Spider-man: Far From Home

Well, it's all there. I can say that. The standard Marvel schtick, I mean. The hero, the girl--it's almost always that dyad--the sidekicks (generally comedic), the threat to the world--the whole world!--and then the orgy of violence that presumably resolves it all. By this point in the ever-threatened world's history, we've seen this routine over and over again. Appreciation comes, then, from finding pleasures in the minor details of content, rather than the overarching form. Here, you have some mild joys, but probably not enough of them to really make this a major score. Holland is an OK web-slinger, but he doesn't convey the same sense of being put upon unfairly as, say, Tobey Maguire did back in the day. He mostly just seems inept, right up until the point when he somehow manages to square things away. As for our villain, he's just a weasel, not really a Thanos-style superthreat. Honestly, this thing looks to be mostly played out; I'm not sure the next chapter really can have much in the way of story development, apart from raw entertainment value. The franchise may very well be caught in its own web--one from which it may not make an escape.

Spider-Man: Homecoming

The most amazing thing about the cinematic incarnation of Spider-Man may be the perpetually re-winding clock on Peter Parker. With each new iteration of the character, Parker gets younger. This film may, in fact, represent the closest avatar to the original vision of the character as a nerdy, somewhat hapless teenager (when not dressed in his costume). However, that doesn't necessarily mean this is the best movie about the web-spinning superhero. The execution is fine--nobody involved with these movies is ever not particularly talented at what they're doing--but, ironically, pushing Parker backward into his adolescence (as opposed to, say, the slightly more mature performance delivered by Tobey Maguire) seems to trivialize the doings to a certain extent. And while the visuals are fine--the Washington Monument scene is particularly well executed--some of the action set pieces just sort of run on and blur before the eyes. Ultimately, too, there's just a lack of depth; none of the pathos we saw in Spider-Man 2 shows up here; it all feels like kid stuff. Mostly entertaining kid stuff, but it goes no further than that.

Slums Of Beverly Hills

If you like quirky, this is just your flavor. It's funny without being obvious, "coming of age" without being trite, a "family" movie without being schmaltzy, and a period movie without being showy about its details. Oh, yeah, did I mention funny? Mostly low key funny, but at least a few laugh out loud moments, too. Find it and enjoy.

Happy Accidents

If all sci-fi were like this, it would attract more than just ultrageeks. Actually, there's very little here in the way of technojunk; this movie is much more about interpersonal dynamics than quantum mechanics. But it's smart and clever enough to keep you involved with its premise for all of its running time.