Review: Spider-Man - Across The Spider-Verse

Spider-Man:
Across The Spider-Verse
Cert: PG / 134 mins / Dir. Joaquim Dos Santos / Trailer

It's an odd one alright. I complain quite vociferously about the lack of new available content at my local 'small' five-screen cinema, while simultaneously seeming to ignore popular mainstream releases which should by all accounts be right up my alley. There are fatigue-related reasons that Sony's new Spider-Man movie opened at the beginning of June and it's taken me six weeks to get round to watching it.

While I didn't actively dislike its predecessor Into The Spider-Verse, the film was definitely saddled with the burden of being Sony's Spider-Man rather than Marvel's one. And Sony's output is increasingly like a 1980s pop band touring provincial venues with only one original member, and they're not even the best part of the band but they are somehow the one who won the legal rights to use the name. The 2018 animated feature was too long, too messy, too loud and with too much shit thrown at the wall in an attempt to make something stick.

With all this in mind then, I can confidently report that Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse is at least tonally consistent as a sequel.

MILES

The storyline follows on from last time, with Earth-1610's Miles Morales being back in his own world and struggling to find a trajectory as he nears the end of high school while moonlighting as Spider-Man. Meanwhile, Earth-65's Gwen Stacy battles with her own issues as Spider-Woman, living with a father who's unaware of her secret identity and determined to catch 'The Spider' for the murder of Peter Parker. But when a Renaissance version of The Vulture starts tearing through the multiverse, the multiversal 'Spider-Society' is tasked to stop him - which will mean reluctantly recruiting Morales to help...

In theory this is all fine; in practice it's too much simultaneous Content™ again. Visuals which would look outstanding for a three-minute music video become utterly exhausting over two hours. Each and every frame here is a work of art, they just make no sense when they're strung together too maniacally to keep track of. There's more detail than the eye can follow through the film's hyperactive editing, and the whole thing turns into the visual equivalent of white noise. Ironically for a film this active, it creates a soporific effect as the brain starts to shut down rather than keep attempting to process the information. Perhaps I just need to watch it on a smaller screen.

Part of the USP with the animation is that its art style is constantly changing, often within the same scene. Initially it seems to be doing this to reflect the character whose point-of-view we're experiencing, but scenes later in the movie only feature two people yet cycle through half a dozen looks. This precocious presentation results in a film which feels like watching a group of first-year art students have a collective seizure. Elsewhere, earnest and spirited vocal performances are rendered unintelligible by an atrocious sound-mix, poorly placed over intrusive, percussive soundtracking. And since around 60% of the dialogue here is catch-up exposition, Across The Spider-Verse basically has to be enjoyed (...) as a visual experience.

GINA

My real problem is bigger than all of this, though. The following is not limited to Spider-Verse, but certainly includes it. Put simply, multiverses are hands-down the worst thing to have happened to superhero cinema, and that's only getting more problematic. The concept works in print where the possibilities and limitations can be explored at a more careful pace (indeed, with comics it becomes needed as characters are relaunched for evolving audiences after years of literary service; multiverses allow for a soft-reboot), and I've admittedly enjoyed it at certain points previously. But the cinematic iteration of the superhero-multiverse has fast become the equivalent of 3D, a knee-jerk fad to be ordered at an executive level in lieu of creativity. And it's already on its arse.

As well as encouraging filmmakers to overindulge in distracting cameos and needless fan-service, the open-ended structure of parallel realities means that narrative decisions in one movie can be ret-conned, undone or just flat out ignored in the next (yes I'm looking at you, Gamora). When consequence is removed from the storyline then none of it matters on an emotional level, and cinema is supposed to be about empathy. But hey, why mine for a deeper pulse when you can just make the whole thing bigger and louder with more slightly-different versions of the same thing*¹? Audiences know by this point not to expect restraint from corporations desperately trying to keep their intellectual property fresh, and the race for More Stuff™ has become just as repetitive as the origins-formula it was trying to supersede.

