Tom Holland

  • Uncharted (2022)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, July 2022) I haven’t played the Uncharted series of computer games (I’m what they call a PC exclusive, and Uncharted was until very recently a PlayStation exclusive), but I am a forgiving audience when it comes to slightly unhinged large-scale adventure films. Alas, there’s something missing in the mechanical assembly that is the big-screen version of Uncharted. The problem here isn’t necessarily lead Tom Holland, who brings his expected blend of wide-eyed innocence and action chops to a role meant to establish a long franchise—his bar brawl using whatever’s on hand is one of the film’s early highlights. Mark Wahlberg makes an effective older co-lead, while Sophia Ali provides an interesting foil/love interest. I also liked Tati Gabrielle and her evolving role in the film, despite an atrocious hairdo that looks like tightly wrapped cellophane. The film also reaches a pleasant loopiness toward the end, where nothing makes sense but at least we’ve got a naval battle between two ships flown by helicopters. (… it’s one of those action sequences you have to see in order to understand.) But while all of these good elements bring the film to a “watchable” rating, Uncharted leaves a lot of material on the table. The first and biggest problem is structural, as the film’s first two-thirds struggle to wow audiences or build momentum. Whether it’s a budget or a scripting issue, I’m not sure, except that the film tacitly seems to recognize the problem by beginning with the action sequence that introduces the third act, then flashes back to how we all got there. And how we got there is often incredibly dumb—with so-called world class thieves using trite methods that undermine the respect we’re supposed to develop for those same characters. The “historical investigation” aspect is underwhelming and the film doesn’t move fast enough to prevent basic plausibility questions from popping up regularly. It’s noteworthy that the rather good climax makes even less sense than the rest of Uncharted, but moves fast enough that we don’t care. Now that the origin story throat clearing is done, I will watch a sequel… but how about making the good film first next time a video game makes the leap to the big screen?

  • Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video On-Demand, June 2022) While there’s no denying that I liked Spider-Man: No Way Home, I’m also thoroughly vexed at some aspects of the film, what it represents and how it’s at the cutting edge of a bizarre blend of fannish devotion and Hollywood profit maximization. Despite a pre-release no-spoiler campaign that was useless the film started to screen, Spider-Man: No Way Home is going to remain famous for being that one Spider-Man film that acted not only as a capstone to the first Tom Holland trilogy, but also as an epilogue to the previous two Spider-Man film series– in bringing into one single film a bunch of other Spider-Man versions (i.e.: Tobey Maguire and the underrated Andrew Garfield versions) and a handful of villains cherry-picked in those films as well. One imagines a secret narrative R&D lab deep under the Hollywood sign in which the mandate “make more money from fans” led to the discovery of multiverses as a handy excuse to do whatever they could to justify the premise. Some of it definitely rings false – the use of Doctor Strange as an incompetent sorcerer leaves a bad taste, even if the lamp-shading can be amusing. Other details also don’t quite fit – I thought I was misremembering a few details about the earlier films at times, but no – it turns out that the continuity snarls were real and noticed by others as well. Of course, little of this – the weak dumb plotting, the continuity mistakes, the sometimes slap-dash execution – is meant to matter when – hold on to your spiderwebs, fans! – there’s nothing less than three Spider-Men played by their original actors, and the best-known villains of the series to boot. We’re meant to be impressed. Sometimes even touched when the film does for a few contrived emotional moments. Until we remember that there’s nothing that pounds of dollars won’t resolve if the actors are sufficiently motivated and if the lawyers are happy. In this regard, No Way Home acts as a capstone on a perverse portrayal of “intellectual property” as delivering on fannish desires for crossover events. It’s easy enough to see how we got here through the all-devouring MCU – what’s less clear and possibly frightening is where we go from there, transforming the multiplex into the biggest-budgeted TV show in history, incomprehensible unless you’ve consumed everything that came before that time. I sound crotchety and cantankerous, so let’s spend at least a few sentences talking about what I did like about the film: Tom Holland, Zendeya and Marisa Tomei, clearly. Also, Garfield is a great Spider-Man who had the bad luck of starring in less-than-good films. While the overall plotting is weak, some of it is actually ingenious in making sure to maximize the presence of characters from three cinematic universes. I won’t begrudge some choice bits of dialogue, and it’s impossible for me not to like a good old-school pick from De La Soul as musical background to the credit sequence. The MCU style is shown to be a much better fit for the characters, and there’s no denying the feeling of closure for the previous two series – and maybe this one as well. But how much if this is earned, and how much of it is cheap manipulation? Much of it, I suppose, will depend on how many times the same trick is going to be re-used in the next few years.

