Always Good Movies

Direction: Jon Watts
Country: USA

Inspired by his admiration for solitary anti-heroes in films such as Le Samourai (1967), Ghost Dog (1999), and Collateral (2004), director Jon Watts sets up a New York crime story in Wolfs, but most of it feels worn-out and lackluster. This film reunites Brad Pitt and George Clooney, who portray experienced crime scene cleaners having extreme difficulties teaming up as requested by their clients.

The film’s intriguing opening is engaging but it quickly unravels, descending into shallow banter, self-mockery (mostly revolving around aging), and formulaic action scenes toward oblivion. Though it initially seems to channel Coen Brothers’ dark, quirky tone, it takes a wrong turn, injecting syrupy moments that come off as laughably ridiculous and will likely irritate genre fans.

Wolfs is clumsy, overly formulaic, and incompetently lazy, following a banal, unoriginal plot weighed down by cheesy dialogue and underbaked story elements. Lacking any type of genius, it’s a waste of talent and energy on all levels.

Direction: Jon Watts
Country: USA

With an ingenious plot by the regular team of writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, Spider-Man: No Way Home stretches the bridges between different generations of viewers, being the most genuinely surprising new release within the Marvel genre I've seen in a long time. It is a considerable improvement over its predecessors - Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019) - both also directed by Jon Watts, who does his best job with the superhero here.

In this sequel, we have a teen Peter Parker (Tom Holland) disclosing his identity as Spider-Man, becoming the most famous person in the world, and fighting a bunch of invaders (among them are Willem Dafoe as Green Goblin, Jamie Foxx as Electro and Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus) that come after him in a sequence of an imperfect magic spell. Some of them are treacherous and dangerous opponents whose super-powers need a lot of acrobatics and stamina to be dominated. The novelty is that two other Spider-Mans (Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield) arrive from parallel universes. There’s also the precious help of the mystic Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and, on an earthly plan, Parker’s girlfriend, MJ (Zendaya), and his best friend, Ned (Jacob Batalon).

What makes this Spider-Man so satisfying comes in large measure from the lucidity of the narrative, the quality of the villains, and an enjoyable balance of action, humor and emotion. Unlike other Marvel undertakings, this one never feels too crowded and - clocking in at 150 minutes - it never bores. The film is stripped to the essence of what a comic book movie should be, without renouncing to ineffably dynamic fighting sequences and stunning special effects.