This movie is all kinds of weird. I will put aside my Czech bias of this movie, based on a Czech novel (Spaceman of Bohemia), and the fact this movie contains only some tiny Czech Easter eggs, but the main roles are an American man and an English lady with no attempt to do any accent is a choice… But again, let’s put that aside. Spaceman’s biggest problem is that we now have seen movies “just like this” (like the already mentioned Ad Astra (2019, my review here)) but done better. I am not just talking about the technical side; I am talking about the themes this movie tries to explore, and I don’t think they all land.

Let’s get something clear – Adam Sandler did a good job. I won’t hold the fact he isn’t Brad Pitt against him because I don’t think he did a bad job. The same goes for anyone else, especially Carey Mulligan, who uplifts what, otherwise, could have been a thankless job. I don’t think this will come as a shock to anyone, but I think she is the best actor in this movie, closely seconded by Sandler. The only reason Paul Dano isn’t any higher for me is the fact that we only hear him, but I won’t lie; you will remember his role. Sure, he is doing “just voice-acting”, but that’s a good reminder of how important voice-acting is and if done properly, it can move you, even if you never see the actor.

Where this movie lost me a bit was the split between Earth and Sandler’s space mission. Instead of those two storylines complementing each other, they almost seem to disturb the flow of Spaceman. Every time it gets interesting in space, we go back to Earth. That applies vice-versa every time something happened down there, on the Earth that I liked, we would go back to space. I can’t precisely put my finger on it, but despite those storylines being linked, they seemed disjointed. This is, for example, where Ad Astra understood what it must do and focused the majority of the film on Brad Pitt’s character and the loneliness of space.

Because Spaceman covers (or wants to cover) many of the same themes, from loneliness to realisation about humanity and how you might try to improve yourself as human to the people you care about the most, the themes are there. However, they never hit me as much as they should have. Spaceman wants to be this space drama about many complex things, but when the movie finished, I was… unmoved. I can’t say I was bored per se, and this isn’t a bad movie by any means, but it just felt a bit hollow and disjointed, and even incorporating the Rusalka myth, I wasn’t sure whether that symbolism did anything for this movie.

And this is where my Czech bias I put aside comes back, just for this paragraph or two. It’s weird to see some Czech actors but not in any major roles. It’s fascinating that studio people want to adapt this Czech book but then seem to do the bare minimum. Yeah, it was shot in Czech Republic. Yes, there are some Czech actors in mostly tiny roles and some Easter eggs (cukroví, aka Xmas Sweets Sandler has with him, CzechConnect etc.) But this Czech element ultimately doesn’t add anything to it. It’s still Sandler talking in his voice, the same for the other actors. Yes, they have Czech names, but they never explain why this “Czech” spaceman doesn’t have Czech accent. And it’s not just about the accents; Czechs have a unique attitude towards everything. We have a way we talk, we make jokes about everything, and this movie got… none of it. The best way I can describe it is that it lacked any “attitude”. Like this film felt empty when it shouldn’t.

I have not read the book this movie is based on, so I don’t know how that “Czech” aspect is portrayed in the book. But judging by the movie, I was hoping that the fact the setting and people in it should be Czech would play bigger part in it and at the end, it didn’t. You can literally rename all the characters in this movie, change Rusalka to some other folk tale and completely remove some of those Czech Easter eggs in post-production, and this becomes another Hollywood space movie. And it’s just an ok one on top of it.

Overall, Spaceman is one of those most “it’s a movie” movies I have ever seen. What I mean is this film goes for many things and themes, and some land, whilst others do not. The actors are all capable, and nobody is truly bad, but I can’t shake the feeling I will forget this movie’s existence in couple of months, because it ultimately makes little to no impact. Everything is competently made, there is nothing major to critique, but Spaceman feels disjointed and makes you wanting more. The only thing that had for it was that Czech angle, and trust me when I tell you that adds nothing to this story. That is what makes Spaceman feel like one of the most average films you will ever see. The CGI is fine, the performances are good, the rest you will forget. In a world full of great movies exploring this topic, you can probably skip this one and watch something like Ad Astra instead.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

If you are a regular reader, firstly, cheers for reading! Secondly, you will know I am not shy to rate some proper B, C or Z movies highly, as long as they know what they are and I manage to have fun with them. That’s why I would never call myself a movie critic. Before watching this film, I hoped I could put that hat on while watching Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. There were some moments I was able to enjoy myself (mainly the last fight in Rio), but most things before that just felt unnecessary, and dare I say too much. Am I really saying this movie had too much action? Yes, I do. Fuck me…