  • Spies in Disguise (2019)

    Spies in Disguise (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2020) While hardly the best or most original animated film in recent memory, BlueSky’s latest (and possibly last) offering Spies in Disguise is a pleasant, fast-paced, funny and likable family film. Will Smith is in fine form as he voices a top-secret agent who gets transformed into a pigeon and must investigate who framed him against his own clandestine agency—with Tom Holland awkwardly voicing a nebbish teen science genius. There’s a good blend of action and comedy here, with the two creating sparks when the inherently ridiculous concept of a human transformed into a pigeon goes poking against the most serious tropes of spy fiction. Clearly funnier to younger members of the audience without necessarily losing their adult chaperones, Spies in Disguise often plays it safe with its pacifist message, broad physical comedy and bright colourful visuals. But, hey, it works—I can’t imagine anyone being angry at this film…, but then again, I can’t imagine anyone older than ten really loving it. But that’s fine—We’re not expecting the world out of Spies in Disguise, just being entertained for an hour and a half.

  • Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)

    Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In Theaters, July 2019) Life goes on after The Avengers: Endgame, and so Spider-Man: Far from Home is our first glimpse at the way the MCU reconfigured itself in the wake of its latest event movies. In the Spider-Man context, it does mean going back to a more basic adventures, albeit not an unspectacular one: As Peter Parker and his high-school class heads over to Europe as part of their senior year, trouble keeps following Parker no matter where he goes. The psychological impact of previous movies isn’t forgotten (Parker’s hero worship of Tony Stark ends up being one of the film’s dramatic strands), but we can occasionally take a breath to focus on such teenage issues such as asking out a girl and/or dealing with romantic competitors. From a narrative standpoint, Far from Home is cut from the same cloth as other MCU movies: There’s an effective balancing of character, action, comedy and spectacular set-pieces, pulling elements from previous entries to add a bit more depth to the mayhem. The special effects are quite good, although the film’s ongoing theme of illusions does mean that we’re in for some disorienting visuals that seem markedly less than photorealistic. There is also some weirdness in terms of plotting and characterization (mostly Nick Fury’s, which seems like a parody of itself) that eventually get explained by the end of the credits, but they’re still distracting for most of the film. Tom Holland once again turns in a great dual performance as Parker and Spider-Man, with some great co-leading work by Jake Gyllenhaal, and supporting performances by Zendaya (finally realizing the promise suggested in the first film) and the Marisa Tomei/Jon Favreau couple. The result is generally satisfying, although it comes so close on the heels of Endgame and the spectacular Spider-Man: Welcome to the Spider Verse that it seems perhaps a bit too ordinary in comparison. Still, it’s guaranteed entertainment for dollars, and that’s been the trademark of the MCU for a while now.

  • Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

    Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2018) Like most, I was very skeptical of yet another attempt to reboot the Spider-Man series. Only the idea that Marvel Studio was the creative force behind Spider-Man: Homecoming (and the affirmation that the film would fit within the MCU) kept me hopeful. As it happens, this new integrated take on the character is completely successful. Indeed coming back home to the character’s spiritual and physical origins, Homecoming manages a fresh take on an overexposed character, seamlessly blending him with the rest of the superhero universe and also taking on the Marvel house style honed to perfection over the past ten years. While I liked Andree Garfield a lot as Spider-Man, Tom Holland brings the required wide-eyed naiveté to the character, making the relationship with father-surrogate Tony Stark even more interesting. Strong action sequences and a credible villain (leading to an honestly surprising moment midway through the film where Peter Parker and Spider-Man’s identities come crashing together) do much to make the film fun, but so do the de-rigueur touches of humour and self-conscious goofiness. By choosing to depict a looser, funnier, younger Spider-Man, the MCU creative team has found a terrific antidote to the increasingly dour direction the character was taking, and the result is irresistibly fun. The integration even works at the story level, as the film deals with the fallout of having alien invasions and superheroes running around; the MCU is maturing nicely as it grows older. Veteran actors such as Robert Downey Jr., Marisa Tomei and Michael Keaton are used expertly to ground the film, while among the high-school crowd, Zendaya is remarkable despite having nearly nothing to do (at least until the sequel.) Homecoming adds up to a surprisingly entertaining movie, even more so given the low expectations. Once again, Marvel Studio defies the odds.