Even more ironically with Across The Spider-Verse, Miles Morales (and by extension, the whole audience) gets a whole lecture about 'canon events' - concurrences which need to take place across every iteration of the hero's life (here it's the death of Uncle Ben, or equivalent guardian in each timeline), otherwise their path will be too different from all the other spider-heroes and things will become too unpredictable. What this deftly - if unintentionally - illustrates is that Sony are happy to bring in about a hundred different Spider-Mans from all the corners of the property they've got the rights to but are too afraid to do anything different with the character. Spidey's backstory is permanently locked into our pop culture at the same level as Bruce Wayne's, meaning nothing can be changed on a fundamental level without Sony taking a massive gamble in pissing off the legacy fanbase and also not enticing new viewers. In other worse, Spider-Man is precisely the wrong character with which to explore the multiverse. Well done, guys.

DICKIE

Truth be told, when Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse slows down and actually concentrates on its character-work, it is pretty superb. But the fact that this only happens twice in over two hours means that the film, on the whole, isn't. A textbook example of Style Over Substance. In all honesty, it feels like I'm done*².

All I really want out of Spider-Man is a third Andrew Garfield flick to close out his trilogy, and a new set of live-action movies for Miles Morales where possibilities can be broadened. And what are Sony bringing to the table instead? How are they maximising on their end of an historic deal from Marvel currently enjoyed by no other studio? With shit-Dracula and shit-Tarzan. We get the protagonists we deserve.

To make matters worse, I just know that Me in some other part of the multiverse is enjoying the good stuff...

*¹ "more slightly-differing versions of the same thing" is, to be fair, Marvel's entire cinematic business-model. And I have to admit it's done them well for at least the first ten years of the MCU... ^{[ BACK ]}

*² It's worth noting of course that this is Sony's mess, not that of Marvel Studios. But Marvel's name is on the can and they signed off on this - they do have that veto. Which means they are in a large and instrumental part responsible for it. And even that'd be easier to forgive if Marvel hadn't put out Eternals under their own banner. If they can be slack in what they serve up, they can expect consumers to give few fucks in return... ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Spider-Man - Far From Home (second-pass)

Spider-Man: Far From Home (second-pass / 2D / MAJOR SPOILERS)
Cert: 12A / 129 mins / Dir. Jon Watts / Trailer



Hello, this is your spoiler-break. If you haven't seen Spider-Man: Far From Home, you shouldn't be here. This piece goes into (and underneath) far too much detail of the plot and themes of the film. To the point where it probably won't even make too much sense if you haven't seen the movie, but all the same you can always read my first-pass review to get a general flavour of what's in store (very vague spoilers in there, but nothing too derailing).

It took me far too long to get round to watching Far From Home again, but in the meanwhile I was at least able to marshall my thoughts somewhat. I absolutely love it, that should have been clear last time, and watching a second time allowed me to pick out more specific detail while also having the deeper themes filled in with more texture. I still didn't get quite the buzz that I did from 2017's Homecoming, but this movie is far more than just a flashy ride, as we'll discover.

Anyway, that's enough stalling - proceed with care…



Still here? Smashing. Okay, let's look at potentially the biggest revelation in Far From Home before we get into the meaning of the film. Because while they're certainly linked, they're not the same thing. J.Jonah Jameson appears in the mid-credits scene. Big deal, J.Jonah Jameson is a central player in the spider-specific mythos, and he didn't rock up in Homecoming, either reinterpreted or otherwise, so he fits in well here. But J.Jonah Jameson is played by actor J.K. Simmons here. Big deal, Simmons is an absolutely perfect fit for the bullish newspaper editor. In fact, we know he's a perfect fit because we saw J.K. Simmons play J.Jonah Jameson in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy from 2002-07.

Wait, what? Oh yeah.

