Spider-Man, July 30 -- Brand New Day is the perfect next step for Tom Holland's Peter Parker. Four years after Spider-Man: No Way Home, the film leaves behind the familiar rhythms of high-school life and allows Peter to become an adult - not simply in age, but in the way he carries grief, loneliness and responsibility.

Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, the film works because it understands that Peter's story did not end when everyone forgot him. It merely became more painful. Cretton masterfully weaves the emotional legacy of the previous three films into this chapter, making Brand New Day feel like a natural and necessary direct sequel to No Way Home.

The official premise places Peter alone in a New York City that no longer knows his ...