Tom Holland has a new film debuting on Netflix this week, Antonio Campos adaptation of Donald Ray Pollock’s The Devil All The Time. Holland is a megastar thanks to his role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man, but in his 8-year career, he has been in several great films. Let’s talk about three of them.
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The Impossible (2012)
The Impossible is one of those movies that, at the time it was released, felt a little too soon thanks to its proximity to other tsunami events, but it’s actually a well-staged and acted film. Holland, only 16 at the time it was released, plays Lucas, the eldest son of Maria and Henry (Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor), a family that is caught in the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.
Much of the film is Holland and Watts in the aftermath of the wave. Watts character is badly wounded, and Lucas has to keep her alive as much as she does him. Many child actors are, uh, well, inexperienced, let’s say, and can bring down a film through no real fault of their own, but even as a teen, Holland was already showing that he has the chops.
Watch it now:
The Lost City of Z (2016)
The Lost City of Z is not a Tom Holland movie. He is only in the last third or so as Jack, the son of main character Percy Fawcett, an explorer who made many trips into the Amazon rainforest looking for a fabled lost city.
Charlie Hunnam is excellent in this movie, and in the last third, when Holland’s character Jack joins his father on his last expedition, there is some outstanding work to watch between them.
Plus, it’s just a really good movie, every frame of which is gorgeous.
Watch it now:
Onward (2020)
The latest film from Pixar wasn’t the mega-smash hit it probably should have been, but that’s what happens when your film release weekend takes place at the beginning of a pandemic that was only weeks away from keeping us inside.
It’s a shame, though, because Onward is a terrific coming of age story. Set in a magical world where much of the world has forgotten magic, elf brothers Ian and Barley Lightfoot set out on a magical quest to find a thing that will let them speak to their deceased father. It’s a sweet film, and Holland and Pratt have just the right chemistry as the brothers to really sell the emotional beats the story requires.
Watch it now:
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