Madame Web (2024) Film Review

Cassandra Webb is a New York City paramedic who starts to show signs of clairvoyance. Forced to confront revelations about her past, she must protect three young women from a mysterious adversary who wants them dead.

Madame Web is directed by S.J. Clarkson which is her directorial debut. Madame Web is also the fourth film in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe.

I’m going to cut right to the chase, Madame Web is a terrible movie. Every single part of what could go horribly wrong in a movie goes horribly wrong to the point where it becomes such a fascinating mess that is truly unbelievable. It’s as if one of those terrible superhero movies from the early 2000s found a time machine and landed in 2024.

I’ll start with what becomes noticeable almost immediately when watching…the acting. Granted Sydney Sweeney actually nails down some of the lines in a campy way that’s genuinely hilarious, but everyone else is either half asleep while reading their lines or wants to collect their paycheck and call it a day.

Dakota Johnson who has shown to be quite talented in a lot of roles such as Peanut Butter Falcon (2019), Our Friend (2019), The Lost Daughter (2021), Suspiria (2018) and a few others gives such a dull performance, which is mainly due to how lazy the script from S.J. Clarkson, Claire Parker, Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama really is. There’s absolutely baffling lines such as Madame Web directly saying to Young Uncle Ben “what you don’t wanna get shot in Queens.”

We learn absolutely nothing about Cassandra or any of the three spider-women which consists of Julia Cornwell (played by Sydney Sweeney) Anya Corazon (played by Isabela Merced) and Mattie Franklin (played by Celeste O’Connor) they also barely get to do any fun spider-woman actions, instead we are given a prequel on how they get their powers rather than spending time with them learning to use them. Then you have the villain of the movie Ezekiel Sims who’s played by Tahar Rahim, who not only gives a terrible performance but Sims ends up being one of the most forgettable villains in any of these superhero movies. It’s actually quite baffling how terrible the dialogue between Johnson and Rahim really is, how nobody in the writing room said “wait hold on a second” when reading this is insane.

The editing is some of the absolute worst I’ve seen in a blockbuster in quite awhile, I commonly like to mention Taken 3 (2014) as a prime example of garbage editing that ends up being unhinged at one point. Madame Web is on par with Taken 3 on how absolutely baffling the editing really is, it becomes hilarious at one point which is something I have to mention. Madame Web is one of those it’s so bad it’s hilarious movies (kind of) I say kind of because there are some quite dull parts that are a chore to sit through (mostly the middle that drags out for far too long) but a lot of this movie is hilariously awful. I was actually baffled with what I watched and honestly had no words.

Overall Madame Web is something that has to be seen to be believed, it’s a horrendous movie and I would not recommend this to anybody. However if you love bad movies and love laughing at them this might honestly be for you.

Madame Web is available in theaters.

1/10 F

Land Of Bad (2024)

When a Delta Force team is ambushed in enemy territory, a rookie officer refuses to abandon them. Their only hope lies with an Air Force drone pilot as the eyes in the sky during a brutal 48-hour battle for survival.

Land Of Bad is directed by William Eubank director of Love (2011), The Signal (2014), Underwater (2020) and Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin (2021).

I was actually a bit surprised to see William Eubank’s name come up with this movie, I actually quite like some of Eubank’s work such as The Signal (2014) and Underwater (2020). I was very interested to see how this one would be and it’s quite honestly while it’s not anything new and is basically Lone Survivor there’s a decent amount to like here.

Liam Hemsworth is a pretty solid lead he shines the most when it comes to the action scenes. Russell Crowe steals the show and even has a subplot where he goes vegan grocery shopping for his pregnant wife. Which admittedly feels completely odd when it cuts back to JJ Kinney (played by Liam Hemsworth) getting tortured by the villain of the movie, it does take away a lot of the serious tone of the movie which will no doubt absolutely ruin it for some.

I will say it’s a fun B movie with some great action scenes that are actually well done. There’s a great amount of suspense during the first half that fits quite well with the atmosphere, unfortunately the rest of the movie either has very bad editing or is filled to the brim with war movie cliches.

There’s not much else to say here I definitely think Land Of Bad has it’s positives but is unfortunately a bit too familiar and too messy (at least towards the end) to really recommend.

Land Of Bad is available in theaters.

5/10 C

The Tiger’s Apprentice (2024) Film Review

A young boy in San Francisco meets a talking tiger named Mr. Hu and discovers he’s the latest in a long line of guardians who protect an ancient phoenix from evildoers.

The Tiger’s Apprentice is directed by Raman Hui who was the co director of Shrek The Third (2007) and a bunch of other Dreamworks animation short films such as Scared Shrekless (2010), Kung Fu Panda: Secrets Of The Fury Five and a few others. Joining Hui are Young Duk Jhun and Paul Watling.

