hile most of the world has forgotten Peter Parker (Tom Holland), the vigilante continues to battle injustice as the masked superhero Spider-Man. As the young man struggles with the loss of his cherished civilian life with MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon), he faces new challenges when his body develops an increasing surge of arachnid hormones and when Detective DeWolff (Lisa Colon-Zayas) asks for his assistance in investigating the escalating attacks on the Damage Control facilities, helmed by Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman). When a strange entity begins controlling random targets to do its bidding, Peter must call on friends new and old in order to save both the people he loves and the city he’s sworn to protect in a calamitous clash against a force unlike anything he’s ever faced before.

Parker is temporarily anonymous, which simplifies his life and allows him to return to merely fighting crime in his hometown. Doing all the heavy lifting for the police department doesn’t seem all that important, however, since viewers are never too far away from being reminded of the space alien onslaughts and the otherworldly gods who caused so much destruction during countless universe-ending crises around the city. It’s difficult to care too much about a bank robbery when extraterrestrial entities are still roaming the streets.

“Being married to the job never ends well.” Curiously, it’s those very (expensive) scenes of detonative action, boasting semi-realistic vehicle stunts and excruciatingly fake moments of a weightless, boneless youth soaring and tumbling through the air, that add nothing to the picture. The CG embellishments once again fail to convince of physics or believable combat, while brief moments of a Doc Ock knockoff (a background type of antagonist called the Scorpion, with but a single mechanical appendage strapped to his spine) are laughably absurd. The bad guys here are beyond unimaginative; plain, bland evildoers who are tasked solely with delaying Spider-Man’s primary interests.

And those interests are reconnecting with his former friends, which provide the only worthwhile minutes in this bloated actioner. There are plenty of crossover characters, making references to all manner of activities from the extensive Marvel worlds (no longer confined to theatrical features alone), along with tons of supernatural elements – which interfere with sensible storylines, as they often utilize randomly conjured predicaments with spontaneous solutions right around the corner. Yet none of that has much impact when compared to the handful of genuine shots during which Peter pines for his lost love (like in a Grimm’s fairy tale, snookered by a spell), desiring a normal social life and everyday pals.

These more emotional moments are routinely overshadowed by the jargon of extremely advanced tech – wandering into speculative sci-fi levels. Not only is everyone an intelligent scientist, but they all seem to be able to toy with computer chips and coding and gizmos as if they were born in the Matrix; all of these characters just so happen to have the right tools and the right knowledge to whip up fancy devices that counteract or suppress the exact conundrum faced in split-second dilemmas. There’s nothing so deflating and uninspiring than an intricately manufactured conflict that is solved by a handy doodad that continues to be dropped or kicked around or shuffled along the floor until it’s swooped up at the last possible instant for nimble implementation. The technological innovations in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” are consistently detrimental to the storytelling fluidity.

To supplement the high-stakes showdowns are numerous attempts at humor, though none of them are terribly effective. And while surprises arise, chiefly in the revelations of who certain personas are, the obviousness of the main premise is disastrously straightforward. “He lied to me!” The timeworn notion of a hero getting tricked into helping the ruthless while thwarting the misunderstood is as insincere and predictable as Frank Castle’s ability to traipse through superpower clashes unharmed, despite not having any special abilities (“magic voodoo shit” as he describes it) beyond unexplained access to a tranche of a military’s arsenal. And in perhaps the strangest realization, this latest Spider-Man episode sets the stage for innumerable overpowered mutants, walking unexposed among ordinary people (and largely choosing to be docile or good), fully circling back to the X-Men series that began in 2000. It may have more polish thanks to the decades of visual improvements, but the tale isn’t all that different.

– The Massie Twins