Tag: dakota-johnson

About Chris Stuckmann’s Madame Web “Review”

AdamLeave a comment

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!

Madame Web (2024) Movie Review- A Madame Webbing Time

AdamLeave a comment

Here we go again, ladies and gentlemen! Time for another installment in the HOTTEST cinematic universe going on at the movie, the S(cam)ony Villain Cinematic Universe! It started off with a BANG with the turd in the wind that was Venom, followed with Venom: Let There Be Carnage which lived up to the promise of the post credits where Woody Harrleson said, “When I get out of here and I will, there’s gonna be CARNAGE!!!!“, and then came Morbius which offered one absolutely MORBIN TIME that had audiences stand and cheer in the theaters all around the world. Finally, we have Madame Web and as it’s title suggests, it’s the ultimate MADAME WEBBING EXPEREINCE!

Sure, the plot itself might be relatively non-existent, relying on the most unlikely coincidences, multiple continuity errors, bizarre contrivances, and absolute defiance of actual logic imaginable. Sure, it might contain some of the sloppiest and incoherent editing that you will likely see all year. Sure, the action might be very poor, with a climax that is so tense that you can’t even see what the f*ck is happening onscreen. Sure, it has a talented cast that could not look more embarrassed to be there and have been crapping all over this movie throughout their entire press tour. Sure, it feels like a superhero movie that came out in 2003 (which is the actual year which this movie is set in). And sure, the biggest line of the trailer, “He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died,” isn’t even in the damn movie at all. However, there is no other movie out there that is will give you a more MADAME WEBBING experience than this MADAME WEBBING masterwork!

I would go into the plot itself but considering the fact that it’s basically the plot of every Final Destination movie every and about every “chase” movie imaginable, it’s relatively pointless too. However, the big important thing here is the way that Madame Web MASTERFULLY ties into Sony’s Cinematic Universe. First off, it answers the two BIGGEST questions that EVERYONE has always had about Spider-Man! 1.) What was Uncle Ben doing in his years as a hot paramedic? and 2.) What happened the night that Peter Parker’s mother Mary, gave birth to him? I know that I was always wanting the answer to those questions and thankfully, the film answers that in a way that is so dumb that it’s secretly brilliant. The LAYERS this film has are just something else!

We of course have to get into the four leading women carrying the picture! They could not have had more perfect chemistry if they even tried. Even though the ways they are connected with each other is probably some of the biggest coincidences I’ve ever seen in an motion picture with relationship dynamics that make little to no sense (Mattie is angry as Anya for literally no reason throughout the entire movie!), it’s something so refreshing to see so many women leading a superhero flick! Sure, The Marvels was….okay I guess but Madame Web is really how a female-lead superhero film is suppose to be! You just let them work out their girl powers (No pun intended!) and let them kick ass in ways that are incoherent and hard to follow on screen. And unlike The Marvels which was a huge bomb, Madame Web is for sure set to make MADAME WEBBING DOLLARS!

And unlike say that woke Suicide Squad game that made me not want to wank off to Harley Quinn and Wonder Woman, Madame Web actually lets the ladies show off a little screen. With their nice hair, skin tight outfits, and absurd amount of make up that makes them look like models (despite them all suppose to be teenage girls that are really played by girls in their 20s), this is definitely a female-led movie that’s made for guys. After all, women in superhero media aren’t suppose to be their own fleshed out characters who have their own goals, personalities, and superpowers, they only exist to be in interest of men and men alone. Let women have Barbie! Way to know your audience, Sony!

Of course, this is all Dakota Johnson’s movie as it’s suppose to be considering well..it is a Madame Web movie that tells the origin story of Madame Web. I will warn you though, it’s an INCREDIBLY slow burn where nothing much happens and you’ll likely find yourself as half awake that Dakota Johnson looks in the entire movie. You get every single detail about Cassie Webb in her early days as a hot paramedic, right down to spending time with her cat and how she absurdly got her powers. Although, it doesn’t revolve around the Amazon with her mom when she was researching spiders right before she died, it does take it’s time to show off the same superpower over and over and over again because the writers can’t seem to think of any other clever way to show off her powers. It does require your patience but I promise you the whole ten seconds of her in that ICONIC red suit at the VERY end of the movie is all worth it.

And speaking of which, this movie does SUCH a good job as fleshing out these female characters that you don’t even notice that they aren’t even in their Spider-Women costumes for 99.999999% of the movie. From my estimate, the ladies have about as much screentime in their superHERoine outfits as Taylor Swift did in the Super Bowl, which was a mere 54 seconds btw. Even though the whole purpose of a superHERoine origin story is seeing them turn into a superHERoine at least by the half way point, this cleverly keeps it as minimum as possible, leaving the audience want more from the future. After all, as the good old saying goes, LESS is MORE! And you could have not done MORE with LESS than with this movie.

A big credit has to go to writing duo of Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless. Coming high off their MORBIN masterpiece that was Morbius, they somehow are able to top themselves here! They manage to come up with a script that feels like the most sloppy first copy of a draft imaginable, almost like the equivalent of writing things on the fly, and have it feel as disjointed of a film that I’ve ever seen. It’s GENIUS writing if I’ve ever seen one! This is the kind of duo that should be an inspiration to screenwriters everywhere! Because now you know you can have a script that has no coherent storyline or consistent character motivations in order to get a movie made!

We also have to get credit to S.J. Clarkson, making her directional film debut. Sure, she might have directed some okay episodes of Jessica Jones and The Defenders but she REALLY brought her A-game here. That might have to do with the fact that the film at large feels like a two-hour pilot for a television series that will likely NEVER see the light of day. With the way the low 80 million dollar budget is painfully on screen, how it has so many forced tie-ins at such a brisk pace, and how by the end, it leaves plenty of plot elements up in the air for future entries to continue upon, she could not have been a better choice for Sony. She was able to make a film that stood strictly on it’s own that it didn’t even need a post credit scene to justify it’s existence. Take notes, Disney and Marvel!

The cinematography is stunning with so much visual imagery that dives deeply into Cassie’s self conscious and her powers, the editing feels incredibly ADHD and feels more like it was edited by folks who do trailers rather than movies, the action is all over the place and sloppy like it’s main characters are, and the score is so one note you could swear that Johan Söderqvist was half awake the entire time composing it. And unlike other superhero flicks, it actually spares most of the CGI and saves it for it’s intense climax, with effects that look about as fake and green screen than any movie that I’ve seen in quite some time. An absolute A effort for everyone involved.

In conclusion, Madame Web truly lives up to it’s title and makes for a Madame Webbing time at the theaters. It’s so astonishing that it leaves me anxious to see where this ill-fated and not thought out at all cinematic universe is going. More importantly, which Spider-Man universe is this suppose to connect in? It was suppose to be Andrew Garfield but no one liked that whiny brat in the Amazing Spider-Man movies so pass. It was suppose to be Tom Holland until Sony realized that would make NO logical sense for this to take place in the MCU, so much so that they had to rewrite the entire script while shooting. And with the way Peter Parker is born in this movie, it leaves the room for ANOTHER Spider-Man to join this universe in the future.

Even so, we got Kick-Ass/the inferior Quicksilver coming up as Kraven the Hunter in August and Bane/Mad Max in Venom 3 coming out in October. There’s PLENTY of content we have left to get through before the inevitable Sinister Six movie happens and Sony makes up their mind on whatever Spider-Man they want to join this universe. With this cinematic universe clearly not slowing down any time soon, I think Marvel Studios and DC should be taking notes here. This is how you do a cinematic universe!

Madame Webbing Web made for one Madame Webbing time and I can’t wait to see this film madame webbing again.

This is an easy four out of stars for me! Move over Dune Part II and Deadpool III, THIS is the movie of 2024!

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all! Especially you, Sony! Keep up the madame webbing work!

Thanks for checking out my review! I sure hope it was as sloppy and all over the place as this entire film was!

Real thoughts:

This movie is undoubtedly the most fascinating mess of a movie that I’ve seen in quite some time, feeling more like a POC than an actual feature film. It’s certainly more competently made than say….Morbius but it feels as ever bit as much of an obligation to make as that. I might have to make a piece on this soon but after Beyond the Spider-Verse, Sony really needs to give the film rights of Spider-Man back to Marvel. These villain movies are becoming more and more nonsensical by the day. It’s clear that audiences don’t want to see them as much as Sony doesn’t want to make them! So, stop doing it, please!

Maybe a one and a half out of four stars if I’m being generous.

Probably will change it to one out of four stars once I sleep on it though!

Also, this is still the GOAT Madame Web btw!

Oh, and Happy Valentine’s Day!