Before we proceed any further, I want to make one thing clear. I am not under the spell of Godzilla Minus One (2023, my review here). Is that a much better movie you should see rather than this Godzilla x Kong? Absolutely, no contest there. However, I knew before even sitting my ass in the cinema that Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire won’t reach the heights of that movie (well, I didn’t know, I had a hunch) because this isn’t that kind of movie. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is the other monster movie, where one big monster smashes stuff, fights other big monsters that smash more stuff, then they team up for reasons I still fully don’t understand and smash this third monster. The end. I knew this would be more about how they get them fighting and how those sequences would be shot; it is here where this monster cookie would crumble for me. And this movie… surely has quite a few action scenes.

During the third or fourth action scene, this movie gave me in a relatively short time, I caught myself getting bored. If there’s one thing you don’t want to write when reviewing an action movie where two titans fight each other and then fight some other monsters, that “thing” would be the word “boring”. But the action scenes all had the same “feel”, so they all kind of blended in for me after a while; I don’t know about you, but the moment I can’t differentiate what the difference between this scene and that scene, it’s hard for me to have fun.

The only action sequence I would call “pretty good” (notice I can’t even say excellent) is the one in Rio at the very end of this movie. That fight was filmed well where I understood where everyone was, the location was well-lit (read: bright), the action felt dynamic, and even the editing wasn’t as aggressive. But honestly, I can’t think of one other action scene before that one that would stand out to me, and this movie has precisely 11.259!

The other thing is the human characters are yet again in the way, and I couldn’t care less about any of them. This is shit to write, considering Rebecca Hall, one of the most talented actresses we have today, is in this movie with Brian Tyree Henry, who I like more and more! Rebecca at least tries something, but I don’t know whether her storyline with her daughter (played by Kaylee Hottle) could have ever worked, no matter how you shoot it, considering this isn’t that kind of movie. That storyline was beautiful and impactful, but it felt out of place in a movie called Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Also, this movie made me not like Brian Tyree Henry, as he is supposed to be the comedic relief. Luckily, I know he is funny and talented, so I know this wasn’t him, but damn, they did him dirty in this movie. Almost every single thing his character said felt off, and maybe one or two jokes landed. I feel like it’s important to repeat I am not blaming either of these actors; they did the best with what have been given, and honestly, if you recast this movie with anyone else, I doubt anybody could make these lines work.

What I enjoyed, besides the Rio finale, was the mythology behind the Hollow Earth and being there. I did enjoy the scenes “below” more than I thought. I thought they did a fine job trying to tie everything together (with Skull Island, other titans, ancient tribe). Does it work if you think about it logically? No. But I can accept it in the movie, because that is what I am talking about when I say: “judge the movie based on its merits”. Those parts worked to an extent for me within the movie.

But everything else left me cold. And again, putting aside the juggernaut that was Godzilla Minus One, I still think this movie is just average. When the movie finished, I thought long and hard about whether I had any bias towards this movie due to Godzilla Minus One. I realised I didn’t because even if I compare this film to something “basic, yet entertaining” like Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023, my review here), I enjoyed that movie much more than this one due to the action scenes feeling different. I still remember most action scenes because they weren’t choppy; most of them were shot in a way where you could always understand where everybody was. In this movie, I don’t think it’s the case, and again, it’s never a good sign when action scenes start to blend in with each other after some time.

Overall, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is an okay movie that has one pretty good action scene. As it became a trademark at this point, the human characters feel out of place, even if they get decent actors in these films. Most of the CGI feels the same, and halfway through the movie, you start thinking: “Yeah, I guess there is a such thing as abundance of action scenes; who could have known?” At this point, I honestly wonder whether this “monster verse” isn’t due for a reboot or, even better, a break. Ken Watanabe started it in Godzilla (2014) by saying: “Let them fight.” I think it’s time to let them sleep for a bit.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

When you see a January movie (the month where movies go to die) called The Beekeeper, starring Jason Statham, you should know what you are getting yourself into. Some people might be buzzing with joy, and some might bee a tad underwhelmed, but don’t worry yourself too much, honey; the movie is as bad as this sentence. And I kind of loved it, despite it being objectively not a great movie.

