Ben Shapiro Reviews 'Spiderman: Brand New Day'

Ben Shapiro opens his review of Spider-Man: Brand New Day with a confession: he is a DC guy, not a Marvel guy. He prefers comic book movies that either take themselves dead seriously (Christopher Nolan, Zack Snyder) or lean all the way into comedy (Ant-Man). The middle ground—half serious, half winking at the audience—is not his lane. Spider-Man lives there. Still, he likes Tom Holland as the character, calling him charming, winning, and convincingly naive, and notes that he looks younger than either Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield did in the role.

Yet as a pure movie, Shapiro argues, Brand New Day does not crack the top five Spider-Man films. He ranks Into the Spider-Verse first, Across the Spider-Verse second, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 third, the original Spider-Man fourth, and No Way Home fifth—largely because that one brought all three live-action Spider-Men together.

The plot, the premise, and the problems

The film picks up directly after No Way Home. Doctor Strange cast a spell that made the entire world forget Peter Parker is Spider-Man—including his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon). They do not just forget his secret identity; they do not know him at all. Aunt May is dead. Peter has no friends and has not tried to make new ones. He is lonely and depressed.