Spider-Man: Brand New Day — Tom Holland returns with Zendaya central to scenes

Spider-Man: Brand New Day returns Tom Holland to the role of Spider-Man and places Zendaya’s MJ at the heart of several pivotal sequences.

In the film Peter Parker is once again living with a secret identity while suffering headaches and other physical and mental health issues. A new entity appears to be possessing important people around town, beginning with the villain Scorpion, played by Michael Mando, and aiming to attack and infiltrate the government unit Damage Control run by Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman).

Parker consults other established characters: there is a cameo from Black Widow (Florence Pugh) who speaks to him while reclining in a plunge pool, and a revived acquaintance in Dr Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) that ends in chaos. Frank “Punisher” Castle, played by Jon Bernthal, returns in a fraught frenemy relationship with Parker.

Critics single out Zendaya’s performance as rescuing the film from generic deja vu; her civilian MJ brings a grownup presence and a brief flash of transgressive sexuality that director Destin Daniel Cretton draws out.

The movie retains familiar MCU visual beats: swinging through Manhattan without visible anchor points, digitally rendered large‑scale city damage and a spectacle that the reviewer finds entertaining but less novel than animated Spider‑Verse experiments.

Release dates: the film opens in the UK on July 29, 2024 (BST, UTC+1), in the US on July 31, 2024 (EDT, UTC-4), and in Australia on July 30, 2024 (AEST, UTC+10).