Spider-Man: Brand New Day review: Marvels only good series is back after 5 long years

Running time: 145 minutes.Rated PG-13 (sequences of action/violence and some language).

In theaters July 31.The entire world has forgotten about Peter Parker.However, back in our reality, the planet has definitely not blanked on “Spider-Man.” Even taking into account the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s crises in recent years, both creative and financial, and the long five-year gap since he was last onscreen, Spidey firmly remains the best thing they’ve got.I attend Marvel movies with the same enthusiasm of receiving hospital test results, and I still can’t quit the webslinger.   And so seeing Tom Holland’s Peter don the red-and-blue suit again in the very satisfying “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is a welcome reunion, although he’s no longer the happy-go-lucky hero he once was.Starting with “Homecoming,” the first trilogy was lovable, candy-colored teen movies.No.

2, “Far From Home,” was practically a PG-13 “EuroTrip.” And the epic, Multiversal finale, “No Way Home,” still popped, but the plates shifted in the end with the tragic death of Marisa Tomei’s Aunt May and Dr.Strange’s consequential spell that erased Peter from everyone’s memory — including his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon).Half a decade later, “Brand New Day” may sound like a Brady Bunch song, but it’s a much darker and more mature movie in look and feel from what came before.

It’s both a continuation of the character and a necessary restart of the series. The personality change of the film, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton of the forgotten “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” begins straight away with an emotional narration from Peter.He’s reading a letter to MJ he plans to one day deliver.Peter explains their past, hopes that he’ll see her again and that she’ll remember him when he does.“Until then,” he says, “I’m just gonna be Spider-Man.” And that right there is the campaign slogan of “Bra...