Film Journal Podcast
George (Film Journal) and Ryan (Cinecrisis) dig through film history one oddball pick at a time—hopping from cult horror to forgotten blockbusters, art house to trash fire (sometimes in the same episode). Whether it’s dissecting Hammer Horror, roasting the latest Studio Flop, or revisiting 70's exploration fare- they bring sharp takes, deep trivia, and the kind of banter only good pals can pull off!
No film school snobbery. No hot take clickbait. Just smart, funny conversations for people who like movies and think they actually matter.
Film Journal Podcast
Madame Web: The Marketing Bait-and-Switch Nobody Asked For
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Sony's "Madam Web" has spun quite a web of controversy, and we're here to untangle it all. What happens when two film enthusiasts with vastly different takes on the same movie sit down to dissect it? Pure entertainment.
This conversation dives deep into Dakota Johnson's portrayal of Cassandra Webb, a paramedic who develops clairvoyant abilities and becomes entangled in protecting three young women from a mysterious villain with spider-like powers. We explore how the film seems trapped between eras – feeling more like an early 2000s superhero movie than a contemporary Marvel offering, complete with awkward dialogue, thin character motivations, and missed opportunities.
The marketing of "Madam Web" becomes a central point of contention as we discuss the bait-and-switch of promoting Sydney Sweeney and others in spider costumes that only appear briefly in a dream sequence. Is this legitimate promotional strategy or outright deception? We also examine how this film connects (or fails to connect) to the larger Spider-Man mythology, from Ben Parker's appearance to the mystical elements that feel at odds with Spider-Man's traditionally science-based origins.
Whether you're a die-hard Marvel fan trying to decide if this is worth your time, someone who's already seen it and wants perspective, or just enjoy hearing passionate film discourse, our spirited debate offers something for everyone. We even place "Madam Web" in the context of other critically panned superhero films – is it truly as disastrous as some critics claim, or merely an underwhelming B-movie experience? Listen and decide for yourself!
Subscribe to hear more of our takes on the latest superhero offerings, throwback film discussions, and deep dives into cinema classics. Your friendly neighborhood film critics are just getting started.
Let's ride.
Speaker 2My character in the movie may be able to see the future. I also can, and I know what the future brings. I know that when you see Madam Web, you're going to love it. In fact, I think you're going to see it twice.
Speaker 1Thoughts.
Speaker 3Should we introduce the movie at all, or do you want to do a synopsis, or do you just want to go full on in on the reaction?
Speaker 1Doesn't everybody already know? I mean, this is Morbius 2, right, everyone's waiting for Morbius 2. But I know, when you see Madam Web, you're going to love it, I.
Speaker 3But I know. You see, madame webb, I'm here. I'm here to tell you and maybe I'll get a lot of hate for this, but I actually kind of like the movie.
Speaker 1Are you, are you serious? This is great, okay, great okay.
Speaker 3I'm happy to hear that I, I did and I you know, on a very, very superficial level. Yes, I don't think it's. I don't think it's the train wreck that everybody is um making it out to be by any, by any means I mean you're gonna I mean so.
Speaker 1So I assume you didn't like the movie no, I, I would like to hear your justification, then I'll jump in, because I was actually expecting it to be better, but because everyone was hating on it, I'm like, okay, this is obviously an easy punching bag, everyone's hating on it. But I was actually shocked at how, how bad I thought that it was, but go ahead really okay.
Speaker 3I mean, I didn't, I didn't hate it, I enjoyed it on a level that you would enjoy a b movie. Okay, going back to, yeah, we've had discussions about how, you know, in our, in our younger days, in our youth, we enjoyed movies, like you know, fantastic four or ghost writer ghost writer, or I mean even catwoman the series yeah sure you know, um to be honest with you, I've seen so much worse in the last year alone.
Speaker 3I don't think anyone can sit here and tell me that this movie is worse than the flash or aquaman and the lost kingdom.
Speaker 1I mean, I don't think there's any way you can justify saying that those movies were almost unwatchable that's astounding to me that you would say that I I uh because I haven't seen those movies, but I can't imagine they'd be worse than this, for me.
Speaker 3They're way worse and I'll tell you why. Those movies are over, bloated, overstuffed with everything. They make no sense on a like, on a logical like plot based uh uh, you know track. Their plots are convoluted and nonsensical. The special effects in those movies look like they weren't even finished. Those movies also hold the distinction of trying to be A-list movies. Those are trying to be top-tier A-movies and they fail at them miserably. This is not even trying.
Speaker 3This is not even trying. This is trying to be a B-levellevel pulp, kind of like throwaway matinee okay, and on that level I think it's like passable.
