50 God-Tier Acting Moments Buried in Bad Movies

Thomas Haden Church as Sandman/Flint Marko is yet another amazing casting choice wasted on a bad superhero movie. This genre does have a nasty habit of wasting great performances. 

In a movie filled with sloppy writing, ill-judged acting, and out-of-place comedy, Church was the one performer who left Spider-Man 3 with his dignity intact. He shows this from his very first scene, as the escaped convict briefly returns to his old flat to get some supplies and see his daughter, whose serious illness was motivating him to turn to a life of crime to pay for her treatment. 

As with many of the antagonists in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man Trilogy, Marko is a tragic villain and Church brings pathos and heartbreak to his performance, ensuring that viewers really feel for the guy even when it's suggested later on (in a not terribly well-judged twist) that he might've been the man who actually killed Uncle Ben. 

Just as he's leaving, Marko sadly says, "I'm not a bad person. Just had bad luck." Church's delivery will hit you right in the feels, and had he been in a better movie, Church's Sandman could've been an all-timer superhero movie villain to rival Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin and Alfred Molina's Doctor Octopus.