'Are you Peter Parker, or are you Spider-Man?': Brand New Day asks its biggest question yet

Dubai: "Are you Peter Parker, or are you Spider-Man?" Jean Grey (Sadie Sink) asks the question to Peter, and honestly, that single line is the whole movie.

Brand New Day means exactly what it says. We rejoin Peter right back at the starting line, the entire world having forgotten he ever existed at the close of No Way Home. And he does not take it well. It's so devastating watching Peter erase himself to save everyone he loves, then having to live in the aftermath, unknown, unseen, alone.

For me, Zendaya was the movie. Full stop.

The scenes between Peter and MJ are the best thing here, and my only real complaint is that I wanted more of them. There's a lived-in warmth to Zendaya that the film keeps reaching for, and every time she's on screen, it lifts. Watching Peter pine for her from a distance, watching her live a life that no longer has him in it, that's where Brand New Day actually lands its emotional punches, far more than in any of its bigger set pieces.

Ned deserved more too. Jacob Batalon has always been the goofy, grounding heart of these films, and I found myself missing him whenever he wasn't around. The friendship between Peter and Ned is half the reason this trilogy ever worked, and the film is at its warmest when it remembers that.

The highlight of the movie is Spider-Man's newest body-horror like abilities. Peter's isolation, all that loneliness and longing, triggers something in his biology. A hormonal mutation kicks in, pushing him into the next stage of his spider's life cycle: hypersensitive senses, sensory overload, his own body turning against him.

And then there are the eyes. Every time Peter's eyes flipped to solid black, like a switch thrown, it was a genuine thrill.

Call it his super saiyan mode: the moment the ordinary friendly-neighbourhood Spidey tips into something more primal and dangerous. It kept me on the edge of my seat, half-hoping he wouldn't slip up, wouldn't lose the city's hard-won trust, wouldn't end up branded a monster. It's a bold, slightly unsettling direction for a Spidey film.

That tension, the fear of the very thing he's fighting to be seen as, ties beautifully back to Jean Grey's question. The physical crisis mirrors the emotional one. Who is he, really, when everything that made him Peter Parker has been stripped away?

One of the film's best surprises is technical. For the first time, we get to sit inside Spider-Man's mask, seeing the city the way he does, feeling what it's like to web-sling between buildings and throw yourself off a rooftop to get across town.

It's genuinely immersive, and it reminded me instantly of Marvel's Spider-Man game on PlayStation and Steam, that same giddy rush of swinging through Manhattan. It's the closest a film has come to putting you in the suit rather than just watching it. I can only imagine how much fun this sequence would be in 4DX, seats lurching with every drop and swing.

The performances are where Brand New Day is genuinely stacked, top to bottom.

Tom Holland has grown into this role in a way that shows. At 30, he's more mature, more physically built, and his Spider-Man reflects that heftier, steadier presence. But what still makes him the perfect Peter Parker is his face, that forever-young, wide-eyed look of pure innocence. It's exactly why the heartbreak lands so hard. When Peter is distraught, hollowed out by loneliness, Holland sells it completely, and you feel every bit of it.

Speaking to other cinemagoers afterwards, one name kept coming up: Frankie. Jon Bernthal's Punisher didn't just hold his own, he stole scenes outright, and everyone I spoke to absolutely adored him. Florence Pugh's Black Widow cameo is another highlight, brief but a real treat.

I also have to shout out the side cast, the actors playing characters possessed by Jean Grey. The way they'd snap back to themselves, blinking into a confused "Spider-Man, what am I doing here?", was some of the most fun in the whole film. Great acting on every front.

Not everything worked for me. Jean Grey, despite being positioned as central to Peter's journey, didn't land as well as I'd hoped, and I'd happily have traded some of her screen time for more MJ, more Ned, or honestly, more Hulk.

That last one stung a little. Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner turning up should be a highlight, and the Peter-versus-Hulk dynamic teases something great, but it's over almost before it begins. Give me the full Spider-Man and Hulk showdown the film keeps hinting at.

By the end, yes. Genuinely.

The Peter who starts this film forgotten and alone finishes it beloved again, the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man New York adores, Ned's best friend once more, web-slinging back into a life that finally has room for him in it. He answers Jean Grey's question, too, not as Peter or Spider-Man, but as both. It's a satisfying full-circle arc, even if the road there occasionally spends its time on the wrong characters.

Flawed, a little uneven, but its heart is in the right place, and its heart, more often than not, is Zendaya's MJ.

It lands in UAE cinemas on 30 July, so you can catch your friendly neighbour web-slinging into town once again.