Near the end of Destin Daniel Cretton’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day, I was reminded of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 (in my eyes the best Spider-Man film). It’s a scene where the superhero (Tobey Maguire) has prevented a train from derailing. Using all his might, tensile strength and will-power, he faints after the act. About to collapse, he’s caught by those inside the train. His unconscious body surfs over a sea of New York commuters, after which he’s carefully laid down. It’s the first time the city sees him without his mask. Similarly, in Cretton’s film, Spider-Man (Tom Holland) needs to be saved by the very city he’s spent his life defending. In a genre that thrives on an individual saving the world, I was touched to see a hurt, vulnerable ‘hero’ extending his hand (ever so briefly) to the city’s finest. It’s no surprise both scenes, championing community values, take place in films centred around the ‘friendly, neighbourhood superhero’. 

In a franchise that now spans nine films, two reboots (Tobey Maguire featured in three, Andrew Garfield in two, and this is Tom Holland’s fourth standalone film), it would be easy for Cretton to come on board and make a film that looks, sounds, feels like the umpteen green-screen films churned out on the superhero assembly line. And yet, a thing that genuinely took me by surprise is how writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, along with Cretton, are able to locate a young person’s honest feelings and anxiety underneath that franchise bluster.

After Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), where Peter Parker’s (Holland) memory is wiped for the whole world,........

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