Weekend Watch - Venom: The Last Dance
It’s decent enough to please those who have been pleased with the first two entries, but it does nothing well enough to sway any new fans or break into new territory for the superhero genre.
Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is the third film in Tom Hardy’s Venom trilogy, Venom: The Last Dance, which looks to be the final installment of Sony’s partnership with Hardy in bringing the symbiote antihero to the big screen. Co-written by its star Hardy and director Kelly Marcel (Cruella and Fifty Shades of Grey), the film also features performances from Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, and Cristo Fernández. It opened this weekend to the same collection of mixed reviews from audiences and critics as its two predecessors. Let’s get into it.
Letter Grade: C-; it’s just as ok as the two films that came before – fun but not at all substantial.
Should you Watch This Film? If you like the first two Venom films, you’ll probably enjoy this one as well. If you want something fresh, new, and groundbreaking, this film is not the film for you.
Why?
Venom: The Last Dance seeks to establish itself as the true conclusion to a trilogy. Unfortunately, the trilogy it’s seeking to conclude lacked serious thematic and/or narrative cohesion, and the result is yet another tonally disjointed film with oddly communicated stakes and a marked lack of any natural emotional beats, which trilogy concluders so often seek. There’s some solid sound and visual effects work being done on the part of the post-production team, and the film does take some big swings with its action sequences, but none of it ever comes together with the intervening story to make something that feels at all better than a middling 2000s superhero film, just like the two films that came before. I appreciate the effort and love that Hardy and Marcel seem to have poured into their script and the film itself, but they seem to be working at a studio where no one else cares enough about their product and characters to actually give them the editing and fine-tuning that it would take to make these films into something great. On paper, a goofy, violent, multi-personality anti-hero should be an easy slam dunk in this age of superhero films, but Sony has never been able to get out of their own way and let these films be as self-aware as they’d need to be to work. Don’t get me wrong, the action set pieces are really fun here – arguably the best of the trilogy – but the story might be the weakest of the trilogy. It’s decent enough to please those who have been pleased with the first two entries, but it does nothing well enough to sway any new fans or break into new territory for the superhero genre. If you want new Venom content, go check it out in theaters. If not, don’t worry about making it for this one.
Weekend Watch - Madame Web
Madame Web contains the pieces of a much better film, but the gap between that potential and the reality of the mess that we got on-screen is so wide that it’s difficult to understand what led to the release of this particular version of the film other than corporate meddling.
Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers, is the latest film in the Sony Spider-Verse, Madame Web, starring Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O’Connor, Tahar Rahim, Emma Roberts, and Adam Scott. The film opened this weekend and is the first of Sony’s Spider-Verse films to focus on a hero in their roster of Spider-Man comic characters, rather than a villain-turned-antihero. Directed by S.J. Clarkson (Jessica Jones and Love, Nina) and written by Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless (Morbius), Claire Parker, and Clarkson, the film opened in theaters this weekend to the worst reviews for a film yet in Sony’s superhero universe. Let’s get into it.
Letter Grade: D-; it’s a movie that occasionally gets you engaged with what’s going on, so I can’t quite give it an F, but man, we were close here.
Should you Watch This Film? Because watching it in theaters right now would justify Sony continuing to churn out low quality films like this, I can’t recommend going to watch this in theaters; however, it might be just the kind of bad film that you have to see at some point, so… maybe.
Why?
Her web might connect them all, but it might be the most tangled, incomprehensible, poorly cut, and absolutely terrified of plot holes web that has ever been put to screen. Personally, I don’t think that this film’s problems are the fault of the filmmakers so much as the production company that hasn’t put out a good live-action superhero film without Kevin Feige’s involvement since the first Amazing Spider-Man (I like Venom, but I’m not going to so far as to call it “good”). Madam Web is the natural result of a studio full of producers who don’t understand their cinematic audience trying to manufacture a box office hit without actually being willing to commit to any kind of risk. It’s the most egregiously corporatized film I’ve seen since The Emoji Movie, and it’s honestly pretty depressing. It’s clear that, at some point down the line, this film could have been something good because the actors involved at least have the charisma necessary to carry a film like this, but the lack of character development, weak dialogue, odd cuts, forced product placement, baffling use of ADR on Tahar Rahim, and lack of any serious superhero sequences completely undercut whatever potential this film had. (I do want to note here that this is not the worst comic book movie ever made because Catwoman [2004] and Fantastic Four [2015] do still exist, but this is way down there.)
