Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

[7] Tom Holland, my personal favorite Spider-Man, returns in his third official film -- although his character has also appeared in many other Marvel movies that don't have his name in the title. This time, the young webslinger is dealing…
The Social Network (2010)

The Social Network (2010)

[8] A movie about corporate betrayal and litigation is normally not my idea of a good time, but The Social Network turns out to be a well-made, voyeuristic look back at the birth of a now-ubiquitous product that many users…
Never Let Me Go (2011)

Never Let Me Go (2011)

[7] I'll get straight to the point: This is the saddest goddamned motherfucking movie ever made. If you want to cry your eyes out forever and ever, watch Never Let Me Go. Okay. Now, with that out of the way...…
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

[7] The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was better than I was expecting. Unlike nearly all the Batman movies, the Spider-Man movies -- both the Sam Raimi ones and these new ones from Marc Webb -- succeed in keeping the hero upfront…
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

[6]

Director Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer) takes on the web-slinging superhero in this hasty reboot of the franchise (just five years after Sam Raimi finished his trilogy). Andrew Garfield (The Social Network, Never Let Me Go) stars as Peter Parker, a high schooler who gets bitten by a radioactive spider and… you know the rest. The approach here is more realistic than Raimi’s, which provides Garfield (one of the finest actors of his generation) the opportunity to sink his teeth into a surprisingly angsty role. I can’t think of another time when a superhero role provided an actor more dramatic range. Emma Stone (Easy A, Zombieland) is given far less to do as Parker’s love interest, Gwen Stacy, but she makes the most of it. Martin Sheen and Sally Field bring gravitas in the roles of Parker’s Uncle Ben and Aunt May, while Denis Leary plays the police chief who doesn’t appreciate Spider-Man’s vigilante antics. Rhys Ifans (Notting Hill) picks up the mantle of super-villain, playing Curt Connors, a sympathetic scientist who’s desire to rid the world of disease leads to risky, gene-splicing self-experimentation. He becomes Parker’s third-act adversary — a raging Lizard monster.