Spider-Man: Brand New Day — The Jean Grey Review

Spider-Man: Brand New Day has now been out for more than two weeks. This finally makes it possible to discuss something that, in my view, is impossible not to discuss if you’re going to be reviewing this movie. I started out planning to write a traditional review but…the entire thing ended up being about Jean Grey, and I decided to roll with it. No one has yet focused on JUST Jean, but they probably should.

The thing about Sadie Sink as Jean is that it was never something that “leaked” out of the studio sets. It was something everybody just guessed, and guessed correctly. Why? Because it was the most obvious casting in the world. The moment it hit Variety Dot Com in early 2025 that Sink was to be in a Marvel movie — and it could’ve been any Marvel movie — every commenter below the article threshold said “I bet she’s Jean Grey.” You have someone with bright red hair, who’s connected to a sci-fi TV series, and you have a movie studio that just acquired the rights to the X-Men and needs to reboot several characters. What are they gonna do, NOT cast Sadie?

The question isn’t whether Sink is Jean, but what kind of Jean she is, and if she nails the role. The Tom Holland Spider-Verse has taken great liberties with its supporting cast, giving us versions of MJ and Aunt May that look and feel completely different than their comic book counterparts. (Well, J Jonah Jameson is literally the same man, but you know.) Hollywood has gone through two Jeans already, just like it’s gone through two previous Spider-Men, and Sink had to bring something new to the table, just like Holland had to. To say she doesn’t behave like the Jean we know is selling it short. For two thirds of this film, Jean is in new territory…as the Big Bad.

Until she’s identified, Jean is a mystery figure hopping through people’s minds and controlling them, on the hunt for something called “V-MAX.” Spider-Man’s is the one mind she can’t control, but she can manipulate him through other ways. Once he realizes MJ is now a target, he’s forced to introduce himself to her (something he’s been delaying for years now) and swing her away to someplace safe. But is anywhere safe from this mystery person? And how can Spidey possibly fight them if punches and webs aren’t going to do anything?

The identity of Jean is the mid-movie twist, hence why it was aggressively hidden in all the marketing and interviews (for the good that did it). Once you get confirmation of who it is, you wonder if she’s going to stay a villain, as that would be a departure too radical for even this series. And yeah, the longer the movie stays with the unmasked Jean and the more it reveals about her, the less aggressive she becomes, and her motives become almost virtuous. By contrast the authorities “helping” Spidey, the organization Damage Control, become more villainous, showing their true colors in the climax.

This has become the most controversial part of the film: whether Jean’s redemption arc feels earned or whether it is even possible. Jean causes a ton of property damage and endangers a lot of people. She is especially mean to Spider-Man, taking control of his love interest and faking a resolution to his biggest source of angst (I hated her for this too, Pete). Oh yeah, and she also makes MJ jump off a building. There doesn’t seem to be a limit to how far she’ll go.

So with all this having happened, some people walked out of the theater unable to accept that Jean’s redemption made up for everything she did. “Didn’t she kill a ton of people?” is a common complaint.

Movies have always had a weird logic when it comes to murder. The good guys can kill “mooks,” the mindless soldiers who appear and disappear for just a scene, usually descending to their deaths with a Wilhelm Scream of “AIIUGGHHH!” They can kill monsters, which often means the Big Bad will literally turn into one so they can kill them. We’ve seen this in several Disney movies and in the series Sink became famous in. But if the bad guy doesn’t become a literal monster, if he stays human, then killing him is wrong, and the good guy will go so far as block others from killing him with their own body. The hero believes anyone can be saved, or that killing the bad guy puts him on his amoral level. EXCEPT if the bad guy bloats up into a giant deadly mass of flesh and fangs. Then you can fire away.

The head of Damage Control does not turn into a monster…he’s only one on the inside. So in the end, Jean doesn’t kill him. But doesn’t she kill a lot of others beforehand? Didn’t she make somebody run into a speeding bus?

Here’s some surprising news, folks. According to director Destin Daniel Cretton, Jean Grey did not kill a single person in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Anything we thought we saw, we’re remembering wrong, or someone who looked dead just fell down. Wha—but—what about the bus? WHAT ABOUT THE BUS??

Cretton points out that in one of the end scenes, you can see the bus guy laughing with some friends. Incredibly, he shook it off.

Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna, who wrote the screenplay, told THR.com “I think technically, she’s not responsible for any deaths. But you come away with the impression, certainly, that she’s caused a lot of destruction in mayhem. Even if you’re going to have a villain who really is redeemed at the end or goes through a transformation, you have to start them off in a place where they feel formidable. If it doesn’t feel like this is going to be someone who is a challenge to our hero, physically, emotionally, mentally, then you don’t really buy it.”

We acknowledge this is a delicate web to weave. First we have to be convinced Jean is a serious threat, then we have to be equally counter-convinced that she isn’t one. The billion-dollar question: by the time Jean exits the film by riding away to wherever she’s going, did they manage to redeem her in your eyes?

Me, I’m used to this kind of story. I’m used to movies stretching morality to establish a moral, or break laws for the sake of tension. Storytelling has to work in different ways than reality does. If Jean were real, all the damage she racked up, all the people she distressed — all that would matter. But it’s a movie, and everyone in it is make-believe, and the only important ones are the ones we follow. This is just how a movie works, and making the rules more realistic would make for a duller picture.

Do I accept Jean as a hero right now? Well, as it stands at this present moment, I wouldn’t take her on a picnic. But I know the tropes. I know we haven’t seen everything yet. We haven’t heard her full story. Jean is scheduled to return in Marvel’s new X-Men movie whenever they’re able to make it, and she may possibly have bit parts in other films before then. Plenty of characters in cinema start bad and turn good; these characters can often be the most memorable. Jean has red in her ledger, but I trust she’ll redeem herself in the future.

So…we may as well overlook some very recently past sins and welcome Jean Grey into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Because hey….if the bus guy is cool with her, then why not?