‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Review: Always Forget, Always Remember

July 28, 2026

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…Started up a Brand New Day! (CREDIT: Marvel/Sony Pictures Entertainment)

Starring: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Tramell Tillman, Michael Mando, Mark Ruffalo, Florence Pugh, Liza Colón-Zayas, Marvin Jones III, Zabryna Guevara

Director: Destin Daniel Cretton

Running Time: 145 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Occasionally Gnarly Action Violence, and a Little Bit of Language

Release Date: July 31, 2026 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: It’s been a lonely life for the Tom Holland version of Peter Parker ever since his last big screen adventure. He’s still Spider-Man, and New Yorkers still love their arachnid guardian, but a spell has been cast that has made everyone forget the entire existence of the human being behind the mask. He’s inching towards re-introducing himself to his former girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), but he’s got to be careful, since there are always new threats lurking around the corner. This time around, the primary threat is a mysterious newcomer (Sadie Sink) with the ability to jump her consciousness into other people who’s trying to expose a secret at the suspiciously friendly Department of Damage Control. Meanwhile, Peter seems to be going through a sort of second adolescence, as he develops new powers and then consults a relatively Hulk-free Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) to help him get a grip on these emerging abilities.

What Made an Impression?: The Day After When?: To rewatch or not to rewatch? That’s always one of the big questions at the heart of the latest MCU release. With Brand New Day, I wondered if I ought to revisit 2021’s No Way Home to remind myself how we got to the point where nobody remembered Peter Parker anymore. But ultimately, I decided I would prefer not to and instead see how this chapter stands on its own (which is typically my prerogative in general). And I believe I made the right decision. While things started off feeling a little vague, I appreciated that this movie didn’t feel the need to recap itself to death and instead give off at least a hint of mystery.
Criss-Cross: Brand New Day reaches towards the platonic ideal of a true low-key comic book crossover sensibility. We’ve seen Peter team up with all the major Avengers already, but what about the other rando Marvel heroes and villains we’ve yet to see him interact with before? Several of them are in this movie! But not all of them, as that would be too overwhelming. Sometimes superhero flicks have multiple antagonists combined with a whole host of friendly cameos, and it ends up feeling like three or four (or a thousand) different movies smashed together. But in this case, it feels natural enough that all these folks would be interacting with each other in this series of scenarios.
They Had an Effect on Me: My biggest bummer with BND is that the visual effects are too slick in the way that our digitized and sanitized CGI era so often is. There’s just not much tactility as Spidey swings around the Big Apple. Nevertheless, there is a decent amount of emotional heft to the big set pieces. It helps when there are some close-up shots interspersed within those sequences, as Tom Holland’s eternally youthful visage immediately conveys plenty of vulnerability.
Brand New Enough Indeed: Ultimately, I’m pleased to report that I was satisfied by Brand New Day because it didn’t feel like just more of the same once again in the way that so many Marvel movies have. While it didn’t quite blow me away like the most transcendent examples of this genre, I never quite knew where we headed. The reveals are clever, the ideas are sincere, and the enthusiasm is still real.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is Recommended If You Like: A mix of the old and the new

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Lattice Quanta

Movie Review: ‘The Hummingbird Project’ Wrings Some Meaning Out of a Story That Few, If Any, People Were Clamoring to Hear

March 13, 2019

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CREDIT: The Orchard

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Alexander Skarsgård, Michael Mando, Salma Hayek, Sarah Goldberg

Director: Kim Nguyen

Running Time: 111 Minutes

Rating: R for The Profanity of High-Stakes Finance

Release Date: March 15, 2019 (Limited)

The Hummingbird Project has one of the most stunningly esoteric premises of any theatrically released movie I have ever come across. So it’s a bit of a small miracle that it actually manages to be halfway compelling. It helps that the execution is straightforward, but that is also what holds it back from being truly memorable. Vincent Zaleski (Jesse Eisenberg) is a high-frequency trader whose dream is to build a fiber-optic cable line between Kansas and New Jersey that is efficient enough to decrease the time that information currently travels over that distance by one millisecond. But is that really his dream? Is that really anyone’s dream? His cousin and partner Anton (Alexander Skarsgård) is just as committed to the goal, but he essentially has a healthier perspective, treating it as a game or a code to crack. For Vincent, this is really about proving to the world that the little guy can come out on top, but his obsession has led him to turn the meaning of this highly specialized thing into the thing itself, when it actually represents normal human desires.

I imagine that many viewers will have the same reaction to Vincent and Anton that I did, which is to want to assure them that one millisecond cannot possibly be that important, no matter how many millions it will make them over the long run. Their pursuit is fundamentally maddening, though Eisenberg and Skarsgård make it palatable by tuning their performances to a sensitive enough key. It also helps that the script underlines how much they are doing this for a better family life. Vincent keeps reminding Anton that this job will ultimately lead to a charming, country mansion. Their desires are simple, really, as Vincent also promises that he will take Anton’s daughters out for ice cream once they return home.

Unsurprisingly, then, for a number of reasons, it turns out that Vincent is doing this all for his father, a Russian immigrant who was shaken down by government types on suspicion of being a communist spy. That led Vincent to learn that he needs to be so good at what he does that the people in charge cannot possibly deny it. This is a fairly unique version of the trope of attempting to please your parents after they’ve died, but it is not reason enough for Vincent to practically kill himself with his single-mindedness. It is a bit of a marvel how much relatable meaning can come out of this premise, but is still so esoteric as to have been seemingly made for one very specific theoretical viewer, and that viewer is not me.

The Hummingbird Project is Recommended If You Like: The specifics of laying down fiber-optic cable

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Milliseconds