Brand New Day’ Early Critic Reviews Render A Unanimous Verdict

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Courtesy of Sony

A few days ahead of release, Marvel just hosted the world premiere of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, a movie poised to be the biggest of 2026. That event let critics take an early look at the film, and while they cannot publish scored reviews until tomorrow, dozens are posting their tweet-sized early reviews. They are all uniformly positive, if not glowing.

Many fans take these early previews and initial thoughts with a grain of salt, given that they may produce some level of overhype. There can also be a blurry line between “critic” and “influencer,” though in the age of YouTube, sometimes they are one and the same. However, the same skepticism of positive early reviews was recently directed toward The Odyssey, and we know how that turned out. MCU Spider-Man, additionally, has produced three widely loved films before this as well.

So, what are people saying in these early reviews of Spider-Man: Brand New Day? Here’s a sampling of the ones that have gone live today:

• Molly Freeman (Screenrant) – “I don’t say this lightly: #SpiderManBrandNewDay is the best Spider-Man movie yet. It’s the most lived-in Marvel movie, with its MCU connections, but the story is simple. It’s character-driven with real stakes. It’s what Marvel movies—what ALL superhero movies—should aspire to be.”
• Griffin Schiller (The Playlist) – “#SpiderManBrandNewDay is a triumph from Destin Daniel-Cretton. Bursting with heart, sincerity, hope. A story about the need to be vulnerable and human, to not let the world turn you into a monster… Peter has never been better, THE PUNISHER has NEVER been better.”
• Austin Burke – “#spidermanbrandnewday is Tom Holland’s Spidey at his absolute best… Peter’s struggles here, in the vein of Tobey’s in SM2, are as emotionally resonant as they have ever been. This is far and away his most personal journey. It also features the BEST action we have ever seen from any on-screen version of the character.”
• Erik Davis (Fandango) – “Destin Daniel Cretton’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day injects a ferocious energy into Spidey’s latest adventure, delivering all the thrills you’d expect from a Tom Holland Spider-Man movie while feeling deeper, more thoughtful and more mature than the previous trilogy.”

They go on like this for a while. The worst I’ve found is “actually this part was a bit mixed,” but even with those, overall impressions were positive. Again, even if these are early initial thoughts, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Far From Home and No Way Home scored a 92%, 91% and 93% Rotten Tomatoes score from critics, respectively, with No Way Home also landing a 97% from audiences. And if many of these reviews are calling Brand New Day the best Spider-Man movie out of all three of those? Sure, it may be time to get excited.

Pre-sales reports from Spider-Man: Brand New Day are predicting an astonishing opening weekend and perhaps even the fastest a movie will make it to a billion dollars at the box office. We’ll see how this all kicks off later this week.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.