Speaker 1That's something you would watch on tv uh, yeah, that's what it felt like was something you'd watch on television, but here's the thing.
Speaker 5Can I, can I play one more clip and then I'll unload my grievances here the comic drawings that I saw of julio was always upside down, beat together very ballet aerialist moves. So I begged, and begged, and begged to have my character drop from the ceiling, because that's just what julia would have done.
Speaker 1They have a lot of photos of me just hanging upside down just waiting for action that was me, uh, sitting right side up but waiting for action because this fucking movie is boring as shit and like. The fact that they promoted this film with a bunch of spider girls all over the place in the commercials is is straight up fraud. I mean, it is fucking fraud, dude. They dress these girls up in spider costumes for a fucking dream sequence and they market the entire movie with that two minutes. Yeah, it's astounding to me, and it's astounding to me too, not just that it was mismarketed, but that when they were shooting those scenes, that no producer walked in and was like, why is this shit not the whole fucking movie?
Speaker 3That I agree with you.
Speaker 1Why can't we have a Spider Girl movie? You've got Sydney Sweetie like the hottest. She's such a hot actress that she revived the romantic comedy for the first time in like seven years and made a giant hit just because she was in it. And the guy from top gun right and then she's which this was probably made, I don't know three fucking years ago and sat on a shelf and they fuck with it. You know the editing, but you could tell this thing's been edited to death because there were a million moments where they like cut this guy here and fucking cgi and move this around and like, okay, do you want to start at the top on this? Okay?
Speaker 3So let me two points on what you just said. So number one yeah, and I will agree that the lack of a Sydney Sweeney screen time in this movie is is appalling. And number two there's no sex appeal at all because she's playing a teenager. She's playing a teenager here, so you, they button her up and everything is just like very, very like, hey, hands off. Um, so that's a bet, that's a negative. Um. Two, the I agree about the superhero part of it there's.
Speaker 3This is not really a superhero movie no in and of itself it's kind of like a thriller, you know mystical kind of thing I just do.
Speaker 1They have a guy running around in an evil spider-man costume the whole time yeah, I just don't think it's like an evil spider-man well, because they thought that his other outfit was too lame.
Speaker 3I don't know. I didn't need him to be in the spider-man outfit, to be honest is this an actual character from the comics? Ezekiel is ezekiel sims. Yeah, that goes back to. That was right around the time I started getting back into Spider-Man, reading it on a monthly basis. That was when J Michael Straczynski was writing Amazing Spider-Man and he introduced all this weird other stuff into the mythology that had to do with like mystical spider totems that gave people powers.
Speaker 3No, it's not, it's super lame. No, it's not, it's super lame. Um and um, it was basically trying to like retcon the origin of spider-man, to say that the uh, the thing wasn't based on like a scientific science fiction based thing, it was more like a mystical aspect to his origin, and then it was kind of like undone by the end. But um, ezekiel had spider powers. I don't remember how he got them, it was some mystical way, um, but yeah, he, that's why he walks around barefoot. That's what he does in the comics that's yeah, I noticed that.
Speaker 1Uh, the the villain was so bad in this dude like we must kill them. I had a dream that I was going to be killed by three spider women. I mean, I was just like you got to be shitting me. And he's like I've hacked into the nsa. Dude, oh dude, can you fucking? I was like I couldn't believe it when he had a girl there whose job was to be on the computer the whole time. And she's like, based on your description of your dream, these are the people you're looking for.
Speaker 3Hey, that's no lamer or worse than the plot of the last Mission Impossible movie.
Speaker 1I didn't see that either, and no one else did.
Speaker 3That was basically the plot of that, too, is that they're having the super chip for the uh I don't even know where to start with this dude.
Speaker 1Actually I was gonna, I was gonna like talk about what I like, but now that you said you like this, I have to be the guy to fucking unload on this thing. But I mean you want to start? Do you want to start from the top here? The other movie so it's about it starts out with um, which I thought was actually kind of cool.
Speaker 1Um, dakota johnson's mom is studying amazon in the forest, right spiders right before she died right while she's pregnant, like nine months pregnant yeah, and um, she gets killed by ezekiel sims because he wants the magic spider for himself, right, and then she gets, she gets captured by these, or you know, taken in like by these amazonian spider people who I thought looked kind of cool, by the way, uh, and they like fly her through the forest and then they put her in like a magical healing pool, but she dies, but her child lives, and then they give her back to america somehow and she goes to the, into the foster system, and then we meet her in present day as a jaded emt who, like can I can all that banter can I stop you?
Speaker 3right there that was all the stuff that I hated the most anything that had to do with the amazon rainforest, anything that had to do with mysticism.