Now, the one point on which Marvel Studios have been consistent over the course of twenty three movies is that the cinematic universe is sprawling yet self-contained. Characters who have appeared in other movies and media previously are not to be taken as the ones in the MCU content, in terms of the story-canon. Many of them will have broadly similar backstories, but characters, events and even actors outside this timeline are not to be taken as historical in their new iterations. That's why Chris Evans was able to portray The Human Torch in a pair of Fox's Fantastic Four movies, and still become the definitive Captain America. It's why Ben Affleck was Daredevil in the 2003 flick, but in the MCU he's played by Charlie Cox, and different things happen to that character.*¹

Anyway, the point is that Marvel Studios aren't beholden to the story arcs and casting choices of any 'sub-contracted' movie series*². So why, after all these years of retooling and re-imagination, has J.K. Simmons returned in the role of J.Jonah Jameson? They could have dropped many other performers into that role. Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Tommy Lee Jones, Jenny Agutter, the MCU is full of actors who maybe can't do the action stuff any more, but are still great to have in roles of gravitas. But they chose Simmons again. Rest assured, this was no accident. And the answer, somewhat ironically, lies in last year's Into The Spider-Verse. Sony's non-MCU animated extravaganza deals with the collision of various comic and cartoon versions of the web-slinger, when a dimensional-portal mishap draws all these threads together. And just when we thought the MCU was safely walled off from Marvel's uneven earlier cinematic efforts, J.K. Simmons rocks up as J.Jonah Jameson, reminding everyone of those three Tobey Maguire movies*³. And all of a sudden, it seems like characterisations from elsewhere in Marvel's screen history actually could exist in the MCU after all. Different stories, but same faces.

How? That's not explained. Yet. Doctor Strange spoke of seeing different realities at the climax of Infinity War, his 2021 outing is titled Multiverse of Madness, and Disney's recent re-acquisition of the X-Men and Fantastic Four characters via the Fox buy-out could well point to some mass crossover whereby non-MCU properties are at least accounted for (otherwise it's exposition-heavy reboots all round). Far From Home teases the possibility earlier in its run-time when Mysterio states he's from Earth 813, a parallel dimension to the MCU's 'standard' Earth 616. But as everything else Quentin Beck says here is a lie, presumably we can discount that, too? We can certainly scrub his exact version of events, although the seed has been planted all the same. Hell, Beck's got access to a lot of Stark's old files, and it's possible his own team have made some advancements of their own, he's just rounding it out with bullshit.

But the first shoot to break through the soil comes in the mid-credits scene, and it's something which was there all along - we just hadn't been shown it yet.

J.Jonah Jameson exists in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the editor of The Daily Bugle, and he's played by J.K. Simmons. And Jameson's still angry. He's angrier than ever, in fact. Because director Jon Watts hasn't stopped with a callback to an old character. In the MCU, The Daily Bugle and its associated website is an opinionated, authoritarian, right-wing, conspiracy-theory-loving news outlet. 2019 (our version) is a cynical place, and not everyone has that 'gee-whiz' trust in the media any more. The Daily Bugle now shadows the likes of Fox News*⁴ and even InfoWars; Jameson rants and raves across the digital airwaves, so determined to bring viewers The Truth™ that he's prepared to spread lies to do it. And it could be the most real thing that Marvel Studios have done to date.

Which brings us, as they say, to the crunch. The real message, hiding in plain sight throughout Far From Home. That even in fiction, you can't handle the truth…

IT'S EASY TO FOOL PEOPLE
WHEN THEY'RE FOOLING THEMSELVES.

Or, as a much wiser man once said, "your eyes can deceive you, don't trust them". That thing you just saw, there. Did you really see it? Really? Okay, but did you also believe it? In 2019? More fool you. And its coming to something when the largest entertainment company on Earth - the one that's been capturing hearts through fiction for just shy of a hundred years - feels the need to dole out that lesson.

The Daily Bugle's paranoid propaganda machine is the final raised-eyebrow, tongue-in-cheek hammerblow in a movie which has spent two hours telling its audience to question everything. From Quentin Beck's fabricated backstory, to the hologram generators he uses to create his attacks, to the con he pulls on Peter to get the E.D.I.T.H. glasses, to the visual nightmare he summons around Spider-Man to paralyse him, to his coup de grace contingency-plan of faking a video then doxxing Parker as revenge from beyond the grave: question everything.

