Jon Bernthal's Punisher hits the big screen in Brand New Day

On 29/07/2026, the day of the French release of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, one name kept coming up in the critics' copy, and it was not a villain's. Jon Bernthal, back in Frank Castle's skin, stands out as one of the most commented-on elements of the first press reactions. Three questions remain: where this Punisher comes from, what the critics say about his role, and what his presence changes about the lead character's tone. The figures quoted here are timestamped 29/07/2026 and keep moving.

Where this Frank Castle comes from: a character built outside the cinema

What makes this Punisher distinctive is his production history. Unlike almost every partner Peter Parker has crossed paths with so far, Frank Castle was not introduced in a film: the character as Jon Bernthal plays him was built on television series, in a harsher register than that of costumed blockbusters. If this film is where you discover him, our feature on Frank Castle's origin, his lethal methods and his skull symbol takes it back to the source.

The Netflix series, the character's historic foundation

For the full context, the specialist press points first to the Netflix productions. According to the viewing guides published around the release by NME, ScreenRant and Gameblog, two sets matter: the three seasons of Daredevil broadcast between 2015 and 2018, featuring both Frank Castle and the ninja assassin organisation The Hand, then the two seasons of The Punisher, between 2017 and 2019. Gameblog and ScreenRant consider this second block all but essential rather than optional, precisely because Bernthal has a leading role in the film, whereas Daredevil is a bonus for completists.

This genealogy explains much of the effect on screen: a character honed over dozens of hours of television arrives with a density that no twenty-minute introduction could manufacture. It also explains why the film sits in what English-language critics call the 'street-level' register: urban crime, score-settling, human-scale stakes. That closeness is nothing new, as shown by the turbulent history linking Spider-Man and the Punisher, from clashes to an unstable partnership and in the underrated alliance between Spider-Man and Daredevil.

Daredevil: Born Again season 2, then a special of his own

The most recent link is the most direct. Season 2 of Daredevil: Born Again, broadcast from 24/03/2026 to 05/05/2026 on Disney+, takes place roughly six months after the first and, going by the placement adopted by the specialist media, just before the events of Brand New Day. Marvel has never specified the exact gap, but Brad Winderbaum, head of streaming and television at Marvel Studios, told Entertainment Weekly that his teams talk a great deal with the film's team to keep everything consistent. Two characters bridge the two: Frank Castle, and Sheila Rivera, played by Zabryna Guevara.

There is a third anchor point: Bernthal also carried the character in a special of his own, The Punisher: One Last Kill. The guides published around the release converge on the same street-level perimeter, built around the block of Daredevil, The Punisher, Daredevil: Born Again and One Last Kill. The Frank Castle of Brand New Day is therefore not a version restarted from scratch: he is the culmination of a continuity maintained across several formats, whose benefit the film collects without re-explaining a thing.

A big-screen first in the MCU

The most notable fact is easy to miss because it seems so obvious: this is the character's first big-screen appearance in the MCU. Bernthal takes the role back alongside Tom Holland, and an openly lethal vigilante thus joins a franchise whose previous partners included no equivalent: an editorial choice, not a casting detail, in the same way as the Fresh Start suit revealed for this new era. Our guide to the Spider-Man films in order and our complete list of MCU films map it all out.

What the critics say about the Punisher in Brand New Day

On this point the press file is unusually clear: Bernthal is among the most frequently cited elements in the first reviews, and it is above all the dynamic set up with Peter Parker that wins unanimous praise — not an isolated judgement, but a convergence between writers who disagree on almost everything else.

'Bernthal might be the cast highlight'

The phrase is Liz Shannon Miller's, who gave the film a B+ for Consequence: Bernthal might well be the high point of the cast. She adds that it is a pure pleasure to watch Frank and Peter yell at each other — a way of saying that the film exploits the friction rather than smoothing it over. At TheWrap, William Bibbiani describes Bernthal as a perfect foil for Tom Holland and calls their double act a comedy gold mine; the phrase is aimed at the pairing as a whole, not at the Punisher alone, and the nuance matters.

The observation goes beyond those two voices. Charlie Ridgely, who scores the film 8 out of 10 for Collider, writes that the biggest improvement belongs to Bernthal's Punisher, praises impeccable chemistry between the two actors and describes him as a genuine scene-stealer. In Empire, John Nugent paints Frank Castle as Peter's occasional frenemy, whose heated exchanges bring a very New York energy.

