Gifted Is Far From Original But It Has Its Moments And Proves (Once Again) That Chris Evans Has Dramatic Acting Chops

Chris Evans is so assured and natural in his multiple performances as Captain America that I think we all take for granted just how good he is as a performer to make that character (which many in the public had dismissed as a jingoistic one-note caricature before the 2011 Captain America film) feel so real and dramatically investable. You can see the guy's talent as an actor in plenty of other works too, including Sunshine (which way more people need to see!), Snowpiercer (ditto) and in his small but hilarious role as Lucas Lee in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Evans gets to flex his dramatic muscles once more in the new Marc Webb drama Gifted.

How Can A Man Go On After Seeing The Horrors Of War? Brothers Examines that Very Question To Fantastic Results

MINOR SPOILERS FOR BROTHERS FOLLOW

Those Amazing Spider-Man movies unleashed a number of terrible things upon our world, but one of the worst was this phenomenon I saw where the arrival of a new Spider-Man immediately meant the previous incarnation of the character must be torn down and defiled lest he distract even a tiny bit from Andrew Garfield's Spider-Stalker interpretation of the character (which wasted an absolutely phenomenal actor in regards to Andrew Garfield). I saw too many social media posts declaring Tobey Maguire to be a "weird" actor who was "whiny" and "stupid" and all that jazz and that just struck me as so weird and as shallow criticisms.

The Amazing Spider-Man Films Are A Collision Of Promise And Tragedy

 Five years ago this month, Sony announced Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy would be rebooted. enraging fans of that trilogy around the globe. My reaction at the time was disappointment, but also open-mindedness; Spider-Man 3 was flawed (though quite a bit better than people give it credit for) and the bits and pieces that had come out about Raimi's purported Spider-Man 4 sounded iffy (though John Malkovich as The Vulture sounded awesome). So I kept a close track as a director (Marc Webb) and actors were hired for this new series of films focusing on the web-slinger dubbed The Amazing Spider-Man.

New Female Centered Potential Spider-Man Movie From Sony Sounds Like It Could Be....Good????

MASSIVE THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 SPOILERS FOLLOW

A ton of things have been wasted in the Amazing Spider-Man films (primarily in the second one, though the first one wasted opportunities to lend gravitas to The Lizard), but Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy may be the biggest waste. She and Andrew Garfield had good chemistry, but those romantic scenes in the second one, while sporadically engaging, were bogged down by plodding repetition.