From the double-life that Parker still leads as he tries to complete his education and not assume the full mantle of hero, to pretending he doesn't know why his school tour is being diverted around Europe into the path of attacking Elementals, to the clumsy excuses he makes to MJ as he tries to avoid the subject of his absence without flat-out lying to the girl he's falling for: question everything.

From Happy Hogan and Aunt May lying to Peter about the relationship they're having, to Happy Hogan and Aunt May lying to each other about the relationship they're having, to Happy sending clumsily coded messages to Nick Fury about Mysterio's whereabouts, to Nick Fury pretending he didn't pick those up, to Nick Fury lying to Happy and Peter Parker because Nick Fury is actually Talos because the real Nick Fury is halfway across the galaxy helping the Skrull refugees, to Talos then attempting to play down the absolute shit-show he's created on Earth in the meanwhile: question everything.

PEOPLE NEED SOMETHING TO BELIEVE;
THESE DAYS, PEOPLE WILL BELIEVE ANYTHING.

Throughout all of this, Spider-Man: Far From Home is a film about belief. It's about Peter Parker learning how much Tony Stark believed in him, and Parker learning to believe in himself, too. Not so much the cocky, self-assuredness of an athletic teenager with access to a billionaire's vault of technology and the free-rein to use it, but believing - knowing - that he's doing this for the right reasons. That being the hero is just the right thing to do, because not everyone can help themselves. Because being the hero is a privilege.

It's a film about confidence, about trust, about choosing friends you can rely on and about accepting that sometimes you'll make mistakes. It's about accepting that you won't always know what to do - whether you're 15, 35 or 85. And ultimately it's a film about truth. About how damaging the truth can be as well as how liberating. About how we'll often deny the truth in comfort rather than confront it to make things genuinely better, and how when it's taken out of our hands that can cause even more problems.

At the end of Far From Home, the city of New York (and by extension the world) knows that Spider-Man is a kid named Peter Parker. That shouldn't affect him too adversely, Tony Stark outed himself as Iron Man at the end of the first movie, after all. In fact, Spider-Man is one of the few heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe who actually has a 'secret identity'. But that disguise wasn't there to help the web-slinger - it was there to help the kid who wears the suit. The kid who knows he still has to finish his education if he's to become the best version of himself. Well, I'm sure the Stark Foundation can stretch to some private tuition because now Parker is in the big-leagues. They're probably going to have to stretch to some protection for May, Ned and MJ too, but that's another story.

Parker will do well, though. He'll grow, he'll adapt.
He'll become the hero he was meant to be.

I believe in him.

Spider-Man: Homecoming.



It is.



It is.



It certainly deserves to be near the top of the CV of everyone involved.



I suppose we might.



There ain't.



Level 1: Pre Vizsla is in this.
Also, Peter Parker's got a 3¾" scale TIE Bomber in his bedroom, which is exactly the level of in-universe homage I'm after. The Lego Death Star from last time was a bit much, mate.





*¹ It's also kind of why Evan Peters is the mutant-Quicksilver in 2014's X-Men: Days Of Future Past, but Aaron Taylor-Johnson is the "enhanced" Quicksilver in 2015's Avengers: Age Of Ultron. That one is more complicated, in fact - same character, completely different backstory for self-defeating contractual reasons - and I'll be honest I'm regretting bringing it up now. But here we are. Blame Marvel. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² Andrew Garfield did a fantastic job in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and Marvel still recast the role to Tom Holland in the MCU. Holland is also fantastic, but that's not my point. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ In fact, Simmons also voiced Jameson in the Ultimate Spider-Man animated TV series, although that's less likely to be in the minds of the casual cinema-going audience. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ While they've kept the newspaper's branding in-universe for obvious reasons, this is a particularly delicious tonal twist as Disney (owners of Marvel) have recently bought the entertainment arm of Fox Corp, leaving its broadcast network and news outlets to fend for themselves financially - ie without being under the larger umbrella that also earns income from licensed Marvel characters such as X-Men. They can basically take the piss out of Fox's shouty bullshit paranoia full-belt now, knowing they're not inadvertently funding it. ^{[ BACK ]}


DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Spider-Man - Far From Home (first-pass)

Spider-Man: Far From Home (first-pass / 2D / THEMATIC SPOILERS)
Cert: 12A / 129 mins / Dir. Jon Watts / Trailer



Well, we're barely half-way through the year and already on to the third entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Jon Watts' Spider-Man: Far From Home landing in cinemas before Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame have even hit the Blu-ray shelves.

We're in the post-Endgame timeframe, as the world adjusts to life without the heroes they lost fighting Thanos, as well as the odd fact that everyone who disappeared in 'the snap' has returned, albeit five years younger than those who were spared the cull - adressed early in the screenplay and referred to in-universe as 'the blip'. Young Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is still having to balance student-life with being an on-call Avenger. With an imminent school trip to the cities of Europe, Peter hopes to take a back seat from the costumed life and catch the right moment to tell classmate M.J. (Zendaya) that he's grown increasingly fond of her. But naturally a superhero can't go on vacation in much the same way that Hercule Poirot can't book himself into a Travelodge for the weekend and expect peace and quiet.

And so, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Maria Hill (Coby Smulders) enlist the web-slinger to assist the multi-dimensional newcomer Quentin Beck, aka Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal). Beck has come to Earth 616 (ie, the reality we know from all previous movies) from his alternate existence, Earth 813, after it's destroyed by four power-hungry entities known as the Elementals. These aeons-old beasts are attacking major cities with little-to-no warning, and the remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D. need all the help they can get.

CARD

Now, perhaps the strongest card played by the movie is how much surface resemblance it bears to its predecessor, Homecoming. The high-school aesthetic eases us gently back into the levity, and a lot of flippant laughs serve to mask more deadpan humour behind. This is a film very much made for people who bought into Parker's pre-Thanos adventure, and viewers who struggled with certain aspects of that will find little to change their minds here. Those aspects are slightly amplified if anything. Of course, Homecoming's strength lay in how self-contained it managed to be in such a sprawling wider narrative. Far From Home has more threads to pull together in that respect, but still manages to do so with its own voice.

But it's not just a disposable action-jaunt. Peter spends the film struggling to form a romantic relationship while people around him breeze in and out of theirs. He's also sorely in need of a mentor-figure, and the shadow of Tony Stark looms over the story and its characters (in a good way).

The title 'Far From Home' is a callback to the 2017 movie and a descriptor for the 2019 sequel, as well as being a nod to The Wizard Of Oz. And much like that classic, there are themes here about identity, responsibility, trust, social-conditioning and most notably Fake News™. In fact, that latter is presented far too boldly to hold the mantle of subtext, feeling both entirely fitting yet painfully on-the-nose. But it's woven into the fabric of the movie and runs throughout (stay until the end of the credits - obviously).

FEAR

Holland does well in the title role, by now embedded as Parker for a new generation of cinema-goers, and is supported well by an extensive cast returning from both Homecoming and the wider MCU. Sam Jackson illustrates that irritated Nick Fury is the best (and the funniest) Nick Fury. There's another layer to this performance, but that can't be discussed without minute spoilers, which we aren't doing here. On the newbie-front, Jake Gyllenhaal is on predictably solid form and deliberately hard to read. But the most pored-over casting choice in the next few weeks will be the one*¹ who seems to suggest that the live action Spider-Man universes may well be pulling together in much the same way as their animated counterpart. Exciting stuff.

Marvel continue to soar in regard to choreography, cinematography and spectacle, and a fantastic nightmare-type sequence means this is arguably the most visually ambitious entry to date. Michael Giacchino returns on score-duties, capitalising on his fantastic work from the last outing, yet not adding too much to the overall soundscape. But his work retains the identity of Homecoming without being just a rehash, and that's not to be sniffed at.

