BRIAN VINER: Why Spider-Man has left me cold... Yes there's some terrific action, but the best reason to go see this so-so summer blockbuster is the cinema's air-con

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (12A, 145 mins)Verdict: Go for the air-con Three out of five stars There we all were, or maybe there we all weren't, waiting for those sweet loved-up newlyweds Tom Holland and Zendaya to star together in a big summer blockbuster… only for two to arrive in quick succession.First came The Odyssey, in which Holland plays the drippy but sporadically heroic Telemachus, with Zendaya as Athena, goddess of wisdom.And now here he is as the heroic but sporadically drippy Spider-Man, with her as his girlfriend MJ.Well, I say girlfriend, but those who saw the last instalment, Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), will recall that after Peter Parker had been revealed to the world as the gawky fellow beneath the iconic red-and-blue onesie, Benedict Cumberbatch's Dr Strange obligingly used his formidable psychic powers to wipe the collective memory clean.So now MJ, along with their mutual pal Ned (Jacob Batalon) and just about everyone else, has no idea who Peter is, let alone that he is Spider-Man's alter ego.This leaves Peter emotionally adrift, not only grieving for his beloved Aunt May (Marisa Tomei, seen in flashback), but also reduced to stalking lovely MJ and enduring the painful spectacle of her snuggling up to another.For the widely revered Spider-Man, meanwhile, there's more than enough wickedness in New York City to keep a crime-busting superhero busy. In particular, someone is targeting the city's Department of Damage Control, and that mysterious someone appears to have the ability to distort people's minds, turning decent folk into crime-abetting scoundrels.As if this wasn't challenging enough, Spider-Man is grappling with health problems. He keeps getting nasty headaches and his 'dangerously heightened sensory receptors' make loud noises intolerable. When you live in New York, as Leo Woodall's character found out in the recent thriller Tuner, that's a proper bummer. Pictured: Artwork for the latest installment in the franchise, Spider-Man: Brand New Day The latest Spider-Man film stars on and off screen couple Tom Holland and Zendaya So, what do troubled superheroes do in times of crisis? They seek the help of other superheroes of course. Spider-Man goes to a public bath, of all places, to find a luxuriating Yelena Belova/Black Widow (a cameo for the wonderful Florence Pugh, deploying her own scene-stealing superpower).And as Peter he attends a college lecture by mild-mannered academic Dr Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), the prelude to one of the movie's best set-pieces, a battle between Spider-Man and Banner's alter ego, the Hulk.With the further help of his old adversary Frank Castle/Punisher (Jon Bernthal), our hero gradually works out how to deal with Peter's existential issues, while also discovering who is doing all that sinister mind-bending.Bernthal, incidentally, joins Holland and Zendaya at the core of the cinematic Venn diagram, having played King Menelaus in The Odyssey.Both blockbusters are now in cinemas, and advance ticket sales for this one are said to be jolly healthy, which is excellent news for a beleaguered industry. There are solid reasons to see both movies. Apart from anything else, and weary as I am of exceedingly long films, who among us this sweltering summer wouldn't enjoy three hours of air-conditioning?Holland's fourth headlining outing as everyone's favourite web-slinger is cool in other ways, too. There are a few pleasing moments of wit, as when Ned seeks insight into what Spider-Man does when he needs to pee. And there are some truly terrific action sequences, slickly choreographed by director Destin Daniel Cretton.But – and I might well be alone here, because there have already been genuinely rhapsodic responses to Spider-Man: Brand New Day – I find myself tiring of vulnerable superheroes. They used to represent good against evil in simple binary fashion but now, if we overlook the ability to abseil off skyscrapers and lift tanks with one hand, they're just like the rest of society, fretting about inter-personal relationships and mental health.Maybe, at the end of the day, whether that day is brand new or dispiritingly familiar, we get the superheroes we deserve.In cinemas now.