Speaker 1I was like boring, checked out yeah, but I mean like there was like a. They were like look cool, like they were dressed like spider people and stuff and like it kind of looked good I thought, sure, sure, on some level I hate stuff like that.
Marketing Deception and Film Critique
Speaker 1I hate stuff interjecting that kind of stuff into this mythology which it has no place in well, yeah, and the other thing too that bothered the shit out of me this is supposed to be a prequel to spider-man in the marvel cinematic universe, correct? I mean, I know that, like marvel's, watching this, like you know, like tied to a chair, watching them, like brutalize their, their baby, and they're just like you know, as they make horrible decisions, like you know, introducing into spider-man's mom poor emma roberts, boy she had. I thought she was going to go places, but now she just has to play these put-upon roles of the well-begotten pregnant woman being passed around in action sequences. But, dude, and then we get to the modern-day Cassie, played by Dakota Johnson and her and Adam Scott's work. Banter was so bad, it was fucking horrible man, it was so bad, I couldn't believe it. Right? Did you enjoy that?
Speaker 3I'm enjoying it on a camp level. I mean you have to take a certain amount of grain of salt with this. This is trying to be like a trash movie at a certain point. I mean, I don't think you can't enjoy it on that level.
Speaker 1Okay, so keep going Sorry. I don't want to be the one to like you know, you keep, keep rolling, keep rolling.
Speaker 3I don't want to be like oh man, this movie was great. You know it wasn't, it was just like I had it.
Speaker 1I had a no time watching it here's my problem with your critique is you're like, oh, this is like a good b movie or whatever. And it's like, yeah, it could have been if they had gave us like five spider girls running around kicking ass and like being hot. But they didn't do that at all, like, and they could have. And they like had the idea to dress them up in spider costumes to be in a dream sequence. It's like here's what you do. Remember that? Okay? So I say that basically, this movie is about Dakota Johnson.
Speaker 1She figures out, she has these sort of like prec things happen before like little flashes in your brain which, by the way, I thought were when things repeat, you know. And she's like what you just said, that what are you talking about? Whoa, you know what I mean. Like I thought that was very annoying and like spastic and disorienting. And the only time it worked was with the pigeon in the window, where she sees a vision of a pigeon hitting a window and dying. It goes away. She opens the window, the pigeon flies in. So it's sort of like terminator, fate is not set, sort of thing, right where it's like oh, I can change the future.
Speaker 3You know what I'm saying yes, I, I like how it also, though it um helped show her personality as kind of like a spaz and a uh, like just a weirdo, like borderline personality disorder kind of like I don't buy that because situations just socially awkward about everything I hate that because she's a very attractive woman, so it's like you should not be like that.
Speaker 1Do you know what I mean? Like like that moment, ryan, when, like the girl's like, here's a painting, because the little child hands are a drawing, and she's like, thanks for saving my mom. And she's like, uh, what am I supposed to do? You know what I mean? And he's like, just take it, take the pain. Uh, thanks, right, okay, a real jaded person would. This is what. If I'm a screenwriter and I read that, I would go this is fucking terrible. Right now, when she first goes, what, what are you talking about? Who? That makes sense, because this is a job for them, right, it's like bringing out the dead scorsese. You ever see that movie, highly underrated scorsese film with nicholas cage, but like to be jaded to this idea of people dying and you shuttling them around all the time, right, but like she should have been, like, oh, thank you very much. And then, like she walks away and crumples it up and throws it in the trash, right, and then you get an idea of like this personality, though that's not her personality there's.
Speaker 1There's not a human being on earth that would, that would like, make a show of that. They'd say oh, thanks, thanks, very thanks, thanks very much. Then throw it in the trash. They wouldn't be like.
Speaker 3I've met some people that would, that would act like that. All right People that I wouldn't want to meet and would not like uh, I didn't say that part, but uh, you know, well, that's my main character and then when he's like their printer's broke.
Speaker 1We can never read here again. And you know what I got to tell you, ryan. I'm in a theater 75% full. You sent me a photo where your theater was empty and you're like what a dog. This movie is my theater busy and people were fucking laughing boy, they were laughing their ass off. They thought this movie was very funny. All the banter with the girls where they were like I never even liked you to begin with. People were fucking laughing their ass off.
Speaker 3This is a funny movie. Ironically.
Speaker 1No, because it wasn't irony bros there. It was like an old 50s character from Roseanne.
Speaker 3You're just an elitist snob.
Speaker 1I am Sorry.
Speaker 3You got to step it down. Dial it down a bit here.
