Calling any cg animated film with a stylised 2D inspired aesthetic “like Spiderverse” or Spiderverse-esque” is starting to become the animation equivalent of describing any experimental movie with a disturbing, uncanny or surreal tone “Lynchian”.

*flops down on sofa*

*exhales*

Tumblr gives me a lot of wild shit every now and again. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's hilarious, sometimes it's disheartening. And then yesterday came along and gave me the one-two punch of:

Captain Marvel being dolled up by the Russos instead of a jacket, S.H.I.E.L.D baseball cap and a Nine Inch Nails shirt, which is how she should be (not gonna talk about this, just want it out there that I'm pissed about it)

One Day At A Time being cancelled

ODAAT I'm gonna kind of touch on because it's not really what I want to talk about, but it did help me finalize the words for what I do, and that's capitalism in entertainment.

The most annoying goddamn trend in filmmaking (and of course in TV and Netflix/Prime originals) is companies caring more about their bottom line and less about making good content, and yeah I know this dead horse isn't just beaten, it's thrown into an active supervolcano but it really pisses me off and it's why I hate the new Star Wars stuff (well OK hate is a bit strong but they're uh Not Good) but I'll get to that. What corpos can't seem to get into their bloated skulls is that one cannot exist without the other. You need to put out good, quality content with value so that fans like it so they give you money so they increase your profits so you can make more content and so on. But somewhere down the line some fuckhead went "what if we just pushed out what we have?" and just kinda expected us to not take notice.

Now before the comments section gets all hot and bothered because I know some people on this site don't have the gift of reading comprehension, I know profits are important, I'm saying when companies shun good filmmaking for more money, they get lazy and all they can think about is profit and not how they make that profit, they don't care at all about using that money to make more good, valuable content.

One Day At A Time

I've never watched One Day At A Time but the fact Netflix just outright cancelled it knowing damn well what it meant to the people the characters are representing is just disgusting. And they have the fucking audacity to blame it on the viewership? I've seen hundreds of artworks, gifs and a video clip here and there of this show. I've seen precisely one (1) meme of 13 Reasons Why and that is literally it. I'm not following the tags for either. Plus, #saveODAAT has, last I checked, 350k tweets on trending or thereabouts?

So obviously the viewership isn't the problem, it's the racism and homophobia of cancelling a Spanish (? - again, never seen it), LGBT+ focused show that a lot of people quite happily and positively connect with when a crap show about suicide and Friends gets to stay on. It's just ugh. Cancelling a show like this then paying something like $100mil to keep Friends. I was going to expand on the shitty capitalism here but tbh that's it, Netflix are making bad decisions and like I say, I'm only going to touch on it because it's not the main part.

Star Wars

Go watch the original trilogy and it's clear George Lucas was trying to create and do. He was trying to make art. The key difference between that and modern SW to me is BB8. Look at C3PO and R2D2 and already you can see they belong. C3PO is a translator droid and I'm not sure what exactly R2's job description is but it's obvious he does some kind of pilot assistance for X-Wing fighters. I never understood people who said R2 never did anything, because they obviously haven't seen Star Wars. You get that this is an R2 unit, right? Like, there's more than one out there and they have a job they were specifically built to do, it's just this one particular R2 unit who had to carry the message? Anyway, I'm derailing. R2 and C3PO have functions and they're clearly not new, they've been used for a long time. Then you look at BB8 and instantly it's like "this is a toy. This so called character was designed to sell toys". And then he was. He's a toy, he's on bags, notebooks, pens, clothes, everywhere. Disney is less concerned about making a Star Wars movie and more about making money off of the Star Wars name.

Into The Spider-Verse VS YA Movies

YA movies tend to suck because they were adapted from books and we all know how that pans out but the reason I'm using YA books specifically is because my mind jumped to The Hunger Games. I couldn't tell you a single fucking thing that happens in those movies. They're so dull and dead and forgettable and the characters are borderline unlikeable but you know which one I do like? Catching Fire, for one reason and one reason only: Jena Malone as Joanna Mason. Save for Haymitch, she's the only character I liked because those two are the only characters with any kind of charisma or life to them. They made an at most halfway decent attempt overall at recreating some otherwise really great books and they made a big show out of it, hiring some pretty well known names. And I'm not disparaging their performances, it was just what I call, ever since Suicide Squad came out, the Harley Quinn effect, in which good actors get given a good character and perform them really well and, through no fault of their own, fuck it up because the character was written poorly and no matter how well they act, if the script doesn't change, the performance will always be shit. The same for Divergent. And Percy Jackson. And Fault In Our Stars.

