A brand-new Spider-Man worth believing in

The story begins by condensing nearly four years of time into a meaningful montage. As Peter’s amnesiac chums—former best bud Ned (Jacob Batalon) and ex-girlfriend M.J. (Zendaya)—enjoy college without him, he watches their lives unfold on Instagram while dedicating himself to crime fighting in complete isolation. He moves further away from other people to hide his identity, occupying a dusty loft while taking out high-tech thieves and gangsters, as Cretton recreates several famous comic covers, but gives them a dingier hue. This is no longer the swashbuckling Spider-Man of prior films, but a young man so blinkered and duty bound that it will invariably cause him pain.

In fact, his only friends, so to speak, are a police detective (Liza Colón-Zayas) he talks to over the phone while hiding his identity, and the trigger-happy vigilante Punisher/Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), the former Netflix mainstay, who Peter has to stop from killing suspects outright. This temptation becomes harder for Castle when a new threat emerges: an initially unseen psychic villain (Sadie Sink) who possesses bystanders to do her bidding, which involves using tanks and supervillain tech to break into the Department of Damage Control (DODC)—last seen in Cretton’s excellent Marvel series Wonder Man—for reasons gradually revealed. And, much like Wonder Man, this dynamic between the shady government outfit and the “enhanced” individuals it chases ends up with the distinct hues of a queer story of persecution and suppressed self-expression. It’s sadly absent of any queer characters, but it imbues the story with ferocious subtext.

Around the same time, a minor emotional skirmish with major implications sends Peter into a tailspin, which, in the Spider-Man mythos (and comics like The Other), usually means an existential crisis accompanied by some scary new mutations as a metaphor for puberty. It’s better late than never on that front—the Holland-centric reboot initially skipped over his origin—but the combination of this metamorphosis, and a villain who tries to force her way inside his head, paves the path for intriguing drama. This comes both by way of Peter’s external struggles against this invading force, as well as a particular memory he seems to relive in the process, of his late aunt May (Marissa Tomei), whose death he still blames on himself.

Oh, and the Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) is around too, for an initially plot-centric purpose as Peter tries to get advice on how to suppress these changes. There’s a lot going on in Brand New Day. At times, it can feel like the film is inches away from losing steam, which it arguably does at a key moment of self-actualization. The franchise has a history of overstuffed sequels (see also: Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which both led to major reboots), but like Spidey himself, Brand New Day always makes a comeback. Each supporting character ends up playing a vital thematic role. Banner, who’s temporarily suppressed his mean-and-green side, mirrors Peter’s own emergent, possibly monstrous new persona, as Peter’s new physical mutations like organic webbing are accompanied by an uncontrollable rage. Castle, a man similarly in self exile, has a vital arc of his own, as an emotionally stunted antihero who functions as a kind of premonition of what Peter might become, should he continue down his lonely path. Even Sink’s supposedly mysterious telepath—hidden from the marketing, but for anyone who cares, there’s only so many redheaded Marvel girls she could be—ends up on a dangerous journey driven by grief and rage, in a manner Peter is forced to confront, both in her, and in himself.

Without revealing too much: the film’s occasional use of telepathic constructs as restaged memories leads to a surprisingly somber conclusion—the kind Marvel’s Thunderbolts only managed to execute on paper. It’s laser-focused on Spider-Man’s heroic identity not just as an alter ego, but a folk hero whose own painful hurdles are a learning experience for us all. It’s quite beautiful beneath the chaos, and Cretton gets us there with surprising panache. Brand New Day comes together visually in a way its predecessors never did; which is to say, it has a visual identity.

Its action is fluid and articulate, drawing from both the momentous mechanics of the popular Spider-Man PlayStation games, as well as the choreography of martial arts cinema. This is especially true of scenes in whichPeter has to face a synchronous clan of ninja warriors, Daredevil villains The Hand. The palette is gloomy without being ugly or noncommittal, enhancing Peter’s tale of loneliness, as one of his major dilemmas involves reconnecting with M.J. and Ned—who end up having a delightful presence—at the cost of endangering them. The aforementioned psychic possessions are genuinely eerie too, and the way the camera follows them from host to host—like an invisible wave moving through writhing extras—is wildly entertaining (seldom have whip pans felt so imbued with motivation and momentous energy). And, in especially heightened moments, the soundscape overwhelms our friendly, neighborhood hero, while shadows alternatingly obscure his masked face in moments of moral grey, while revealing it in times of clarity or realization.

This is a Spider-Man who, quite vitally, learns from his mistakes—of which there are many—including who he supposedly fights for, and why. The movie also goes the extra mile (relatively speaking) to give this Spidey an actual, physical presence, where its predecessors simply had a smoothened, CGI Holland jumping around. The result here is one of the best Spider-Man performances you’re likely to find, i.e. a performance of gesticulations and subtle gestures that Holland projects from beneath Peter’s rinky-dink, homemade costume. In some moments, you can even see his eyes beneath Spider-Man’s white visors, which adds to the actor’s wonderfully expressive work.

You can tell Holland has always enjoyed playing Spider-Man—after all, this is his seventh appearance in 10 years—but with Brand New Day, it seems like he cares deeply for this world and its characters, as do his many co-stars. It is, to put it reductively, a real movie the way many Marvel films have simply never been, with tangible textures, a story rooted in meaningful character decisions, and spectacle that stems from heart. It’s hard not to be enthralled by what Cretton has created: a film that, despite its bloat, weaves a web of emotional connections at every turn.