The expansion of the mythos is on slightly looser ground however, with the Elementals bearing more than a passing resemblance to Spider-Man's 2007's antagonist, Sandman, and one particular character's backstory seeming to riff on Jim Carrey's 1995 Riddler. The well can only go so deep obviously, but if you were going to deliberately evoke a pair of superhero movies from years past, would Spider-Man 3 and Batman Forever really be on on that list?

CHOCOLATE

Make no mistake, Spider-Man: Far From Home is an imperfect film, but I love that imperfection. It's easy to make something which looks gorgeous but feels empty, and while this never quite reaches the heights of Homecoming, it's still a two-hour joyride in every sense.
Outstanding work and I grinned throughout.

The business-end (not spoilers, but highlight-to-read anyway):

• Is there a Wilhelm Scream? I dunno. Didn't hear an obvious one?
• Is there a Stan Lee cameo? There isn't, those days have now past.
• Is there a mid-credits scene? There is - stay for this.
• Is there a post-credits scene? There is - stay for this.

MCU movies, but the other Spider-Man flick, in particular.



It is.



It is.



Let's not get carried away.
Although this is still fantastic.



Well I LOVE the movie, so only you know if that's likely to happen.



Not that I heard.



Level 1: Mace Windu is in this.
What's more, he can apparently make references to Star Wars references. Very meta.





*¹ I won't name the performer in question this time, but I imagine that by the time this review goes live it'll be all over the internet anyway and you'll know exactly who I'm talking about. Because there's no such thing as accidental casting in a movie aimed in no small part at geeks who obsess over every last detail. ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Spider-Man - Into The Spider-Verse

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2D)
Cert: PG / 117 mins / Dir. Peter Ramsey, Bob Persichetti & Rodney Rothman / Trailer



Now, as some readers may recall, I wasn't exactly going a bunch on the trailers and previews for Sony Animation's new franchise-milker Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. I like ol' web-head, although he's far from my favourite Marvel hero, but this looked like it was going to be a two-hour migraine. In fact, it's probably not unfair to say that the more I saw, the more cautious I became at the prospect of watching the entire movie. But I digress; to the pitch...

PARKER

Teenager Miles Morales is struggling to fit it, both at school and at home. Bitten by a radioactive spider as he sprays graffiti in a subway, he meets Peter Parker and begins to realise he now has the potential to be New York's next superhero. But with Kingpin's subordinates attempting to build a machine which bridges alternate universes, a rift in the spacetime continuum causes other iterations of Spider-Man to appear in Morales' city. Together, the heroes attempt to destroy Kingpin's creation and return to their own realities before everything is ripped apart. But Morales has a learning-curve to climb first...

So, good things first. The film is ambitious both in scope and execution, an increasing rarity in the superhero genre as it becomes more crowded. As potentially confusing as the narrative is, everything is laid out clearly yet not over-explained, and the well-directed voice performances sell everything in between, so that even if the audience misses some of the minutiae, the emotion of each scene comes over neatly.

PENELOPE

But. Into The Spider-Verse is, as suspected, a headache-inducing two hour funfair ride which feels like trying to burn out a fever by washing down bags of Haribo with Sunny Delight. Sony's handling of Spider-Man as a property has been 'scattershot' for a long time now, and this broad sweep feels like someone in an office calling down to the writing-room for brighter colours and more Easter Eggs, irrespective of what the movie might need.

The art-style and character designs are gorgeous, but let down by an ADHD approach to pacing and soundtracking, with distractingly framey animation. The film often looks like it's been rendered in 12fps in a bid to save time and money. And on top of the 100%-saturation palette, there's so much stylised ghosting and blurring, alternating between background and foreground objects that I genuinely kept wondering if I'd accidentally booked the 3D screening and walked in without glasses (alas I would have seen this in 3D, but the timings didn't work out now that cinemas aren't prioritising stereoscopic screenings any more).

Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman's screenplay is very self-aware, but in all honesty I think that DC's Teen Titans Go! To The Movies played the existential comedy card with more charm. And that's a sentence that me from twelve months ago didn't think I'd ever be typing (although Aquaman lands later this week so let's not get too excited, eh?).