Speaker 1It was like John Goodman and Roseanne and their kids you know what I'm saying. They thought it was very entertaining and good. What next? Oh, okay, so she starts saying Wait, wait, wait, can I?
Speaker 3Okay, so you mentioned Adam Scott as Ben, her friend, who turns out to be Ben Parker. That made me roll my eyes like, oh God, we're going to do this again, because I can't stand in these movies where everyone knows each other. Every part of a character's history is linked together through people they all knew in their past and stuff. So, and I thought it was going to get much worse than that. It actually mitigated itself, I thought, by the end, because they didn't do the super, super face palming, eye rolling reveals which would have been like when she's um asking ben about, oh, you got a new girlfriend, a new lady friend, and he didn't be like, yeah, her name's, may you know? Like, yeah, like that. And then what's the baby's name? What's the baby's name? And they're at the end of the movie. They did not do the thing which I was expecting, which is like his name is peter peter parker could you imagine having to sit through that?
Speaker 1What you know? What you know? What, though? The fact that they didn't say it is even worse, because then every fucking nerd ass, goddamn Funko pop collector is just leaning over those friends going that's sexy Spider-Man's bomb. It's amazing.
Speaker 3I'm like oh, oh horrible Did that happen or not, I don't know. Oh, I I don't know?
Speaker 1Oh, I know it happened. It happened out there somewhere. I'm sensing it like Obi-Wan Kenobi it's happening.
Speaker 3I just thought that would have been like total cringe moment, all um, um, uh. Dark night rises when he's like what's your real name, robin, love it. It's like oh God.
Speaker 1Love that dude. That was so dope. No, that was horrible.
Speaker 3That was one of the worst moments ever.
Speaker 1Okay, the other thing I didn't like about this movie Go ahead, you had something to say, something good.
Speaker 3No, no, please, you continue trashing it.
Speaker 1I was just going to say. The other problem with this movie is it's such a stop start disjointed kind of thing. She goes on the subway, then she has a vision that a prequel set in 2003 which, by the way, it's the most lazy 2003 period piece I've ever seen right, I don't even know if people are going to be able to do period pieces of the 2000s, because nothing has changed. We live in a stagnant culture. But like, um, like 2003, uh, the only thing we know, the only reason we know it's 2003 is because no, there's no, no cell phones and they play like third eye, blind music in the background, when people are walking toxic by Britney Spears.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah and like shit, like two princes by, like spin doctors and stuff but like 10 years old at that point, or 12 years old.
Speaker 3I mean, that was not 2000.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's from the early nineties. Right. Okay, let me look through my notes here. You continue, and then I will watch. Oh, incel Heidegger says it was originally set in the 90s. They changed it in post, is that right?
Speaker 3It didn't look like the 90s either.
Speaker 1It looked like current day pretty much it looked like right now, yeah, and then she has these visions Evil, evil, spider-man, which is dumb, because so in this prequel universe, spider-man peter parker based his costume off this guy.
Speaker 3I don't think so I don't think they're going. Why do they have such similar?
Speaker 1costumes. Is there some like unified, uh hive mind of the spider, like totem legacy sort of thing that people have been spider people for a thousand years and like they come out of the amazon? I mean, you know, I'm saying I think they were just.
Speaker 1I think they were just being lazy, to be honest with you you're being lazy and they're and they realized they needed somebody in a costume running around the superhero movie. Okay, so we get a terminator style movie where this girl or taylor aaron, taylor johnson, whatever fuck, fuck her name is is, like you know, the main gal.
Speaker 3Dakota Johnson.
Speaker 1Dakota Johnson. Yeah, she becomes like a sort of Kyle Reese for these three girls that are targeted by this Terminator-style evil Spider-Man, right, yes, but that doesn't really work because she doesn't know what's going on. They don't know what's going on, so she keeps doing stupid things, whereas a Kyle Reese knows exactly what the villain is, what to do and how to survive, right, she has no fucking clue, sure?
Speaker 3so she's just like oh, let's just go more. That's how you create more stupid uh plot plot holes for the movie to uh wander into, though, and have.
Speaker 1I mean, this shit was like the hobbit, like she was gandalf and just like dropping them places and going somewhere, like she drops them in the forest, and it's like, okay, I'll be right back. I gotta go look in my mom's notebook right, and like fall down a wall and then come back. When you guys walked into a diner where it was, which that wasn't some kind of like roadhouse biker bar, I'd have no idea why it needed to be a diner, I don't know. I think it's because the guy that directed this was like, oh, I want old 50s neon shit in here because she had a lot of that going on right, and um, I, I don't, yeah.