The Tiger’s Apprentice is about as bland as you can get with a terrible animated movie, outside of the voice cast such as Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Sandra Oh and Lucy Liu there is very little here. The premise is interesting enough but the execution is severely lacking, most of the characters are of course based off of the Chinese zodiac signs the problem here is outside of the Tiger guardian, the others get very little development. Most of the time they crack a few unfunny one liners or jokes and the movie moves on to the next scene.

Speaking of which the pacing is way too fast, the movie starts out with a nice and slow moment that’s genuinely sweet, but the rest of the movie is way too fast when trying to tell it’s story. Due to this we are given no character development from the characters or why we should care about their journey and goals, the animation is fine enough at times but most of the time it just does not look pleasing to look at. Which is a bit of a shame because the use of color is actually quite decent, with certain colors popping out that actually compliment a few scenes decently enough.

Overall The Tiger’s Apprentice is very undercooked that needed so much more time in the oven especially when it comes to the writing, this is the very definition of streaming fodder that will be quickly forgotten about after watching.

The Tiger’s Apprentice is available on Paramount+

3/10 D-

The Beekeeper (2024) Film Review

One man’s brutal campaign for vengeance takes on national stakes after it’s revealed he’s a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organization known as Beekeepers.

The Beekeeper is directed by David Ayer who’s directed Suicide Squad (2016), Fury (2014), End Of Watch (2012), Bright (2017), The Tax Collector (2020) and a few others.

The Beekeeper is a heavily flawed movie and at times is the very definition of a January movie, but there’s so much fun to be had with this movie that it really makes up for it. Jason Statham does what he does best shoot through tons of bad guys like a tank and gives some quite entertaining action scenes as well, Josh Hutcherson’s performance is incredibly goofy that he steals almost every single scene he’s in.

The action scenes are genuinely quite great and the moments that are trying to be serious end up talking about Statham’s character Adam Clay’s love for bees is a comedy goldmine, it’s the exact type of movie that isn’t trying to take itself way too seriously. The bee puns get incredibly goofy but never annoying (maybe I’m a bit biased here since I do love puns).

The first 20 minutes or so of the movie I will say is a bit forgettable and does seem like the movie is going to be yet another forgettable January action movie. However the movie quickly gets a lot better as it goes on and creates plenty of humorous moments, the movie does attempt to try have a few emotional moments but those really don’t come together all that well due to the movie prioritizing the action scenes and the hilarious dialogue. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in this case since you kind of get what you expected, but it does beg the question of why those emotional moments are even here.

Overall The Beekeeper is David Ayer’s best film in awhile, it’s a very flawed movie that I probably won’t revisit anytime soon but it was very entertaining and hilarious. As long as you don’t go in expecting this masterful action movie you should have a good time.

The Beekeeper is playing in theaters.

6/10 C+

Echo (2024) Series Review

Maya Lopez’s ruthless behavior in New York City catches up with her in her hometown; she must face her past, reconnect with her Native American roots and embrace the meaning of family and community.

Echo is a new installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s the tenth Disney+ MCU series and serves as a spinoff to Hawkeye (2021).

I’m one of those few people who enjoyed Hawkeye decently enough, my opinions on it have changed since then and I don’t think it’s quite the 9/10 series I was making it out to be, but I still think it was solid enough and worked mostly due to the performances. While I did enjoy Echo as a character in Hawkeye I always thought making a series about her was very out of nowhere, but that’s not to say there wasn’t any potential.

Because there are are some decent parts to the series, for one thing the acting is honestly pretty solid. Alaqua Cox gives a solid performance as Maya Lopez her interactions with the other characters are genuinely touching at times the moments with her and Vincent D’Onofrio are among some of the best moments. The two really do a great job of creating tension, speaking of which Vincent D’Onofrio once again does a fantastic job as The Kingpin, although he’s only in the series for a few episodes every time he appears on screen he knocks it out of the park. It really does get you excited to see the future of where he is going to take this character.

There are also some solid sequences that are genuinely touching as well (particularly in Episode 3), they is definitely an attempt to make these moments standout among the overall amount in any MCU Disney+ series and I think this series does an okay job with that.

That’s where it ends for me however because there are way too many missteps that can’t be ignored. For one thing the series is 5 episodes long, meaning character moments, the writing and the build up to the final episode all move at a very fast pace that ends up getting very sloppy which again is frustrating because there was some level of attempt to create something interesting narratively.

The other problem is the power switch, a choice that that does not make any sense at all narratively and doesn’t fit with the source material. This happened once before with Mrs. Marvel which while that decision was also quite bad at the very least the series was still entertaining, Echo is unfortunately not very entertaining and is quite dialogue heavy which would be fine if it were at least compelling. But that’s not the case here, as I said the fast paced really rushed moments that would otherwise be very important for the characters making for a very weak payoff.

