I never thought I would be doing ANOTHER piece talking about Madame Web. As a matter of fact, it was around the time that Chris Stuckmann posted his Madame Web “review” that I posted my piece on why it’s time for Sony to give Spider-Man back to Marvel. And it’s around the time of writing of which Bob Chipman, A.K.A. Moviebob, just uploaded his take on this trivial matter that I’m about to do my take on.
In all seriousness, Madame Web came out last month and was universally panned across the board by professional critics and those that actually had the guts to watch that turd in the wind in theaters. And while there has been stupid discourse over the financial bombing and lackluster quality of that movie, most notably that the sole reason it failed is because female led superhero stories don’t work because….women, the most obnoxious that I’m still seeing back and forth on social media weeks later is on Chris Stuckmann’s take on the movie, or most notably about the studio politics and behind the scenes drama surrounding it.
In case you don’t know who Chris Stuckmann is, he’s been known as one of the main film critics on YouTube since around 2010. He would do reviews on the latest movies that are playing in cinemas, video analyses of certain key films, and specific videos talking about the state of cinema in general. Outside of Jeremy Jahns, he’s probably been the biggest and most influential movie reviewer on YouTube for the majority of the 2010s.
However for the past few years, Chris had been working to become a professional film director, making his feature length film debut with a project titled Shelby Oaks. In 2021, he announced on his channel that he will stop doing videos where he critiques film to take his first few steps into filmmaking and now mainly uses his channel to discuss films that he actually enjoys.
For longtime viewers, this felt like a decision that was long coming. Even before semi-retiring as a film critic, he has stated constantly that he doesn’t enjoy dogpiling on movies due to how that negative mindset has impacted the state of film criticism on the internet, so much so that he stopped doing worst movies of the years lists after 2017. That right there practically gave you a direction of where his head was at for his future on YouTube. Not to mention, making a platform out of showing love and passion for film and NOT contempt seems like the logical way to go for someone who is working to become a filmmaker. Considering we all live in a time where negativity attracts the most attention on the internet, especially in regards to entertainment, it does seems like a refreshing change of pace for someone as big as Chris Stuckmann to use his popularity to support the good side of cinema instead of always fueling fire with the bad.
However, shortly after Madame Web came out, Chris decided to make a video talking about it. It wasn’t so much about the quality of the film itself but more of what likely went on from behind the camera and the film production at Sony Pictures. And because of that, the internet didn’t react so kindly to that video.
Most were outraged at the fact that Chris didn’t make the whole video about tearing down Madame Web and swearing off everyone involved with that movie. There were those that claimed he’s only doing that to save face in case he one day gets a shot on working on a major franchise with a major studio. While I can understand an argument or two on that, the majority of the response what I’m seeing is the fact that people are angry with the fact that Chris himself didn’t do an angry rant on the movie where he’s constantly shouting and isn’t joining along with the rest of the internet to tear an obvious bad movie down a new a**hole. And what I say to that is, you all need to CHILL THE F**K OUT!
First off, never once in that video does Chris claim that he wanted to do a review on Madame Web. As I mentioned before, his main goal with his channel is to celebrate good films instead of tearing down bad films like the majority of the internet does with anything nowadays. Why in the world would he make an exception with Madame Web? Because everyone else is doing it?! Because it’s a Marvel/superhero movie?! Because it’s a female led movie?!?! What would be the point of him doing that? Doing a negative review on that is no longer in his character so why would he feel compelled to do that?!?!
Heck, he literally states at the beginning of the video that it is NOT a review of Madame Web and there’s plenty of other folks out there that have reviews for it for everyone else to read, watch, or listen to. That right there should have given you all the info you need to know that is NOT a review of Madame Web, assuming the title of the video didn’t give that away entirely.
For anyone that actually bothers to watch the entire video instead of an out of context clip on Twitter and Facebook, you would know that Chris himself just wanted to give an insight has to how the film industry operates when it comes to most of the bigger franchises IPs out there. Now that he is within the industry and likely has associates who have worked on some of these franchise IPs, he now has a bigger understanding as to how things tend to work in the film business.
The whole point of a video is to put a spotlight on corporations like Sony and how they basically have control and say over how their big films go. In that, it’s not always on the cast and crew for why a product turns out so bad, it’s on the studios and their constant micromanagement of said film. Because at the end of the day, they are the ones that greenlight a movie and have totally say onto how things should go doing production of said film. What is so wrong with stating something so INCREDIBLY obvious?
As I mentioned in my piece about Sony last month, all you have to do is look at the treatment they have been giving our favorite web swinger since 2007 to prove Chris’s points. They are the ones that wrecked Spider-Man 3 by forcing Sam Raimi to include characters he didn’t want to. They are the ones that drove the Amazing Spider-Man film series into the ground by over budgeting, overplanning, and not having a proper direction for that franchise. They are the ones that are making these unnecessary Spidey villain origin stories that no one is asking for. And if reports are true, they are the ones that are rushing MCU’s Spider-Man 4 to get it out by next year despite the MCU being too packed in 2025 and they likely don’t even have a finished script for it yet. Who do you think is more at fault with the results of those movies mentioned? The cast and crew of those pictures or Sony themselves? If you say Sony, then congratulations you got the point of Chris’s video!