Then outside all of that you have Perks Of Being A Wallflower which is just a great, heartwarming movie because the characters feel like people and the brightness isn't turned way the fuck down in post and you actually want to be invested, and they're not afraid to have a colour palette beyond a splash of pink here and blue there and red there. Plus, Ant-Man as an English teacher. THEN you go watch Spider-Verse and oh hey. I can actually see the movie now. And I mean see it. They do not slack off when it comes to visuals. Even by animation's standards, everyone is so expressive and alive and... animated. Sorry, I couldn't get a better word but they are! When you look at Miles in comparison to Katniss in terms of writing and performance, the difference is just startling. The only times I can think of where Katniss shows any kind of emotion in the first movie is when she slams the knife in the table and Rue's funeral and I had to think about that. Without thinking for Miles, already I've got "who's Morales?", the scene where Uncle Aaron teaches him the shoulder touch, the scene where Miles spray paints in the subway, that scene in the alley, the moment in Olivia's office when he just freezes after she says she can't wait to watch Peter in immense pain Like That and made all the wlws melt in their seats. You get the idea. So what's the point for this section? Well, as simply as I can put it, Hunger Games was made with money, for money. Spiderverse was made with love, for love. Spiderverse cared about people who read comic books and paid more than enough tribute to the art forms people think of as lesser for no goddamn reason other than elitism and proved for the thousandth time that it is something that can be used in filmmaking. They were trying to make art. Hunger Games and most other YA novel movie adaptations saw a preestablished fan base they could exploit for money. They were trying to make money.

Rambo

This was a weird one, yeah. Don't worry I was confused too when it popped into my head. I saw the original Rambo a while back and what I liked about it (and Apocalypse Now) is it wasn't a war film where the USA charge in and hooray everything's all right, this movie grabs your shirt and says "hey. Vietnam did something to these guys and they're not OK. Probably they'll never be OK". Then I watched the Rambo reboot that came out in like 2011 or something and I remember thinking "OK so now he's just this dude? Who lives in Thailand... And what, that's it?" There was no scene to show his psychological state today. Nothing to acknowledge his PTSD. They just thought "hey! Let's make Rambo but this time, just give him guns and and yelling and spray some blood!" The reason I kind of ended this train of thought quickly is because I realised that, let's be real, the main body of Rambo's audience just want to see Sly Stallone kill some fools. But yeah, the fact that they just ignored John's mental state in place of mega violence is such a glaringly obvious move to just appeal to violent teenage boys.

The Auteur

My favourite director is Wes Anderson and my favourite movie is The Grand Budapest Hotel (though Panos Cosmatos seems to be eyeing these titles with Beyond The Black Rainbow and Mandy, I haven't watched them yet). Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, Wes Anderson, auteurs always stand out even though their movies are all the same, and I think the reason they're so successful is because that specific style is so much better than most other mainstream cinema. I'm not saying that those other movies are bad, I love them and will watch them again and again but I'm saying Wes Anderson could make a short movie and it would be better than most Marvel movies put together (don't talk to me about Captain Marvel, I haven't seen it yet. Gonna see it this Sunday). No matter what you think of these directors, you can instantly tell the difference between these movies that they care about and the passion and hard work they put in and Disney pumping out their 400th reboot.

It Keeps Working

You guys wanna know the thought that keeps me up at night? Someday they're going to make a Fortnite movie. You guys wanna know why it keeps me up at night? Because it's going to be popular. Yeah, obviously not at the box office, because it'll be a videogame movie and those are worse than book movies, but it will be popular for no apparent reason. And what pisses me off is that Fortnite's popularity is only because of the battle royale mode, which has now essentially become synonymous with dying franchises and it just adds another layer to the lack of creative effort and the movie will just be Hunger Games with guns. Exactly the same as what I said at the start of this rant, there's a really noticeable shift from making content to jumping on whatever bandwagon is passing by because you know it'll make you money. Yeah, you have to spend money to make money but that doesn't mean you get complacent in what you spend your money on or if you spend money at all because when you cut corners, consumers can see that shit.

Anyway I'm done complaining thanks for having the willpower to pay attention to my dumb opinions.

What can I say? This is the first time I have been truly excited for a new Spider-Man movie. Into The Spiderverse has been THE most impressive Spidey movie, but there was no denying the skepticism about the movie until those first viewers experienced what it actually turned out to be. This one on the other hand grabbed your attention almost immediately because it aimed to be bolder than any others before it. Using Mysterio of all villains, making us love the casting for him without even seeing too much footage, not to mention opening us up to the idea of alternate Earths and universes. And yet there was still more to get excited for. Including how Peter moves forward from the tragic events of Avengers: Endgame.

How this movie picked up from “The Blip” as they call it was interesting. They summed things up pretty quick while also addressing how some students have been able to move on being five years older than everyone else. However, the big thing was jumping into this phase Peter find himself in where he doesn’t know the right steps to take moving forward. On one hand there is questioning if he can keep going as a superhero, but then there is also trying to find some normalcy in being a kid. You know, to have love. This was a good struggle for Peter to experience. I tend to call this the new hero experience. Peter has been Spider-Man for quite some time, but he is still in that new hero phase when still suffering from doubts in his direction. It was about time we could really see that from a live-action hero. The best thing that they did for Peter in this movie was take advantage of how the comic counterpart tends to be a screw-up. This could be big or small, but Peter is the kind of hero who gets in his own way for better or for worse. Whether he was being serious or goofy, this continued to feel like the most accurate version of him behind the mask.