Finally as a series I really don’t think it succeeds with making Echo an interesting character, sure we are given details about her native roots but we aren’t shown a whole lot of it. And I hate repeating myself here but the pacing completely destroys her character moments, it’s all rushed and sloppily put together to make a very disappointing final episode that isn’t quite on the same level as embarrassing as the one in Secret Invasion (2023) but it falls very flat unfortunately.

Overall Echo had a lot of potential, it had the right ingredients just the wrong way to fully execute them. Which is a common problem with a lot of these MCU shows and is probably only going to get worse.

Echo is available on Disney+

4/10 D+

Lift (2024) Film Review

A master thief is wooed by his ex-girlfriend and the FBI to pull off an impossible heist with his international crew on a 777 passenger flight from London to Zurich.

Lift is directed by F. Gary Gray director of Friday (1995), The Italian Job (2003), The Fate Of The Furious (2017), Men in Black: International (2019) and a few others.

Lift is yet another addition to the long line of an overproduced Netflix Original movie that does absolutely nothing throughout it’s runtime, this is basically if you took Ocean’s 11 or any of the other movies in the series for that matter and made it unengaging, dull and horribly written. Plus when you throw in every single heist movie cliche in the book and doing absolutely nothing fun with them you have yourself a very forgettable movie.

The performances are serviceable but there is absolutely nothing to the characters, they are incredibly one dimensional with little to no personality. Kevin Hart is bland in the leading role, Hart’s comedy isn’t very funny to begin with but somehow the script gives him even less to work with than usual. The best performance is Gugu Mbatha-Raw who while not anything noteworthy at least tries to bring some sort of development and the chemistry between her and Hart isn’t bad it’s just very underdeveloped.

The team of characters as I said get very little in the way of development, we are given a few facts about them and a few scenes of them interacting with each other which of a lot of the time is little quips that are trying to be funny but completely fall flat. Much like some of Netflix’s other overproduced action movies such as Red Notice and Heart Of Stone, there is absolutely nothing here that hasn’t been done before. This is the very definition of a movie that’s put on a streaming platform that the viewer watches and completely forgets about within a few hours.

Lift is available on Netflix

2/10 F

Role Play (2024) Film Review

A young married couple’s life turns upside down after secrets are revealed about each other’s past.

Role Play is a prime example of an already not very good movie getting completely broken from it’s third act.

Kaley Cuoco is solid here, she gives yet another fun performance. Even if I’m not always a fan of the movies she’s in she does manage to give the performance life and that’s no exception here. David Oyelowo is also pretty solid as well, his character is quite bland but he manages to make it work for the most part.

Role Play starts out with a plot we have seen plenty of times before a hired killer leading a double life and keeping her family in the dark about it. This concept has been done numerous times before and definitely done better as well, as I said earlier it’s mostly Cuoco and Otelowo who keep this movie from completely falling apart during the first two acts of the movie.

However after that the movie crumbles, between an absolutely ridiculous motive, very poor action scenes, a lot of unfunny humor and just incredibly painful dialogue during the third act. Role Play falls so hard on its face that it never gets back up. It’s a shame because there were some decent ideas during the first bit of the movie that whether intentional or not was still at least interesting. Taking this whole double life aspect and having symbolize the marriage of Emma (Cuoco) and Dave (Otelowo) is at the very least something, but we aren’t given any meaningful development on that and instead get a horrendous ending.

Overall Role Play is terrible, there’s decent enough ideas here that might have been done countless times before. But there was still potential to do something great here, but that potential is never met here.

Role Play is available on Amazon Prime Video.

3/10 D-

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths, Part One (2024) Film Review.

The Anti-Monitor (the Monitor’s evil counterpart) is released into the DC Multiverse and begins to destroy the different Earths that compose it. The Monitor attempts to recruit heroes from across the Multiverse to fight back.

Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths Part One is part of the eighth and final installment of the Tomorrowverse…yes you read that correctly, apparently the Tomorrowverse is already ending after only previously having seven installments. To say that this series wasn’t rushed would be lying, it started out promising enough with the first films such as Superman: Man Of Tomorrow, Justice Society: World War II and Batman: The Long Halloween Parts 1 and 2. After that things went downhill and even got progressively worse. Say what you will about the DCAU despite the quality of a lot of the installments there was 16 movies and there was some sort of plan.

Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths Part One really does not feel like this big finale at all, while there are still two more parts that are coming this year. A lot of the movie is being introduced to characters who either haven’t seen in awhile, or haven’t seen at all in this universe. There’s a couple throwbacks to the DCAU which is nice I guess but that’s not nearly enough to really matter.

