Sony…
Is this a tax thing?
Or is it like when you made that Fantastic Four movie back in 1994 purely to keep the rights to the characters? I mean at least you had the decency not to release that one.
Or has someone kidnapped one of your executive kids and has threatened to kill them if you don’t keep churning out terrible super-hero films?
I mean, you don’t seem to want to release these things, no-one particularly wants to see them, the actors don’t seem to have enjoyed anything other than the pay check. I mean poor Dakota Johnson – who seems to have wished on a monkeys paw to be a movie star but can only star in unwatchable drokk that comes out around Valentines Day. I mean she allegedly left over this debacle, not 50 shades, Madam Web.
It’s not like you put together a dream team behind the camera either. Director S.J. Clarkson has worked purely in TV – which may explain why this whole thing feels like the first episode of a mid-budget CW show. The writers… The writers the writers the writers…. Somehow four people allegedly wrote this film (shockingly Alan Smithee wasn’t one of them ) and the only two who’s names I could click on Wikipedia were responsible for Dracula Untold, The Last Witch Hunter, Gods of Egypt, Morbius and Madame Web.
Yeah… The signs for this one weren’t good.
But, every film deserves to be seen on its own merits and the fact that this is a standalone film in it’s own universe (I truly hate that I have to specify this but it’s nice to know that you can go in ‘blind’ and not worry about feeling like you’ve missed anything.) Is somewhat refreshing.
Well, I think that covers all the positives, lets get back to business.
Apparently this film has been rewritten and reshot to hell and back which normally results in a film coming in to the 90 -100 minute mark but instead this film comes in at nearly two hours? Why? A film this simple should easily be an hour and a half long. And no longer.
And I do mean simple, essentially, Dakota Web has to save three insufferable brats from a Spider-terminator whilst at the same time dealing with the fact that she’s started to glimpse the future. There’s a few other bits a bobs, a random group of Spider-Cenobites keep turning up to do nothing but repeatedly beat us over the head with the same tedious exposition in a film where the dialogue is seemingly nothing but stilted, repetitive, delivered like I’m in a Shamalan film exposition and references to one character’s un-named nephew.
The guys name is Ben Parker…. Gee, I wonder what his nephew will be called? Oh, he won’t because of… I’m going to guess legal reasons?
Anyway, the saving point of any super-hero film is our villain, our dark Spider…. Ceiling guy. What? Don’t look at me like that, the film calls him Ceiling Guy, why, I couldn’t tell you but I’m just going to assume lawyers again. But he’s got the usual spread of powers, speed, strength, agility and the ability to produce poison from his hands of whatever strength and lethality the script needs at that point in time.
He’s trying to kill our insufferable leads because at some point in the future, our leads (I think they had names but it doesn’t really matter, Johnson could be protecting 3 pot plants for all they actually do in the film) are going to acquire spider powers and kill him, so he’s going to kill them first. So I’m just going to quote Kung Fu- Panda 2 Panda Harder and move on “One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.” Because I fully support him in his mission.
Also, the three don’t get any powers in this film, they only appear kitted up in dream sequences. Maybe Sony thinks they can make a series out of this and I wish them the best of luck with that. Like I said, this film feels like the beginning of a TV show but it isn’t. It’s a mid budget film with nothing to recommend about it. It’s too dull to become a so-bad-it’s-good film, it doesn’t need to be watched to understand Venom 3: Venom Hard with a Vengeance, it’s just sort of there.
And very shortly it won’t be.
What passes for action scenes are generally very dull, boring car chases, the physical action scenes are terrible, there’s the most obvious product placement for Pepsi I’ve seen since World War Z (2013) and they couldn’t even be bothered to put in any end credits scenes.
I mean, they cut “that” trailer line out of the actual film and we can’t even convince Sony to re-release it again like we did with Morbius.
Am I done?
Yeah, I think I’m done. Whatever Sony thinks it’s playing at, can it please stop because these films are just getting duller and duller. I can’t even call this “The Cats (2019) of super-hero films” like the folks at Rolling Stone did because it’s not even that interesting, and I think that’s because the budget ($80 million) seems too low for what the director wanted to do, or all the reshoots soaked up all the cash and she was forced to do whatever she could with the 83p that was left.
Yes, this film is less interesting than Cats (2019) I mean, that WILL generate a cult-following in time. You mark my words. This won’t though. This is just going to be fodder for listicles of “Worst Superhero films ever” forever and ever amen.
I just hope everyone got paid and Dakota Johnson finds a way to break her curse soon.
My Score- Bomb
danielsdunkings 