For the rest of the cast, the way that they all worked off of one another effortlessly went a long way. While you could have easily been more interested in what Peter was up to, or Mysterio, there was no ignoring the entertainment value they offered. Bold was focusing on a group of kids rather than trying so hard to avoid the very things that make Spider-Man a young hero. Ned as usual was that guy you enjoyed because he simply embraced the experience. When Peter was too busy with priorities, everything Peter could have done was done by Ned. He made every romantic and goofy scene worthwhile, while at the same time still adding emphasis to the kind of support system that Peter needs at a time like this. For that last part, you could say the same thing for MJ. I still laugh at those complaining about this character because this still believe this is Mary Jane. This is NOT Mary Jane. MJ is only paying homage to Mary Jane. MICHELLE was awesome for the fact that she was written to be unique for the kind of kid you might encounter in school. Dark humor, rebellious, full of facts that you wouldn’t always be willing to share in polite company. It may have been sudden for Peter to suddenly have a thing for her, but it was nothing new that we saw from Michelle that said she wasn’t waiting for him to feel the same way. I still feel like they could have avoided telling us that she was going to find out about Peter’s identity, but the execution of that scene helped to overlook this. She may not have the scheming brain of Ned, but she knows how to take action when it counts.

Bold was also the tone of this movie. At a point you have to listen to the money, and the money tells you that a majority of viewers are alright with the balance between light humor and seriousness. There was so many points in this movie where I couldn’t help but laugh, and there was no problem at all. This is a tough time for Peter, but that didn’t mean we needed to see him wallow in grief for two hours. Spider-Man is not the kind of hero who gets kicked and stays down.

Where Spider-Man FFH really went bold? That was in the way they decided to step away from the usual MCU style villain. You know, the villain who is supposed to be oh so dangerous and merciless, but is watered down to be sympathetic? That was my only worry about the way that they would portray Mysterio. Before stepping into that movie theater, I was already convinced that I was going to love everything about this guy who we know is a villain, playing the hero. And better than that, the point in the movie where he would inevitably become the true villain of the story. Honestly, I loved Jake Gyllenhaal so much as Mysterio that I almost wanted him to be the hero. THAT was how good his acting was as a character who genuinely took advantage of the room this new world had created. My brother compared his acting to something out of Nightcrawler if that paints a vivid picture of his performance. For me, I simply enjoyed how he got into this role. He sold every line that seemed like it was from the heart. And then threw it all back at you when the facade was dropped. He had a reason for everything he did in this movie, but once made you feel like you had to feel sorry for him. A villain will laugh when things go in their favor, and they have no problem crossing a line to keep it that way.

I mean, we all knew that there wasn’t really the possibility of this guy coming from an alternate universe. We wanted to believe it. With so many viewers and MCU theorists out there speculating that this is how the X-Men or Fantastic Four come in make it hard not to. But for that reason alone it really did work to give us the impression that someone could really pop up out of the blue from another Earth.

What made this such a memorable experience was the CGI and special effects. It was AMAZING. From the trailers alone I was already blown-away by the rendering of the Elementals, Mysterio’s suit effects, and the explosiveness of these action scenes. HOWEVER, none of this could prepare you for the real Mysterio set in motion. When you knew that this hero version of him wasn’t the real deal, you were simply waiting how they were going to bring his illusions to life. That was the true marvel of this movie. Especially if you saw this in 3D like I did. His method of creating the illusions and the illusions themselves blew anything you have ever seen involving illusions out of the water. I think a bar has been set through the many images Mysterio was able to create, and hit with such intensity that you couldn’t help but hesitate with what was real and what was not. The fact that it wasn’t even just the way it was used in the action scenes was brilliant. You thought you were seeing one thing that turned out to be something else entirely.

As for the end credits? You couldn’t have asked for anything better. When you stick around after the movie ends, you want to be rewarded as a Marvel fan for that patience. We were rewarded alright, enough that whether it was the first one, or the second one, we were all left saying WTF along with Peter.

Spider-Man: Far From Home so far is up there in one of my favorites from the MCU. This was kids being kids, and didn’t allow us to forget that there is importance to the hero behind the mask. I couldn’t think of a more perfect way to close out the third phase considering the fallout from Endgame could be felt so heavily from start to finish.

#gallery-0-4 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-0-4 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Spider-Man: Far From Home Continues to Prove Why Bolder is Better What can I say? This is the first time I have been truly excited for a new Spider-Man movie.