GAGA

I like that this is Sony playing with the multiple threads of Spider-Man continuity, but Spider-Verse doesn't so much tie those together as just point out that they all exist. It feels a lot like a feature-length pilot for a dimension-hopping anthology series, in which case it would serve its purpose very well. But I'm not sure how much a casual audience is going to get on with the intricate in-jokes and frenetic presentation.

All in all, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse reminded me that I am a middle-aged man and that not all cartoons are made for me nowadays. Which is fair enough. The film's engaging enough while it's on*¹, but I'm forgetting it already…

The business-end:

Is there a Wilhelm Scream? Not sure, really.
Is there a Stan Lee cameo? There is.
Is there a mid-credits scene? Nothing animated, but a great message.
Is there a post-credits scene? There is.

Thematically, Teen Titans Go! To The Movies.
Visually, a migraine.



If you're going to watch it at all, go big or go home.



It is, but you won't get the full effect.
Which may not be the worst thing in the world.



I have no idea

Although while we're on the subject, it's nice that Nic Cage has now voiced a Superman and a Spider-Man, this year. This is a trend I hope and expect to continue.



That's entirely possible.



Didn't hear one, but heard more than one like it.



Level 1: The voices of Poe Dameron, Quinlan Vos and Major Vonreg are in this.





*¹ However you end up reacting to Into The Spider-Verse, boredom will be the last thing you feel. ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Venom

Venom (2D / Vaguely spoiler-ish)
Cert: 15 / 112 mins / Dir. Ruben Fleischer / Trailer

In short: I went to see Venom.
It is not a good film*¹.

In long...

If there was ever a celluloid embodiment of the words 'oh mate', this would be the one.

So. It's Los Angeles. Some gooey aliens want to take over the Earth because scientists went into space and that was always going to end badly. We're at the point now where extra-terrestrial invasion narratives are no longer a metaphor for colonial attitudes or fear of progress, but just reflect the page where the library-copy of The Hollywood Screenwriter's Handbook falls open.

VENOM

Tom Hardy plays Eddie Brock, an investigative reporter who makes non-branded videos of domestic issues which we first assume are just for YouTube, but are apparently for some corporation or other, the precise nature of which isn't explained. He's the kind of hard-hitting, new-media journalist who corners his quarry by politely arranging meetings in their place of work then arriving on time. Who ruthlessly fronts his videos by looking at neither the camera nor his interview subject, but at a scratty notepad clutched in his hand while he mumbles vague accusations. Who responds to firm corporate rebuttal by leaving the building when asked. Who is so celebrated and in-demand as a journalist that when he's sacked from his part-time job nobody even notices, let alone head-hunts him for their own company. If Brock is actually capable of any kind of sleuthing or intelligence-gathering, we don't see it in this film. Anyway, Eddie is poking his nose into things he shouldn't, and an alien goes in him. That's Act 1.

Brock's girlfriend, Anne Weying, is played by the Academy Award-nominated actress Michelle Williams, who brilliantly and incisively interprets her role as a woman looking indelibly bored for two hours. Anne is a lawyer whom we never see doing any lawyering, although given that a) it's not her film, and b) we barely see our investigative reporter actually investigating or reporting either, this is hardly surprising. Riz Ahmed plays Carlton Drake, who is The Baddie. We know this because he wears a sharp suit and whenever he opens his mouth, is forced to recite lines from The Movie Baddie's Phrasebook while squinting at underlings just off-camera. Woody Harrelson is in this but not until the end, and then you'll wish he hadn't bothered.

POISON

So. Venom feels like spending two hours watching first-takes of actors reading their lines for the first time, from a script which was written by a 12yr old who only watches superhero movies.

