The young cast, led by Tom Holland as the bashful web-slinger and Zendaya as a shy girl slow to lose her inhibitions, is plenty appealing as well as funny. But without a proper, full-on villain, as well as an adequate substitute for Robert Downey Jr.'s late, oft-mentioned Tony Stark, this comes off as a less than glittering star in the Marvel firmament.

This remarkable true story is a finely crafted exercise in slow-building suspense, though it works better as a gripping mood piece than as journalistic investigation, its raw confessional style slightly compromised by niggling narrative gaps and dramatic contrivances.

Meant to be purposefully banal. Unfortunately, there's a thin line between purposefully banal and simply banal, and Ben Coccio's debut feature too often crosses it.

While much of what is said here has been recounted in previous forums -- the special Sept. 11 episode of TV's "Third Watch" being a prime example -- the redundancy doesn't deprive the commentary of its power.

In Mayer’s assured hands, a drama that could easily have become schematic instead pulses with urgency, longing and raw feeling, morphing smoothly in its final third into a lean thriller.

A finding-yourself dramedy grounded in a sense of place that's socioeconomic as much as geographical, the warm-hearted film ... is an understated but assured debut.

Blood Brothers struggles under the weight of its subjects.

The film’s small scale is more than compensated for by its insights into adolescent awareness, the passions stoked by global causes and the moral hypocrisy of the ideologically righteous.

After building up a narrative head of steam, the film relaxes too much back into expository documentary form. What might have been thrilling is merely entirely engrossing.

Like the heroic Bostonians it celebrates, civilians and law enforcement both, Peter Berg’s Patriots Day gets the job done.

The film captures the cost of Henry's well-intentioned sin, following this pained new creature out into the world and, very briefly, giving his suffering an almost Malick-like voice.

Rich with revealing observations and engaging anecdotes, Slater’s documentary skirts the nostalgia trap by entertainingly connecting with an impressive lineup of contemporary singer-songwriters referencing the influential '60s pop style with their own releases.

Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon solidifies Amirpour’s reputation as a master of subversion.

Exploring the issue of whether being pro-life and pro-gun are mutually compatible, The Armor of Light puts a human face on the perpetually divisive topic.

The Sentence is so committed to its concentration on emotion and heart that it's difficult not to get carried away, and it feels almost churlish to quibble with the intellectual responses it barely aspires to.

The greatest strengths of the film clearly come from Green’s novel, which resolutely refuses to become a cliched cancer drama, creating instead two vibrant, believable young characters.

Funny, dark, and riding a very fine line in its depiction of mental illness, it may be the best thing we could hope would emerge from the side of Wiig that gave us Gilly.

Like Seweryn, Konieczna is a performer with considerable experience on the Polish stage and she fulfils the same function in the film as Zofia does in the family — holding everything together with an admirably unfussy stoicism.

Not since Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg teamed up in "The Other Guys" has an onscreen pairing proved as comically rewarding as the inspired partnership of Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum.

The cast commit enthusiastically to the material, walking that fine line between comic exaggeration and an almost earnest dramatic sincerity.

As the heart and soul of the film, Chiwetel Ejiofor once again impresses.

The Amina Profile is an absorbing, artfully assembled and timely reconstruction of a fascinating digital-age hoax.

Quietly confident in its unconventional yet clear point of view, Selah and the Spades signals a bright future for a promising young filmmaker.

In short, this film leaves us moved and provoked — and impressed with its technical accomplishments — even if it isn’t a perfect distillation of our ongoing national nightmare.

Diciannove is unflinchingly honest about what it’s like to be 19, and, for the most part, totally lost. And Tortorici’s insistence on capturing that feeling while avoiding the usual narrative tropes is what makes his film both fascinating and somewhat impenetrable.

Liman outfits the film with spy-thriller packaging worthy of his "The Bourne Identity," so the film probably will attract above-average coin and possibly awards attention.

The writer-director's inquiry into this tragedy makes for a moving and intelligent film, but the dark story never feels fully realized.

In a role that calls for much of her turbulence to be internalized, Savard, who is nearing the end of her own professional swimming career, is magnetic. You feel her unease, and both the weight and the release of her decision, at every turn.