Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) - Movie Review

Over the last several months, I’ve probably shown every conceivable pre-conception that a person can have for a movie. Whether it’s down to my own weird tastes or just how surprising this year’s releases have turned out, I’ve gone into the cinema with some odd ideas about what it’ll be like. Well, today’s film will likely represent my absolute worst expectations for a film: I want this film to be bad. Now, as much as I’ve talked about the therapeutic power of cinema, I don’t actively like watching bad movies; I rarely if ever want films to be bad, and it’s even rarer that I would want a film to suck to prove a “point”. Basically, after the clusterfuck that went down in the wake of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which I still maintain is a genuinely good movie despite some definite flaws, learning that the guys behind what is properly the worst film I’ve ever sat through would be behind the next Spider-Man reboot seriously pissed me off. It even got to the point where, and I wish I was joking, I made this claim on Reddit last year:

Just so we’re clear, this is how badly I not only didn’t want to see those numbnuts get rewarded for their lack of effort, but how badly I wanted some hubris to kick in after the honestly OTT reactions ASM2 got. But as I’ve already established, I’m a bit of a fanboy for comic book movies and I’m usually a lot kinder to them than I probably should be; I may not be happy to be proven wrong in this instance but I definitely get that the possibility of it happening here is pretty high. Anyway, enough waffle, let’s see where my cold-hearted cynicism gets me as we look at the latest iteration of the New York Webslinger.

Table 19 (2017) - Movie Review

Even with the amount of hatred I’ve been able to generate over the pretty awful films I’ve covered over the last few years, I have rarely if ever been ungrateful for having sat through them myself. I say that because even the worst films still have enough good grace to give me things to dissect and write about. In fact, it is usually the bad ones that give me the most material, as blind fury is often an easier feeling to express than anything pleasant. This entire blog exists because of my own love for film and writing about film, so I'd be a bit stupid if I was entirely ungrateful for the films that give me the best material to work with. Hell, I'd even go so far as to say that some of my best work has come out of the more egregiously awful films that I've sat through.

 

However, every so often, there comes a film that is so bland, so dull, so not engaging that I am left struggling to properly articulate how I truly feel about the work. We’ve unfortunately got another one of those today so, as you read this, understand that every single word on this page was wrung out of my brain with quite a bit of effort. tl;dr Sorry if this review turns out too boring to slog through.

The 5th Wave (2016) - Movie Review

If there’s one name that I have come to associate with sub-standard product, aside from our resident whipping boy Jai Courtney, it’s one all-time Hollywood hack by the name of Akiva Goldsman. Sure, he has a couple of winning films to his name like A Beautiful Mind and, depending on who you ask, I Am Legend, but as a whole, this man is responsible for a lot of shite as a screenwriter. Last year’s Insurgent, Winter’s Tale the year before, The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, and let’s not forget the crowning jewel of bad comic book movies Batman & Robin; that’s a hefty platter for a single chef. With all this in mind, I look at today’s most recent YA adaptation with extreme scepticism; only this time, there’s more than definite reason for me to be so. But, given how lenient I’ve been with The Maze Runner and how much praise I’ve given to The Hunger Games, and knowing how it doesn’t get much worse than Divergent, I’m still willing to give this a chance. I’m holding out an idiot’s hope, aren’t I?

Dope (2015) - Movie Review

 

It was inevitable that I’d come across a film like this during my December endurance run. I wasn’t expecting this to be the first time I’d officially run into it this year, though. With how many new releases come out and the different opinions on each one, there will undoubtedly be films that I disagree with the consensus on. In fact, come January, you’ll see just how many I disagreed with others on. However, prior to today’s subject, I’ve always gotten on the defensive: Excusing Jupiter Ascending’s sheer idiocy because it transcended into the realms of unintentional comedy gold, forgiving The Transporter Refueled as I genuinely think that series has gotten a bad rap overall, and pretty much any new films involving Adam Sandler since, at this rate, the hate for him is getting really dull by now. Here, I find myself looking at the product presented and going "What was so great about that?"