The duo, not the vigilante alone

These reactions do not quite say what a hurried reader might make them say. What the critics celebrate is not a solo show of force, but a balance of power: two irreconcilable methods, a moral friction sustained rather than resolved. The film does not manufacture a tight-knit team; it sets two temperaments on a collision course and films the sparks.

That collision overlaps an old tension in the hero, the one explored by our moral analysis of the sacrifice made in No Way Home. A character defined by his restraint facing a vigilante defined by the absence of restraint: the material has existed since the comics, and the film seizes on it. Our page on Peter Parker and the real face of Spider-Man picks the thread up from the start.

A consensus that holds even among the more reserved critics

The strongest signal comes from the sceptics, and the reception is far from unanimous. David Ehrlich, in IndieWire, gives the film only a C-, describes it as a drab and gloomy Marvel sequel, and finds the antagonist's backstory predictable. Owen Gleiberman, in Variety, judges it half an hour too long — it runs 2 hours 25, or 145 minutes — a criticism shared by several colleagues who describe a bloated narrative. Bibbiani, enthusiastic though he is, slips in that the villain's plan does not hold up: an isolated remark, not a consensus.

Other reservations come up more often. Edward Douglas, of the Weekend Warrior, quoted by Rotten Tomatoes, reckons the scenes bringing together Holland, Zendaya and Batalon are the best in the film, even if the three of them are together far less often than in any previous instalment. Rolling Stone, under David Fear's byline, sees in it a set-up designed to prepare future crossovers. Empire questions the irruption of another Marvel hero, who, in Nugent's words, smashes the buildings and the narrative rhythm alike. None of these reservations is aimed at Bernthal.

What his presence changes for Spider-Man's tone

This is the most measurable part. Frank Castle's arrival is not cosmetic: it belongs to a set of decisions that make this the harshest Spider-Man of the Tom Holland era, alongside the abandonment of the multiverse and the hero's isolation.

The multiverse shelved, the street back at the centre

The word that comes up most among English-language critics is 'grounded': Rotten Tomatoes headlined its round-up of the first reviews on the idea of a Spider-Man story more grounded and more adult than any before it. The film sets aside the multiverse plot that structured No Way Home in favour of a story rooted in New York street crime. Kevin Feige described a real Spider-Man facing human-scale threats, and the New York Post notes that there is more power in protecting your city than in saving the universe.

David Rooney, chief film critic at the Hollywood Reporter, praises a film that has the good sense to stop harping on about the multiverse and foregrounds the humanity that has always been the character's greatest strength, with an extra dose of anguish. To measure how far things have come, revisit what No Way Home had changed for the Spider-Man universe and how the multiverse made its way into the MCU: the contrast with the sunny tone of Homecoming and the post-Endgame Spider-Man of Far From Home is striking.

A Peter Parker on his own, four years after the spell

The second factor lies in the narrative starting point. Brand New Day takes place four years after No Way Home, its opening scene set nine months after the previous film's finale. The forgetting spell cast by Doctor Strange, which erases Peter Parker from the memory of the entire world, is its direct starting point. Director Destin Daniel Cretton describes a completely isolated Peter, and the press mentions a psychological distress that rebounds on his powers. To Den of Geek, Tom Holland presented the long gap between the two films as a deliberate choice, meant to let the characters grow off camera.

That Peter is no longer the same interlocutor for Frank Castle. A hero surrounded by others would have sent the vigilante back to his marginality; an isolated hero, hardened and bruised by grief and loneliness — the phrasing is Empire's, describing a Peter less puppy-ish than before — becomes a far more dangerous echo chamber for the arguments of a man who has given up all restraint. On what is left of the memory, we dug into the question of whether MJ remembers Peter Parker, and the great reset whose title the film borrows from the comics sheds light on the editorial origin of that blank page.

The hardening, measured by the official classifications

There is a non-subjective way of checking this hardening: the classification decisions. In the UK, the BBFC rated the film 12A on 28/07/2026, with four descriptors — moderate violence, threat, injury detail, implied strong language. That mention of injury detail appears on no other MCU Spider-Man: No Way Home carried only moderate violence and threat, without the slightest mention of blood, while Homecoming and Far From Home spoke of fantasy violence. The BBFC describes frequent scenes of violence — punches, blows to the head, bladed weapons, firearms and explosions — and flags bloodied characters, including a close-up of a bloodied face.

