A thing that strikes me about Brand New Day is that it's caused me to do a total reappraisal of Tom Holland as Spider-Man. Like, I honestly disliked him in the role for so long, but BND has shown that it was never Holland's fault; it was the writing and direction for Peter in previous MCU films as a pure and wholesome #relatable soyboy perpetually stuck in high school that Marvel's notorious spider-editorial has been trying to lock Spidey as ever since One More Day.
With BND, the new creative team used the ending of the Watts trilogy as an excuse to revamp MCU Spider-Man into his actual personality in the comics (prior to OMD ruining them), and in doing so they gave Holland the space to show off his acting talents and how good he really was as a pick. Because he captures it all perfectly. The grouchy (sometimes almost sadistic) sarcasm, the self-centeredness and self-pitying and self-loathing, the isolating of himself and requirement of others to break through his barriers, the heart of gold constantly shining through despite himself, the bitterness and wrath and temper, the way he's pathetic and cool in equal measure, the empathy beneath his ego and aversion to difficult emotions, the willpower, the tendency towards awkwardness, etc.. It's all there.
Only a few other actors have really captured that complex, horribly flawed yet always entertaining and ultimately sympathetic personality. Even some genuinely great Spidey media in recent years have fallen into the trap of using the Post-OMD persona (the PS4 games and Friendly Neighborhood), but with BND, Holland embraced lovable loser shithead Peter from the comics and acted the shit out of it. And even more impressively, did so while making it feel like a natural evolution from the Home Trilogy and that "cute sad boy" portrayal he was given to work with previously, despite how radically different the personalities are. I'm really happy about it.
It probably helps that Holland is no longer having to pretend like he's a high schooler and can thus play Spider-Man as the adult he's supposed to be. Which just further reflects the whole arrested development of Spider-Man's comic editorial, how it hurts the character, and how much Spidey media is improved by removing that and letting him grow and change and be a real human being like he used to.
