On a July evening in Mexico City, thousands of fans pressed against the barriers at the Rueda de la Fortuna de Chapultepec, a Ferris wheel spinning slowly against the dusk. Tom Holland and Zendaya had arrived as part of a global tour for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and the crowd’s roar swallowed the park. Holland, who has worn the mask for a decade, told the audience this fourth solo outing would be the “freshest, most unique” chapter yet. The scene was a testament to the durable affection the actor commands as Peter Parker, even as a very different verdict was being prepared elsewhere.

That verdict arrived the same week from a US trade publication, which ranked the performances in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Holland, who plays Telemachus opposite Matt Damon’s Odysseus, was placed last among the 17-strong ensemble. The publication judged that “almost all his lines lack conviction” and that the character’s emotional weight surfaces only in a late reunion with his father. At the top of the list sat Samantha Morton, whose Circe was described as “a spectacle to behold”. The ranking ricocheted across Brazilian, Portuguese and English-language outlets, framing Holland as the weak link in a cast that includes Robert Pattinson, Anne Hathaway and Lupita Nyong’o.

Viewed from London, the contrast captures a peculiar moment in the actor’s career. He is simultaneously the anchor of one of the summer’s most anticipated superhero releases and the subject of a blunt critical assessment in a prestige auteur project. The Spider-Man film, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, picks up after the events of No Way Home: Peter Parker is alone, his identity forgotten, and he undergoes a “surprising physical evolution” while facing a villain no one can see. The marketing has deliberately withheld the role played by Sadie Sink, a silence that has spawned online theories linking her to Jean Grey or other Marvel figures. Holland himself has spoken of the story as “a lesson about living alone, the importance of community”, and noted that asking for help can be “the most exhilarating thing to do in life”.

That vulnerability resonates far beyond the multiplex. In the UAE, a food-delivery platform has built a campaign around the film’s title, offering in-app challenges and mall activations. In Jakarta, cinema schedules for 29 July are already filling with multiple showtimes. The promotional machinery, in other words, is global and relentless, yet it coexists with a more intimate narrative: Holland recently disclosed that he has ADHD and dyslexia, and that he often feels “a little intimidated” when handed a blank canvas. He described play as central to his creative process, a way to transform that intimidation into exploration.

On the Ferris wheel that night, the lights of Chapultepec flickered below, and the two actors waved to a sea of phones. The image was one of triumph, but it carried an echo of the solitude that defines the character Holland is about to reintroduce to the world — a hero no one remembers, fighting an enemy no one can see.