While walking away from the theater after watching Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the words “heroic virtue” came to mind.  If you do not know this by now, this is a Catholic film review blog, and it is the lens through which I view all movies.  When it comes to the superhero sub-genre, it should not be surprising that I would think of such phrases.  I credit my prayer life for this kind of inspiration, but there are those who do not see the world in those terms, unfortunately.  Nonetheless, the web-slinging character, known to his friends (at one time) as Peter Parker (Tom Holland), lends himself to the type of description I pondered following the showing.  Hopefully, the rest of this review will demonstrate why.

The first thing that Spider-Man: Brand New Day is keen to demonstrate is Peter’s emerging career as the eponymous hero.  In an opening mash-up, we see him defeat a variety of villains that fans of the Marvel comics on which this is all based will recognize as classic, including the Scorpion (Michael Mando).  In between these battles, we see him pining for the friends to whom he was once close, particularly Michelle “MJ” Jones-Watson (Zendaya).  In the previous film, Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), Peter had Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch, not pictured) magically erase the memory of the wall crawler from her and his best friend’s, Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon), as well as everyone else’s, minds.  Because Ned likes to put his life on social media, Peter has been able to follow his friends’ career as they navigate college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  It is a useful distraction from his usual work with the New York City Police Department (NYPD).  Indeed, at this point his closest companion is Detective Jean DeWolff (Liza Colón-Zayas), the officer with whom he has developed a crime-fighting relationship.  Still, she only knows him as Spider-Man, and they collaborate early on when an armored vehicle starts rampaging through the streets of New York City.  As Peter does his best to slow down its progress, the ruckus is raised a notch when The Punisher, which seemingly everyone is familiar with as Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), appears.  Thus, the tank-like trucks gets farther along as Peter attempts to prevent Frank from doing further violence.  Because of this, it makes it to the Department of Damage Control (DoDC), a branch of the federal government dedicated to stopping so-called “enhanced individuals.”  They have detained many of the people Spider-Man has defeated.  With the walls of the DoDC facility breached, Peter notices an unexpected phenomenon: individuals are stopping as if possessed to taunt him.  He watches as this force jumps from person-to-person until the Scorpion is freed.  As Peter tries to figure out this new mystery, his past finds him in the form of a chance run-in with Ned.  Curious, Peter follows his high school classmate to the apartment Ned shares with MJ.  There is a party going on, and some awkward re-introductions, with Peter giving a fake name.  However, what sets him off is seeing MJ with another guy, causing him to leave abruptly.  Upon returning to his abode/lair, a headache overwhelms him, the culmination of some issues that have been plaguing him of late.  When he awakens in the morning, it is inside a cocoon he had spun without remembering doing so, and with webs that came from his body, a new ability.  Along with blackened eyes, it marks a more aggressive side of him emerging, and it comes out when called to take on the newly freed Scorpion.  However, it is with the entity controlling him the bad guy, which brings on a sort of tantrum that nearly results in the death of a cop.  Wanting answers on this apparent transformation, Peter visits Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo).  In order to control the Hulk inside him, Dr. Banner has created an inhibitor that keeps the creature at bay.  It gives Peter an idea for a similar device, although his initial tests are a failure.  During these trial runs, he is once again approached by his new nemesis’ avatars, and is told that his identity and loved ones are no longer a secret.  Rushing to MJ, Peter convinces her to come with him, but it turns out to be a trap by the entity, with him having to save her as she throws herself off a building.  At the bottom, the enemy is revealed to be Jean Grey (Sadie Sink), a telepathic mutant who is trying to get her sister, Sara Grey (Olivia Booth-Ford), from DoDC custody.  Not knowing who else to turn to, Peter asks Frank to guard MJ while he goes after Jean.  After getting some help from MJ on his inhibitor, she suggests that Frank lend his assistance to Spider-Man, and the two head to DoDC headquarters.  Unfortunately, Jean has found a way to control the Hulk, which makes putting another inhibitor on her all the more difficult.  After a messy altercation, Peter is successful, and she is turned over to William “Bill” Metzger (Tramell Tillman), the head of the DoDC.  Upon returning for MJ, he is surprised to find her holding a letter he had written to her to explain everything that had happened, one he had been unable to deliver to her because of his desire to protect her.  She is astonished, too, but finds that the spell that had made her forget also means that she cannot return his feelings.  Deflated, he brings her home, but she invites him up to meet Ned because the roommate is a huge Spider-Man fan.  However, during their reunion, Peter realizes that Bill had lied to him about Jean.  Instead, the DoDC, who had already killed Sara, want Jean to experiment on and control her powers.  Hence, another battle ensues, with Peter taking off his inhibitor and accepting his changes in order to not so much defeat Jean, but to save her from herself.  Yet, because Frank had once been possessed by her, he tries to kill her.  The bullet intended for her strikes Peter instead, and Frank ends up rushing Spider-Man to the hospital.  The two make up, with Frank helping Peter get away unnoticed.  From there, it is back to being Spider-Man, though with a new perspective.