For the first 20 minutes, I didn’t think I would enjoy it, as everybody was taking themselves way too seriously, especially Jason Statham. It’s almost like he wanted to give this movie some gravitas, so he has a few scenes where you ask yourself questions like: “Is he trying to act like he is in a potential Oscar-nominated drama rather than a movie called The Beekeeper that’s a January action flick?” or “Is this movie real?” You know, the important questions. But I assure you, this movie is real enough, and it’s wild. After the first 20 minutes, I found myself tuning into this film’s frequency, where I understood that this would be “one of those movies”, and I let myself have some fun with it. Luckily, the action came soon, and some bee puns and facts followed, so it definitely stopped taking itself too seriously and started to be what this movie was always destined to be – a dumb, fun, action flick.

Everyone is over-the-top in this film. You expect it from Statham because he isn’t that actor, but Emmy Raver-Lampman‘s character was off (I thought the actress was fine, just some choices for her character were a bit weird), Josh Hutcherson has only one “evil and spoiled” level, and he stays there for the entire film. Minnie Driver is in this movie but only for what could be best described as a glorified cameo, and Jeremy Irons… Damn, he is hamming it up like there’s no tomorrow. Objectively, he was the best actor in this film, but if you only watch this film and nothing else from his long and illustrious career, you would think he is just some old dude who over-enunciates his every line. It was mainly through his character I finally understood that he might be the only actor who understands the movie he is in and, therefore, adjusted his acting to meet it.

Statham’s character in this film plays somebody who can best be described as “what if John Wick and Terminator had a kid.” He is as unstoppable and takes little to no damage from anyone; he makes almost every single action hero of the past decade look like a loser. Even the “final” boss doesn’t pose any real threat to his character, who is on this righteous vendetta to punish these incredibly evil people. Yeah, we need to talk about that.

When I say this film is unhinged, I mean that. The good people are good; the bad people are… pure evil. They not only rob (mostly older) people; they celebrate it each time! Not one person in any of those companies isn’t a straight-up evil cunt who couldn’t be happier to rob yet another pensioner and wipe their savings. And this is what I mean when I say you must get on The Beekeeper‘s frequency to have fun with it. Because this is objectively… not a bad movie; there were some cool shots, and technically, it’s made by someone who understands how to stage a scene. But it’s an incredibly predictable, dumb, over-the-top action piece about this secret government organisation that punishes those that “slip through the system”. And, of course, if you follow the money from those super evil corporations who rob people, it might lead you to the highest places…

There is a reveal around the second third of this film that, if you don’t see coming from a mile away, you are either in a coma or have not seen many movies. But The Beekeeper treats it as if it just landed a knockout punch nobody saw coming. And I think this is the moment that either makes or breaks this movie for you. Because if you are in for this unhinged ride, you will just laugh at this reveal and continue being amused. If you hated this movie until then, you might super hate it afterwards. In my case, I managed to tune into this movie’s wavelength, and somehow, we synched up. It’s one of those “it’s so bad, it’s good” movies. It might also be the fact I expected next to nothing from this, so the fact this movie was so out there was a pleasant surprise.

Overall, The Beekeeper is a dumb, action movie that I managed to have fun with. It is also one of those “I will totally understand if you watch this and hate it” kind of movies. Ok, maybe not hate, because it’s not a bad movie; it’s just terribly average, tonally all-over-the-place kind of film that thinks it’s making a super deep point whilst being shallow as a puddle after a two-minute rain. If you like Statham and want to see him kick ass and be unstoppable, then look no further. Also, for all it’s worth, watching Jeremy Irons ham it up like that was also something you don’t get to see every day.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

This review might be a bit different than the ones I usually write. I saw the movie, and yeah, it’s bad. But then I read the IMDb trivia (some great gems there) and began to understand how this movie was doomed to fail from the beginning and in a much worse way than I would have anticipated. So, part of this will be talking about this movie, but the other will be me talking about the current studio system and, specifically, Sony.

One thing that Madame Web tried to be is an origin story of somebody who is quite popular and powerful in comic books (that was all I knew about her, as someone who has never read any comic book in his life). Unfortunately, every beat of this origin story is not only boring, it’s also shot poorly, edited horribly, and many things don’t align logically. I will give one example for many – Dakota Johnson is a suspect in kidnapping our main heroines (Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced and Celeste O’Connor) and drives off with them in the middle of nowhere. Then, she leaves them, so they wander off to get food at the nearby dinner, and there, a guy spots them and calls the police. And how did he know it was them? We see the guy reading newspapers with no single image. Not only did this “kidnapping” only happen a couple of hours ago (very late newspaper edition, I guess), but also, he just saw three random girls walk in and thought: “Yep, that must be them, better do my duty!” And this one scene is just one example out of many.

