie. (London Review of Books)
• “Nolan is playing 18-dimensional chess with his adaptation — and I don’t buy that Wilson doesn’t see what he’s doing”: And you can follow up that review with screenwriter Cole Haddon’s critique of Wilson’s critique. (5AM StoryTalk)

Production note

The Friday newsletter will be off on Aug. 7. It’ll be back the following week.

‼️ THE BIG STORIES

Marvel locks in post-Secret Wars plans

Marvel Studios is notoriously careful about revealing its plans beyond the conclusion of its major sagas. It’s hard to insist there are stakes to Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars if everyone knows that Iron Man: Tony Stark Is Back is hitting theaters the following May.

But Kevin Feige did put two titles on the board during San Diego Comic-Con, announcing that Ghost Rider, starring Ryan Gosling and helmed by Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy; and Black Panther III, directed by Ryan Coogler and starring David Jonsson, will both hit theaters in 2028. (Popculturology)

• Destiny arrives all the same: The MCU eventually comes for everyone. There was a time when Gosling insisted he didn’t need to be in a superhero movie. “Drive was my attempt at the superhero movie,” he once told ScreenCrave. “I had a costume and everything. The scorpion jacket. It was like my cape. It was like the idea of a guy that had seen too many superhero movies and then decided that he was going to make himself one.”
• Assemble these sets: Lego sets based on MCU movies are notoriously iffy when it comes to their movie accuracy, a result of the sets being designed before these films are finalized, so take the reveals of New Avengers Tower, a Quinjet, Epic Battle, Doctor Doom Bust and BrickHeadz Heroes & Villains with a grain of salt. I love the minifigs in these sets, especially the X-Men ones in the Sentinel set.
• Funko goes on a VisionQuest: Feige briefly mentioned VisionQuest, the upcoming Disney+ series starring Paul Bettany and James Spader, at SDCC, but I wasn’t expecting to already get Funko Pops of The Vision and Ultron. (Amazon) (Amazon)
• 📖 Can Avengers: Doomsday and Dune Defy Box Office Gravity? (Eric Vilas-Boas, Vulture): “Once Dune 3 locked up the Imax screens, Marvel answered by rolling out its new ‘certification’ for premium-format screens, Infinity Vision, that several commentators have dismissed as “marketing.” Even by Marvel standards, this film’s path has been messy. And it would no doubt be a headline-making embarrassment if the brand’s latest spectacle were to underperform or — gasp! — come in second place in its opening weekend.”