One can say that this “new perspective” is the point of Spider-Man: Brand New Day.  The changes that we see Peter undergo are part of that theme, too.  It is one that goes well with Catholic teaching.  There is a tendency to look at the Church as an immutable institution, which is understandable given that there are some practices that are still in effect after 2,000 years.  At the same time, there have been moments when the leaders of the Faith have realized that some aspects of the way things have been done needed addressing.  It may not seem like much when looked at in the long view, rather a slow metamorphosis rather than a drastic leveling up as we see with Peter’s superpowers.  What is also interesting is the way he fights these developments when they begin to happen.  We can also apply this logic to Church History, or at least how it is perceived.  After all, when Martin Luther posted his ninety-five complaints about various Catholic doctrines, the Church did not immediately follow his advice.  Instead, the protestant reformation began and Christians have been even more divided ever since.  It took a few decades for the Council of Trent to convene in 1545, which started the process of addressing some of these issues and making any necessary alterations.  That is probably more history than is necessary, but I present it as a Catholic manner of looking at how we can be hesitant to accept change as we see with Peter.  It is also not about completely giving yourself over to these developments, but learning to incorporate them into who you are.  This is what Peter learns to do by the end.

By the end of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, I realized that I had not taken many notes.  I will chalk this one up as a sign of how well the film incorporated the theme of needing to accept change.  Because it did this so well, there is more to say on the subject.  One of the more significant moments in this regard is when Peter is trying to figure out his inhibitor, and he consults with Dr. Banner.  The would-be Hulk also has no memory of Peter, but it is evident from the way the young man talks about Dr. Banner’s device that there is something more to their conversation.  It turns to the advisability of making something that can control the powers of another, powers that might just be a part of their nature.  Peter approaches it in simple terms, wanting to prevent bad things from happening, such as him becoming more violent than he is comfortable being.  Dr. Banner suggests that producing this kind of equipment can give more power than should be wielded by certain people.  Ultimately, this is what happens with Bill.  The thing is that God makes us who we are, a concept that is complicated in the Marvel universe because of concepts like mutations.  Still, people like Jean did not ask for this to happen to her, and, if it were real, it would be a gift from the Creator.  With or without superpowers, God makes all of us as good people, and we all deserve the opportunity to allow that goodness to shine through no matter how bad a person might appear to be.  We also live in a fallen world, which means that violence can sometimes happen.  We have to accept that we will sin, but that we can also allow good to win in us.  Doing so makes us stronger, and this is what makes Peter a better Spider-Man.

Actually, that is not a bad way of describing Spider-Man: Brand New Day: a better Spider-Man.  It does a good job of blending the superhero material with an emotional core, which is another way of looking at heroic virtue.  We are who we are, and Peter Parker is Spider-Man.  Accept who you are as he does.