In the United States, the Motion Picture Association rates the film PG-13 for sequences of action and violence, and some strong language. Common Sense Media recommends it from age 11 and places the violence at the highest level on its scale: injuries with blood, firearms and bladed weapons, explosions and a torture scene. In France, by contrast, the film is rated Tous publics, with no legal restriction, under exhibition visa number 167934 issued by the CNC on 06/07/2026 with no advisory: parents who want a precise idea of the level of violence will therefore do well to consult the BBFC entry or the Common Sense Media one.

One last element, flagged without giving too much away: according to the content advisories published at release by Movieguide and Plugged In, the main antagonist takes mental control of people by moving from one body to another and turns civilians against Spider-Man. To identify the adversaries without having the plot spoiled, see our overview of the villains of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, rounded out by our features on Michael Mando taking the Scorpion back, on Tarantula and his poisoned spurs and on The Hand, the clan of red ninjas. Our complete guide to Spider-Man's enemies places all of them in the web-slinger's historic rogues' gallery.

What not to expect from this crossover

Expectations ran away with themselves from the trailers onwards, hence this clarification: Frank Castle's presence does not mean the film summons the whole of Marvel's New York neighbourhood. Charlie Cox denied taking part as early as October 2025, so do not expect to see Daredevil. What carries over from the series to the film is the context left by Daredevil: Born Again, not the character. Not a team-up episode, then, but a two-handed face-off in a story whose centre of gravity remains Peter Parker. Anyone hoping for more will find food for discussion in our breakdown of the post-credits scene and the film's ending, to be saved for those who accept spoilers.

Should you catch up on the series before the screening?

If you only rewatch one film before Brand New Day, make it No Way Home, whose forgetting spell is the direct starting point. Most guides recommend adding the rest of the Tom Holland trilogy, and even Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, with some outlets widening the list to Daredevil: Born Again and the Punisher series. On Born Again specifically, opinions differ: ScreenRant and The Mary Sue see it as complementary viewing rather than a prerequisite, while other outlets judge it necessary. One practical argument recurs among those same outlets: better to watch season 2 before the film, since the film takes for granted events on which the series closes. Our guide to being ready before the screening sets out the preparation, and the Spider-Man DVD and films collection lets you catch up on the previous instalments.

The film's reception as of 29/07/2026

A few figures for reference, timestamped to the day of the French release. As of 29/07/2026, Spider-Man: Brand New Day shows a 91% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes and Certified Fresh status, based on 163 reviews at that reading: a living counter, since the platform was still showing 90% from 135 reviews the day before. Metacritic gives it a Metascore of 70 out of 100 on the same date, in the generally favourable reception bracket, from 42 press reviews: 32 positive, 10 mixed, none negative. In France, AlloCiné shows on the same day a press rating of 3.2 out of 5 from 17 listed outlets and an audience rating of 4.2 out of 5 from 268 ratings, on a still-small sample.

Peter Bradshaw, in The Guardian, awards 3 stars out of 5: a film carried by Zendaya, but too familiar in his eyes, and one that calls for a more radical reboot. On Tom Holland, the agreement is even stronger than on the Punisher: David Rooney sums it up as 'never better', and even Ehrlich grants him the most nuanced and most mature performance in the role to date.

The Punisher, centrepiece of a deliberate shift

What to take away comes down to one simple idea. Jon Bernthal was not called in to add a name to the poster, but to embody on screen a change of course carried out on every other front: the multiverse abandoned, a return to street crime, an isolated hero, hardened classification descriptors. A lethal vigilante in a franchise that had none is the clearest way of signalling that the rules have changed — and the critics responded by making the Bernthal-Holland double act one of the most frequently cited highlights. What becomes of that relationship next remains an open question.

In the meantime, there is plenty to extend the screening with. The collection devoted to Brand New Day merchandise brings together everything that relates directly to the film, the Spider-Man figures cover every version of the character, the Spider-Man masks and the Spider-Man t-shirts answer the two most common uses, while the Spider-Man posters and the Spider-Man costumes and fancy dress are aimed at walls and dressing-up occasions. For gifting, the Spider-Man gift selection and our Brand New Day buying guide by budget and by profile do the sorting.

To go further: the final trailer broken down, the soundtrack signed by Michael Giacchino, the release date and the official cast, the pre-sale records and Tom Holland's injury on set. Our practical guides are gathered on the guides and advice page.