The voice acting is decent enough here, there isn’t a performance that particularly stands out unfortunately, the animation is definitely a hit or miss. There’s times where it looks fine and then others where you can really tell they went with the most simple and bland form of animation just to get this movie out there at the beginning of the year.

I will say there was a few character moments that did work pretty okay, the movie definitely prioritizes character over plot which I guess would be fine if a lot of the other characters had a lot more time to be fully fleshed out from previous installments. But I think the movie does an okay job with The Flash in particular as there are some genuinely touching scenes.

Overall most of the problems with this movie isn’t necessarily the movie’s fault, it’s the completely rushed universe making a lot of these character moments not really matter to the viewer. Hopefully Part 2 is a bit better..

Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths Part One is available on all VOD platforms.

3/10 D-

The Bricklayer (2024) Film Review.

A rogue insurgent assassinates foreign journalists and makes it look like the CIA is responsible. Coaxed out of retirement to clear the agency’s name, a deadly operative must confront his checkered past while unraveling an international conspiracy.

The Bricklayer is directed by Renny Harlin who’s directed Die Hard 2 (1990), Deep Blue Sea (1999), Cutthroat Island (1995), Exorcist: The Beginning (2004), The Legend Of Hercules (2014) and many others.

I am really struggling what to exactly say here because there really isn’t not that much to The Bricklayer (horrible name by the way), Aaron Eckhart and Nina Dobrev are both fine enough and work the best they can with such an unimaginative script. The movie is essentially any given action movie with a big action movie star that ends up getting released on VOD platforms, granted those types of movies can be so bad they end up being hilarious…but not this one!

The main problem with The Bricklayer is just about everything you would expect happens, it’s a very bland CIA action movie that has a few fine enough moments and that’s really about it, I understand these types of movies don’t have a whole lot to work with a lot of the time, but the least they could do is actually be entertaining or at the very least be memorable because that’s not happening here.

Not much else to say here, other then this was the first 2024 film I watched this year…

The Bricklayer is available on all VOD platforms.

3/10 D-

Rebel Moon (2023) Film Review

When a colony on the edge of the galaxy finds itself threatened by the armies of the tyrannical Regent Balisarius, they dispatch a young woman with a mysterious past to seek out warriors from neighbouring planets to help them take a stand.

Rebel Moon or Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child Of Fire is directed by Zack Snyder. A film that I’ve been pretty excited about for awhile. This is sort of a passion project for Zack Snyder and Kurt Johnstad (one of the other writers of the film), it’s very clear the film has a ton of inspirations such as Star Wars, Dune, The Last Samurai and many others. So it’s very disappointing to see just how much of a mess and disjointed the movie is.

Before I start I do want to acknowledge that yes an extended cut is coming out in 2024 similar to Zack Snyder’s Justice League cut. We’ll cross that bridge when the cut releases but for now I’m reviewing the movie as what it is right now. Anyway let’s get to the review.

The performances and the visuals are what pushes the movie to the finish line, Sofia Boutella is a fun protagonist who does give a solid performance and Anthony Hopkins while not getting a lot of screentime still manages to land a touching impression on the viewer. The rest of the cast aren’t particularly noteworthy but none of them turn in a bad performance.

The visuals are fantastic, if it’s one thing that Snyder has always been great at it’s making his films visually appealing and that absolutely applies here. Even if we don’t know much about Rebel Moon’s world it’s truly beautiful and really does make you want to explore the place, it’s huge in scale and the attention to detail in a lot of areas is very creative there’s many striking moments that standout as well.

Unfortunately that’s where Rebel Moon ends for me, the characters on paper are interesting they are very neat looking design wise but don’t have the character development to make the viewer care about them. Something that’s very noticeable here is the characters appear, get to do a couple cool things and then are put aside as characters who stand around until a fight scene starts. This repeats throughout the movie and it’s a huge shame because you want to learn more about these characters but the movie doesn’t give any strong development.

The same can be said with the world building, while yes the world itself is very neat to look at. Once again the movie unfortunately doesn’t give the world the proper development it needs, it really leaves the viewer in the dark a lot of the time and not in a good way, I still do very much like the look of it and It does make you want to explore. But at the same time I want to actually learn about it, it’s all very vague and loses the viewer very quickly.

Finally there’s the villains who are pretty by the numbers, Ed Skrein does a fine enough job in the role. But there’s just nothing here that makes the viewer care about this guy as a villain.

Overall Rebel Moon has its moments but it’s mostly a huge misfire, can this be fixed with the director’s cut? Will the sequel that’s coming out next year be better? I guess we will cross that bridge when we get there, but for now this is a huge mess.

Rebel Moon is available on Netflix.

4/10 D+