Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the best movie I've seen in quite a while.

This comes from someone who is definitely experiencing a degree of superhero movie fatigue. And yet, I was not taken out of the movie once for the entire runtime. The movie may be couched in "hero fights villain(s)" trappings, but it leans more into the "and discovers things about himself along the way." 

There are several story threads examined that I figured would be handled in a typical and simple way, but were instead treated more with the nuance they deserve - primarily how Peter handles connecting with people who magically forgot about him. I don't think it's too spoilery since that's hinted by previews and fairly obvious from where previous movies left things. The simple cop out would just be to have the magical amnesia overcome by the power of friendship. This movie, for the most part, does not treat it as such a simple matter, and that's good because it should be messy and complicated.

I am not a big Punisher fan, but Frank Castle proves to be an excellent friend/foil in the movie. And perhaps it speaks more to avoiding spoilers than anything else, but the primary opponent presented in the movie was not immediately obvious to me. There are also some other, smaller, cameos in the film that I enjoyed.

Could it have been better? Maybe. I mean, I wasn't really moved by any of the music, I guess? I might argue the metamorphosis plot thread is a little scant on the pay off. But really, everything else clicked so well. I'd say it deserves the reviews and blockbuster money it's making. It might be less good if you haven't seen the previous movie(s) or Marvel/MCU in general - it's hard for me to judge that in an absence of the others at this point. For me, though, it was great.