This is a remarkably moving story about breaking your own rules and finding yourself. Well before he donned Spider-Man's suit, Tobey Maguire's greatest strengths weren't in his web-slinging or wall-crawling abilities; it was the quiet pathos of his sad eyes and sensitive smile. This was one of the best films adapted from a book (and, at nearly 600 pages, what a book!), which makes sense since John Irving wrote both the book and the subsequent screenplay, for which he also won an Oscar. Maguire plays the young Homer Wells, whose small orphanage in Maine is the only home he's ever known. Mentored by the kindly Dr. Larch, played by Michael Caine (who would go on to co-star in his own superhero movies with The Dark Knight Trilogy), Homer eventually disobeys him and ventures out into the real world, where he learns the hard way that "there's no taking care of anybody - not out there." To be sure, the movie is slow moving, but if you have the patience to follow it, you'll reap the rewards of its practical philosophy ("Maybe if we just wait and see, I won't have to do anything!"), even if it has to take a hard stance on one of the most controversial issues of our time. I'm not even naming it. You'll just have to see the movie for yourself. So for now: "Goodnight you princes of Maine, you kings of New England."
Michael Perone has written for The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore City Paper, The Island Ear (now titled Long Island Press), and The Long Island Voice, a short-lived spinoff of The Village Voice. He currently works as an Editor in Manhattan. And he still thinks Michael Keaton was the best Batman.
