We last saw the version of Peter Parker portrayed by Tom Holland in 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the epic close to the fantastic trilogy of movies begun with 2017’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming.”

It’s appropriate, then, that when we catch back up with him in the similarly outstanding “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” — the latest collaboration between Sony Pictures and Disney-owned Marvel Studios that allows for Spider-Man to exist within the latter’s Marvel Cinematic Universe — Peter is a man without a home.

Oh, sure, he is living in a New York City apartment building, in a storage space converted into a residential unit suitable for a young man existing largely on protein powder and pizzas brought to his door. However, as a result of the events of “No Way Home,” the two people most important to him, girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), do not remember him, and he is emotionally adrift.

In theaters this week, “Brand New Day” begins shortly after “No Way Home,” with MJ and Ned attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology together, Peter wistfully following Ned’s video posts featuring MJ and himself for their four years at MIT that follow.

He has otherwise focused his attention and energy on being the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, a hero who has become adored by the city for his constant crime fighting, Spidey taking down villains such as his old “Homecoming” foe Scorpion (Michael Mando of “Better Call Saul”).

He even has a police ally in Detective Jean DeWolff (Liza Colón-Zayas, “The Bear”), whom he chats with by phone and may be the closest thing he has to an actual friend these days. She greatly worries about him — she knows he’s suffering from headaches — and warns him that his life can’t be all about work. He responds, with his aw-shucks charm, with the cliché about never working a day in your life if you love what you do.

He also has a not-so-chummy ally in Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle, aka the violent, not-bashful-about-killing vigilante the Punisher. As the pair try to stop a huge armored truck from wreaking havoc on city streets, the Wallcrawler frustrates Frank by foiling his particular brand of intervention.

Soon, Spider-Man realizes he has a new, incredibly powerful enemy in the form of a young woman portrayed by Sadie Sink. (The name of the character inhabited by the “Stranger Things” star has not been revealed in advance of the film, so we’ll play along.)

The villain can control the minds of anyone nearby — well, frustratingly to her, not Spidey’s — and can jump from person to person to cover a great distance. When she learns her enemy’s true identity, this puts MJ — now sharing a Big Apple apartment with the Spider-Man-obsessed Ned, a scenario Peter once envisioned being a part of — right in her crosshairs.

Peter can no longer stay out of MJ’s life in the name of protecting her.

Based very loosely — mainly conceptually — on the 2008 “Brand New Day” storyline from the pages of Marvel Comics, the film is very well-written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, who’ve co-penned the series’ previous three installments without other credited collaborators starting with 2019’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home.” It’s not surprising, then, that “Brand New Day” is chock-full of both thrills and heartfelt moments.

Plus, the tandem of scribes continues to juggle myriad characters well: The movie also sees the return of Mark Ruffalo as brilliant scientist and professor Bruce Banner, so you expect the Hulk can’t be far behind; the addition of Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman, “Severance”), the head of the seemingly well-intentioned Department of Damage Control; and a fun cameo or two.

Having done topnotch work behind the camera with the original trilogy, Jon Watts has handed the directorial reins to Destin Daniel Cretton, who matches his predecessor’s work. The filmmaker tops himself after helming 2021’s largely entertaining MCU affair “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” with a perfectly paced Spider-Man adventure.

Working with director of photography Brett Pawlak, his cinematographer on films including “The Glass Castle” (2017) and “Just Mercy” (2019), he achieves several arresting shots, including images of Spidey hanging out above the city in the film’s opening moments. And the visuals during the film’s wildly creative action sequences feel as though they could have been pulled from the popular “Spider-Man” video games for Sony Interactive Entertainment’s PlayStation consoles.

Fresh off of director Christopher Nolan’s megahit “The Odyssey,” in which he also shared scenes with Bernthal, Holland is expectedly wonderful as both Peter and Spidey. If you don’t love, root for and feel for his version of the enduring masked hero, there may be an insect-shaped hole in your heart. In “Brand New Day,” Spider-Man goes through, if not a complete metamorphosis, an evolution akin to a spider entering adulthood, which works thematically well in this story.

Ultimately, though, “Brand New Day” is about our hero learning that he cannot do this alone, an unfortunate byproduct of this being that Holland shares only so many scenes with his real-life wife, Zendaya (another “Odyssey” player), and even fewer with Batalon (“Reginald the Vampire”). There’s a lovely chemistry among the three, and the film leaves you wanting more of it.

However, there’s good news on that front. Whereas when “No Way Home” concluded, you wondered if Spider-Man wasn’t being positioned for a post-MCU, Sony-only existence, the studios’ deal was reupped, and Marvel mastermind Kevin Feige and Sony producer Amy Pascal have, according to the former, had conversations about how to make several more installments together.

Spider-Man has found the ideal home, and the hope here is that he stays there for a long time to come.

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'SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY'

3.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for sequences of action/violence and some language)

Running time: 2:25

How to watch: In theaters July 31

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