On the positive side, I do think that the casting was well done for this film if only because the actors feel like they could be a good team if the film they currently are in wasn’t constantly getting in the way. There is a cool shot of the characters in their costumes toward the end of the film that briefly got me excited for the potential of seeing Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O’Connor in action together as a team of Spider-Women before I remembered that this film is going to be a critical and box office failure, and Sony will assume it’s because it featured female heroes in its leading roles and not because they over-managed it into oblivion just like they have all their other live action Spider-films post-2014. They certainly look the part of superheroes; this film just doesn’t give them anything to work with in terms of character development, action, or really even costuming.
Every moment of this film feels manufactured to create a superhero film that people will want to like, and because of that, it comes up short at every turn. The action sequences are generic, not overly memorable, and fairly uninspired. The use of Cassandra Webb’s powers feels like a bad rip-off of every other time-loop and future-seeing movie ever made. Tahar Rahim’s voice has been redubbed over basically every scene with absolutely terrible sound mixing on the ADR. The 2000s “nostalgia” references aren’t consistently present enough to actually warrant setting the film twenty years ago, especially when the costumes look like something more out of a 2020s street scene than anything in the 2000s (Dakota Johnson might be great at pulling off the high-waisted skinny jean, but that wasn’t a look in any scenario in 2003). The copious references to Pepsi and Pepsi products is so egregiously shoehorned that you can’t help but laugh by the film’s resolution at the abandoned Pepsi factory. Finally, as a superhero film, it wants to be smartly referential and full of easter eggs, but every attempt is so heavy-handed that any audience that didn’t feel insulted by what Sony executives thought we might miss should probably have their bank accounts checked for deposits from the media conglomerate.
Madame Web contains the pieces of a much better film, but the gap between that potential and the reality of the mess that we got on-screen is so wide that it’s difficult to understand what led to the release of this particular version of the film other than corporate meddling. It’s not a film that you should ever pay to see, but if you can find it for free at some point, it makes for a good lesson in why writers, directors, and actors, along with their production teams should be the ones making most of the decisions for film rather than the production company executives who may or may not actually like movies at all – see David Zaslav and his love of The Flash for reference.
Weekend Watch - Gran Turismo
Intense and original racing sequences coupled with some solid performances for a sports film help make Gran Turismo a quality addition to the genre despite some overlong love paid to its video game sponsor and a fairly familiar story.
Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating and review. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers is Gran Turismo, based on the true story of Jann Mardenborough – a Play Station gamer whose skills at the titular video game allowed him to become a professional racer. The film stars Archie Madekwe as the gamer-turned-racer, joined by David Harbour as his chief engineer Jack Salter, Orlando Bloom as the marketing executive who first pitched the idea Danny Moore, and Djimon Hounsou as Jann’s father Steve who played soccer professionally in his younger days. After a brief delay from Sony, the film got its wide release this weekend to massive audience fanfare but middling responses from critics. Let’s get into it.
Letter Grade: B; there’s definitely two different tones to this film, and one of them is much better than the other (plus, I had a wild viewing experience that will make this film unforgettable for me).
Review:
I’ll start out by saying that, based on my experience last night, the target audience for this film is ten-year-old boys (because, collectively, my wife and I had eight kids in that range on either side of us), and it works great for that demographic, with enough for the adults and sports film fans in the audience to keep it widely marketable. It’s a feel-good story about an underdog making his dream of becoming a professional athlete come true thanks to his skills at a video game – just hearing that, you probably know what kind of audience this is going to draw the most. It helps that director Neill Blomkamp was willing to get creative with the racing sequences and give audiences a strong video game adaptation with just a few simple visuals that keep the whole thing feeling fresh even while the two biggest races in the film (Nürburgring and Le Mans) have both featured just as prominently in the two other biggest films about professional racing in the last ten years (Rush and Ford v Ferrari, respectively).
While the film’s story might not be the most innovative ever brought to screen, it does offer a fresh look at the modern world of motorsports, showcasing both its highs and lows through the eyes of a virtual outsider in the main character of Jann. Unfortunately, his venture into professional racing doesn’t begin in earnest until about halfway through the film, making its first act drag as it tries to build tension in an audience that already knows how it’s going to end up. Had the arc about Jann qualifying to be Team Nissan’s first “sim racer” been about fifteen minutes shorter, I think this film might have better critic scores than its current 46 Metascore and 59% Tomatometer. It spends most of that time reminding the audience how accurate the game Gran Turismo is to real racing and generally serving as an advertisement for Sony’s product, which is one of the big reasons why I think it could have been pared down to make a better and more universally successful film.
Though the film is about Jann’s story, it features more of a hybrid three-man leading performance from Madekwe, Harbour, and Bloom, each with his own story and contribution to the main plot. Bloom’s Danny Moore feels the least fleshed out of the trio, serving more as the optimistically skeptical head of the threesome, a catalyst who’s never completely bought in to the story unfolding as a result of his dream. Harbour gives a more grounded (and impactful performance) as the technical head of the trio, serving as both the coach and washed-up former pro in the same role, and he brings a lot of fun to his part. Madekwe, in his first starring role shows some flashes of potential, exploring the emotions of racing and being an outsider and living out his dream all at once. It’s not necessarily the most demanding performance, but he brings a depth to the character that you don’t always see in these types of films. Djimon Hounsou anchors the cast (and probably helps solidify Madekwe’s performance) by playing the disapproving father who cares deeply for his son and isn’t convinced that video games and racing are setting him up for the most success. He takes a fairly cliché role and turns it into something deeply impactful by the film’s end, as only Hounsou is capable of doing.
Intense and original racing sequences coupled with some solid performances for a sports film help make Gran Turismo a quality addition to the genre despite some overlong love paid to its video game sponsor and a fairly familiar story. Be aware that if you go see this in theaters, you might have talking/farting/barefoot boys on either side of you, but that you’ll probably have a good time despite all that too. This film probably isn’t going to win any awards, but it will win over its audience.
Weekend Watch - Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Across the Spider-Verse delivers everything you could want from a sequel and then some, going even harder with its gorgeous animation, involved action sequences, and emotional set-ups for payoffs we’ve yet to fully see.
Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic as vote by the blog’s Instagram followers is Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Sony Animation’s and Lord and Miller’s sequel to 2018’s Best Animated Feature, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. This film features the returning voice talents of Shameik Moore as Miles Morales, Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy, Brian Tyree Henry as Jeff Morales, Luna Lauren Velez as Rio Morales, Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker, and (technically returning if you count the post-credits scene) Oscar Isaac as Miguel O’Hara. A few of the notable voices joining the Spider-crew this time around are Jason Schwartzman as the villain Spot, Issa Rae as Jessica Drew, Daniel Kaluuya as Hobie Brown, Karan Soni as Pavitr Prabhakar, Shea Wigham as George Stacy, and Andy Samberg as Ben Reilly. Opening last weekend to rave reviews, this film has made its way to the very top of Letterboxd’s rankings and into IMDB’s Top 250 movies as well (at #11 currently). Let’s get into it.
Letter Grade: A; the only thing keeping it from that “+” is its reliance on a sequel to finish its story. If Beyond the Spider-Verse sticks the landing, it unquestionably jumps to an “A+”.
Should you Watch This Film? Yes! Emphatically, yes! Across the Spider-Verse is the best animated film since Into the Spider-Verse and might be one of the best films in general since then as well. Everyone needs to see this film.
Why?
Across the Spider-Verse picks up a year after the events of its predecessor with Miles Morales more established as Brooklyn’s very own Spider-Man, working in tandem with his father, Officer Jeff Morales, who still does not know his son’s secret identity, to bring down criminals across New York. After a jaunt into Gwen’s backstory, the film picks up when Gwen appears again in Miles’s universe, this time of her own volition, telling Miles about a multiversal team of Spider-heroes who protect the multiverse from existential threats. Upon discovering his own involvement in the current threat to the multiverse (inadvertently allowing Spot to escape), Miles secretly tags along with Gwen to make things right, sending the pair on a multiverse-spanning adventure that hasn’t quite wrapped up just yet.
This film does everything it sets out to do incredibly well. The animation is some of the best in film history, taking the comic book style of the first film and amping it up, giving each Spider-person’s universe its own style and colors, giving audiences some of the most beautiful scenes ever put to screen that also happen to be full of details and/or emotional moments that help flesh the film out. A two-hour-and-twenty-minute runtime is ambitious for an animated feature, but it never loses steam, jumping from moment to moment with a well-paced blend of humor, action, and human emotion. It does what all sequels are supposed to do – fleshes out the universe and playing with the themes of the first without ever losing the charm that made the first so great. It follows in the vein of great sequels like The Dark Knight or The Empire Strikes Back, taking on a slightly heavier story than its self-contained predecessor, personalizing the stakes for its heroes, and leaving you in need of a satisfying conclusion when the credits roll.
That ending is one of the only legitimate knocks against Across the Spider-Verse, leaving virtually all of its existing conflicts unresolved, more in the vein of 2021’s Dune or this year’s Fast X. It does a solid job of giving certain arcs some emotional closure but leaves the audience with a profound sense of satisfied dissatisfaction. You love what you’ve just seen, but there is an acute awareness of the fact that the story has so much resolution still to come. Again, I think it’ll pan out because Lord and Miller are great writers, and the directors they have chosen (Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson in this case) do an excellent job executing their artistic vision. It’s just one of those things in film where you’re stuck not knowing what the follow-up is going to bring. Will it be epic but bloated like At World’s End, campy and satisfying like Return of the Jedi, methodical but convenient like The Dark Knight Rises, bigger and with more fan service like Endgame, some other new descriptor we haven’t even thought of yet? Who’s to say? Regardless, I’m excited to see how they bring this trilogy home, and I really hope it does justice to these first two films, because they have been excellent.
Across the Spider-Verse delivers everything you could want from a sequel and then some, going even harder with its gorgeous animation, involved action sequences, and emotional set-ups for payoffs we’ve yet to fully see. The film is tracking to be a legitimate contender, not just for Best Animated Feature this year, but to be the best film of the year overall. If you haven’t already, please go see this film in theaters while it’s there. I’m going back tonight to celebrate my birthday if you needed any further endorsement.
Weekend Watch - Morbius
SONY has embraced the Spider-Verse anti-heroes but doesn’t quite seem to know how to make a fully high-quality film featuring one yet.
Welcome to the Weekend Watch, where each week, the blog will take a quick look at a new piece of television or film media that many people will probably be watching over the weekend and help you figure out if you too need to watch it. It’ll receive a subjective letter grade, as it is still too early to grant new films objective composite scores, and a quick, mostly spoiler-free recommendation for viewing. This week’s subject is Jared Leto’s new contribution to SONY’s Spider-Man universe, Morbius.
Letter Grade: D+/C-
Should you Watch This Film? Only if you are not the one paying for the ticket!
Why?
Morbius already has a bunch of terrible reviews, so I’m not going to belabor the point. This film is perfectly fine, but it fails to live up to the legitimate movie greatness of many other MCU films or even the fun, disjointed chaos of the Venom films. Leto’s performance is not overly noteworthy (he does look good though so that’s something), and honestly, the most realistic portrayal comes from Matt Smith as the villainous Milo/Lucian – his name gets a little confusing. Action sequences are almost exclusively CGI and not overly gripping. The story is pretty generic, but the character has potential. SONY has embraced the Spider-Verse anti-heroes but doesn’t quite seem to know how to make a fully high-quality film featuring one yet. There is a lot of discussion of what Morbius is going to do once the highly convenient artificial blood no longer slakes his thirst, but that question simply does not get answered. Even the proprietary post-credits scenes don’t fully understand what to do with an anti-hero, or even maybe with a villain. After watching Morbius, I am not sold on SONY’s Spider-Verse and certainly not convinced that it was worth the ticket price. The film’s biggest saving grace seems to be that the studio knew that it hadn’t produced a great product and kept the runtime under 2 hours, respecting the audience’s time. After we left the showing, my wife commented, and I agreed, that this was probably a film we could have waited to watch when it was on one of our streaming services, and that is honestly my recommendation to you. There is nothing that makes Morbius a must-watch big screen blockbuster, but it might be worth the watch if you want to see some hot Jared Leto and creepy Matt Smith action.