Regarding the technical side, this might be the first blockbuster film in ages where you can spot sound being properly off. Especially with Tahar Rahim‘s character, many of his lines are shot with his character either facing sideways or straight-up from the back, so we don’t see his mouth. And it’s very distracting, but knowing now about all the various re-shoots, it makes so much sense why this had to be shown like this.

That brings me to my last point about the actual movie – the performances. Everyone is weird and awkward and seems off in Madame Web. Now, I won’t blame any of the actors, as I know all of them are talented, given I have seen their previous work, so I know Dakota, Sydney, Isabela or Celeste are great actors. But they are misdirected and often seem confused as to what is happening. There was a portion of this film towards the end where we see them in the future with their powers. And for those scenes, I was kinda into it because they seemed like they could kick ass. However, we really get those scenes, maybe for two minutes tops. The rest is just an origin story that puts everything on the right track. Unfortunately, though, that track is dodgy, not well-oiled and also set on fire whilst constantly being changed.

And this is where I must address the IMDb trivia. Specifically, one struck a nerve with me:

According to Dakota Johnson in an interview with The Wrap, the screenplay underwent extensive rewrites to the point that it no longer resembled the film that she signed on for. The original screenplay, which was described as darker and “very ‘Terminator’ inspired,” would have seen Madame Web and the Spider-Women trying to protect a pregnant Mary Parker from Ezekiel Sims, who wants to kill her to prevent the birth of Peter Parker.

Source: IMDb.com

Imagine being an actor, signing on to do a film based on this intriguing screenplay. And as you shoot it, it changes on you to something incoherent, messy and not resembling anything that intrigued you about it in the first place. Especially when that premise sounds awesome, I would totally watch that movie! The studio system has always been like this, and Madame Web is hardly the first movie that had this done. However, when the story and script changes are so obvious that you can’t showcase your villain that much because his words don’t match his lips, and your main star literally changed her agency after the first trailer came out (yep, that’s real), you know you’ve done fucked up. In 2023, we had both writers’ and actors’ guilds striking for better conditions, better pay and all that any sensible movie-loving person supported. I hope part of those terms the actors and writers negotiated was for the screenplay not to change as drastically once everything gets green-lit. I understand changes will always happen, and that’s fine, but if you green-lit a movie, surely you should “leave it” and supervise it from a distance rather than actively mess around with the screenplay and the story… It just doesn’t make sense.

Sony seems to be the unfortunate “king” of these, especially since their comic book movies aren’t… Well, let’s just say they haven’t had the best response (looking your way, Morbius (2022, my review here). I know there must be some weird sense of: “Oh well, we will nail the next time!” and that’s why they haven’t sold everything to the MCU yet, but… Sony, guys, enough is enough. Yes, the MCU has their issues, and its track record isn’t flawless, especially in the last couple of years, but… I would still trust them more. I would still trust the MCU to do reshoots better (they have done them in the past) and to actually get a better grasp of these characters.

That is why I am torn on this movie, as yes, I didn’t enjoy it, but I didn’t hate it as much because, in some scenes, you can see the “what if” potential. Imagine if this movie was good; I feel like the sequel (given they all had their power by then) would have been great. And the more I think about it after reading more about this film and its behind-the-scenes, the more I refuse to talk shit about anyone involved here, especially the actors. Yes, nobody comes across as capable in this film, but I genuinely believe they are giving what they can and what they have been told to do. It’s hard to talk about movies sometimes, especially when you can tell there was so much behind-the-scenes stuff that set this movie on the wrong path from day one.

Overall, Madame Web is not a great movie. However, I didn’t think it was as bad (for me, it’s slightly better than Morbius, but that ain’t saying much), and what’s more, this one seems like it was set to fail the moment they started to move away from that intriguing, Terminator-like premise. Madame Web is like a ship without a captain that is sailing towards the harbour. The anchor still hasn’t dropped, the crash is imminent and on top of that, that ship is on fire, and its crew was powerless to do anything about it. I feel bad for all the actors and creative people involved and hope those who aren’t A-listers will recover from this. It’s rare for studio pictures to fuck that badly, and Sony, you managed again. Here’s your trophy. Now, go fuck yourself.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke