The biggest set piece in the most recent live-action Spider-Man film, 2021's "Spider-Man: No Way Home," involves, through a series of multiversal shenanigans, Tom Holland's friendly neighborhood web-slinger teaming up with two other Spider-Men to fight Electro, Sandman, and the Lizard on the Statue of Liberty.

The biggest set piece in 2004's "Spider-Man 2" involves Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man trying to stop a train full of innocent passengers from crashing.

By comparison, the train scene may seem almost quaint, but director Sam Raimi used it as an opportunity to combine then-state-of-the-art action filmmaking with genuine humanity and pathos, resulting in a cocktail that dozens of superhero films have been unable to fully replicate in the 20 years since. You remember the scene: As Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus (aka "Doc Ock") are fighting on a New York City skyscraper, they fall onto an elevated train zooming through the city and continue...