Demographically, Sony have spent so much effort angling their product to a non-kiddie audience that they didn't notice anyone old enough to get in will have seen all of this before (and better), whether it be any movie with aliens arriving on Earth, Todd McFarlane's other creation, Spawn, or even just the distrusted-authority in shiny skyscraper laboratories of Sony's last two Spider-Man outings. And although we get enough of the glistening fangs and body-horror to squeak through as a 15-certificate, there's little here to actually earn this edgier rating in terms of lasting threat or human injury.

By the time Brock and Venom become a variety double-act of grumpy bickering which barely stops short of looking right down the camera, this is like a Hallow'een-costume Deadpool.
But without the swearing. Or the self-awareness. Or the wit.

TIGERTAILZ

Beats are taken haphazardly from the horror genre, from the conspiracy thriller, sci-fi, action, comedy and of course the superhero-origins story. None of these gel together in the final edit, which incoherently changes tone at a rate suggesting that director Ruben Fleischer has suffered some sort of cranial trauma, and is permanently unable to recall the footage he shot each previous day. As a result, Hardy is left to bimble along from scene to scene in the title role, himself displaying symptoms of scriptual amnesia as he struggles to work out who his character is meant to be. The lack of direction in Tom's performance - both narratively and in terms of just being directed - is staggering.

The most disappointing aspect is that Venom should be better. It could be better. Why isn't this better? By this point, Sony have held onto the Spider-Man rights long and hard enough to know what works, what will be derided by critics and audiences alike, and what is ultimately damaging to their own reputation. To have assembled a cast this impressive and still have churned out a Tesco Value Sausage of a superhero movie is an embarrassment to all concerned.

TIGERFEET

There are some moments of fun, but there are far more which aren't. Perhaps the only saving grace is that the movie appears to exist (thus far) in its own standalone stream of continuity. In this respect, at least it will be easy to disregard.

Venom shows that not only are Sony not on the same page as Marvel Studios, they're not even in the same chapter. Okay, it's not Fantastic Four levels of bad, but the tonal inconsistencies and cack-handed moralising in the final moments put this on the same shelf as Ghost Rider.

There is a decent Venom movie to be made from this story, by this studio and with this cast.
But this isn't it...

The business-end:

• Is there a Wilhelm Scream? There is.
• Is there a Stan Lee cameo? There is.
• Is there a mid-credits scene? There is.
• Is there a post-credits scene? Well, kinda*².

Life, and the first Amazing Spider-Man flick.



Not unless you like your migraines to originate from a 60ft wide screen.

Interestingly enough, this features the same cinematographer - Matthew Libatique - as A Star Is Born, also released in cinemas on the very same opening weekend. Although his hand-held, closeup style often threatens to derail that movie, too. In Venom, Matthew teams up with editors Alan Baumgarten and Maryann Brandon to go Full Seizure-Mode™.



Sure. This will make an interesting companion-piece for other superhero movies in the years to come.



In no way, shape or form.



Come at me.



There is, and it's as subtly woven into the mix as one would expect from a movie where a murdering alien says "turd" in the trailer.



Level 1: This has got Bodhi Rook, Tobias Beckett and let's not forget Last Jedi Deleted Scene Stormtrooper Tom himself in it.
Not a bad turnout for a flick which doesn't have a Disney stamp in sight.





*¹ That's the micro-review version. But I'm writing this as well. Hey, I said I was going to stop doing full reviews for every single thing I watched, not that I was going to stop writing altogether. And if anything was going to bring me back for a stab, it's a disappointing Marvel flick. But I'm getting ahead of myself... ^{[ BACK ]}

*² The mid-credits scene is a coda to Venom, so stay for this. After the names have rolled (and I don't usually moan about the time taken to credit everyone who contributed to making a movie, but Venom's roll-call is presented in the same 'easily readable' speed and size typeface throughout, mostly in a single-column list. Reader, this is a four-songs-and-a-bit-of-the-soundtrack-length reel), we get a sequence from the upcoming Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse animated film. It's not connected to Venom by anything other than the rights-holders, and if you arrived at the cinema early enough you'll have already seen the latest trailer for it. With this in mind, you'll already know whether this is worth you hanging around for an extra ten minutes.
^{[ BACK ]}


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• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
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