The thing is I’m sure all of us would KILL to do a Spider-Man movie if we were given the opportunity to do so. We all have our own version of Spider-Man that we would love to share with others all over the world. However, even when you get a chance to work on one, there’s a good chance that vision will not match the studios. As I mentioned before, they are the ones that chose the direction to go and whether or not your vision is the one they want. And if they refuse, you either have to sit down, shut up, and do what they say or you would just quit entirely. This is a real world we live in and the studios won’t just hand over their massive franchises over to you and let you do what they want just because. They have to approve of everything.
In the case of Madame Web, Sony are the ones that approved the quality of that mess, not director S.J. Clarkson or writers Kerem Sanga, Claire Parker, Matt Sazama, and Burk Sharpless. Sony could have said “No!” to the movie they made and have it reworked into a better film but they didn’t. However, because the majority of people that watch said film don’t know how big movies are made, they just put the full blame on the cast and crew for the outcome of the movie they saw and NOT on the studio that greenlighted it. Because of that, it’s the creative team behind the movie that will suffer the great casualties from Madame Web and NOT Sony Pictures! Once again, this is what Chris Stuckmann was talking about!
And even if all of this has NOTHING to do with the video, why do you need ANOTHER review that’s just nonstop bashing Madame Web?! You already have hundreds to thousands other YouTubers for you to do that, as stated by Chris at the literal START OF THE VIDEO! You have mainstream critics that panned the hell out of the movie, so much so that it will likely go down as one of the worst reviewed films of 2024. You have an audience that didn’t bother to go and see it and Sony will likely lose a TON of money as a result. This is the equivalent of kicking a horse that’s already dead! Just stop! THE DAMAGE HAS BEEN DONE!
I do want to make something clear that I am NOT against film criticism. Even in an age where we have YouTubers making overlong and tedious movie reviews that talk about how said film is “OBJECTIVELY BAD!” which is non stop nitpicking with the mindset of a CinemaSins doppelganger, I do think critical feedback is important in the hopes of more quality films in the future. However, I don’t think Chris Stuckmann contradicts that because quite simply, he is no longer the man to go to in this regard. He himself has confirmed that and everyone has to simply expect that now.
I can maybe understand if you used to watch Chris Stuckmann and weren’t aware of his more friendly turn to discussing films that you might have an initial negative reaction to this. However, for those that have known this since 2021, what exactly are you trying to accomplish here? Another bad review of Madame Web isn’t going to change anything since there’s already been a million of them since the movie came out. It’s like the equivalent of picking up on the poor nerdy kid in school who has no friends and is constantly being picked on. Everyone else is doing it so that means I should do it too! If that’s the mindset everyone has in regards to this, then that just goes to show you how far proper film discourse has fallen.
The vile reaction to Chris’s video is just more proof of different times we live in now. Gone are the days where a film is loved and acclaimed by everyone with an occasional contrarian or two. Gone are the days where we can have a simple discussion and explain why a certain film just doesn’t work. Gone are the days where we can even make simple videos about how simply making a film is not as black and white as it seems. Now, it’s just going on and on about how “woke” or “anti-woke” a certain film is and whether or not it fits into one’s preferred political parties’ “agenda” or gives more ammunition in this so-called “cultural war”. It’s just stupid discourse after stupid discourse with no end in sight.
If you disagree with Chris Stuckmann’s take on what might have gone wrong behind the scenes with Madame Web, that’s fine. If you preferred when he was a film critic and had no problem with critiquing films, that is fine too. But if you are someone that is mad with the fact he is not joining along with every big name YouTuber in making Madame Web their whipping boy (or in the case of this movie, whipping girl) of the moment, then that says more about you than it does for Chris.
The funniest thing about this all is that Chris himself makes it perfectly clear that he did not enjoy Madame Web whatsoever. He might not directly say that but if you just read between the lines, it’s painfully obvious he agrees with 99.99% of the population in that Madame Web is a bad movie. The fact that people are angry at him anyway is the real master stroke on this sick cesspool we call film discourse in the year 2024!
And I am SO not prepared as to how Kung Fu Panda 4 will fare into all of this complete BS!
Come to think about it, perhaps that’s why DreamWorks hasn’t bothered to properly market that movie. Even they know that if too many people are aware of its existence, then Po’s next movie will too will get needlessly dragged or roped into this pointless war surrounding entertainment. Po is innocent and deserves so much better than what grifters or the “woke” crowd are gonna force him into by next week.
If only Roger Ebert was still around. He would find a way to stop all of this nonsense!
Adam's Blog 