Speaker 1And then she leaves again to go to peru to discover the secret of her, which, by the way and she's like oh, these three girls are being actively hunted by this maniacal, evil villain. Uh, why don't you stay with my highly vulnerable, pregnant uh, sister-in-law or whatever? Right, and I'm gonna go to peru? Uh, the correct thing to do was to bring those girls to Peru, right? And then what you do?
Dakota Johnson's Character and Development
Speaker 1If I'm the script doctor, I'm looking at this dog shit. I come in here and I go no, hot girls in spider costumes at the end, right? No, they're just in a fireworks factory, a Pepsi Cola commercial, and I would say, okay, they all four of them go to the Amazon. And then she falls into the water and it's like having her doctor, strange trip out moment. And all the girls are like what do we do? She's dying. And they go don't get in the magic water because you will be cursed with spider powers as well. And they go oh well, I don't care, they jump in, they all come out, they all have spider powers, right, ta-da. Then they go fight the bad guy at the third act, easy fix.
Speaker 3But this is the origin story. Man, come on, for what?
Speaker 1When she was rolling in there with Stephen Hawking with fucking glasses on. I was just laughing my ass off. I couldn't believe they did that. She's like hello. I was blown the fuck away.
Speaker 3I've never seen the future look so bright or something like that Right.
Speaker 1This is not a character like professor X, who people know and are like, oh yeah, he's in a wheelchair, so like when he gets crippled at the end, you're like, oh, it makes it's interesting, it's like what? Like, if I was a regular person in the audience I'd be like right, yeah, there's high stakes to the movie, you know dude, this movie sucked. Go ahead. Okay, keep. What did I?
Speaker 3write. What did I write? I wrote um. Well, I wrote very solid, mid-level, low stakes b superhero movie um, expectations for what superhero movies are now are unrealistic, um, and I'm alluding to the recent marvel and dc films, which I think expectations have been so high and these movies have not delivered on any level at all. Yes, this feels like it came off of. I guess they throw around the phrase AI-generated movie all the time. Now it's kind of become a cliche I don't think that is.
Speaker 3I think this is very, very shoddy B-level. It looks like a movie that came out in 2003, like that's the level of superhero movie we're talking about here feels like a daredevil style.
Speaker 1You know stuff like that because it was also kind of surprising to me how politically it was not woke it's not woke. It was not woke, it's like it was like made in a vacuum and like in like a vault somewhere.
Speaker 3You know what I mean yeah, um, I wrote it reminded me not only of the early and mid-2000s superhero movies, but some of those, um, really really crappy 70s and 80s, uh, marvel movies that we were watching earlier. That's what it felt like to me and I enjoyed it on the same level that I enjoyed captain america to death too soon and, um, whatever else. The thing like that I'm not saying they're good yeah I'm not saying they're good, I'm just saying I don't get it that yeah, it's bad, but like I could I just I guess.
Speaker 1I guess my issue is that it could have been a better. Bad movie like I don't know my script change of all three of them jumping into the water and getting spire powers. That's really stupid and terrible, right, but at least it gets you three spider girls running around being cute at the end, right, which we did not get yeah, that I would have liked to have seen um, I cannot believe that they advertised it like that.
Speaker 3Go ahead compared to the other sony spider-man movies um venom one and two morbius. Did you see those or not? I saw venom did you like venom or not? No okay, I liked venom one and two. Morbius was literally a garbage movie. Like that movie, that is not enjoyable because it's so badly made. That is unintentionally funny, especially where Matt Smith is dancing and prancing around for no reason whatsoever. It's just off-putting.
Speaker 1There's a lot of things in this movie that I thought were off-putting for sure. When they were dancing at the diner. All the Letterman jacket, like football players, were there and they're like oh I love this.
Speaker 1It's kind of cute, you know no, what it should have been is it should have been a bar and my sydney sweeney should have been like, oh, this is scary. And that one girl that was like the bad girl would be like, oh, have a beer, no big deal, right. And then they get into trouble. Do you know what I'm saying? And then they start, because otherwise, like people don't get up and start dancing at, like fucking roadside, edward hopper diners, dude, that just doesn't happen.
Speaker 3Right, it happens, it's a it's a patrick swayze roadhouses. People don't have uh spider powers and uh clairvoyance and all that either that's true, but I'm just thinking from like a visual perspective.
Speaker 1It's like have a big open like warehouse you've seen roadhouse with patrick swayze they go in there and then the bad spider-man guy can beat up like 15 fucking.
Speaker 3You know, uh, cowboy hat guys right um, I also thought, uh, you know, there's none of that dumb marvel humor that we get from the mcu movie, so I was happy about that you've hoops, what, what?
Speaker 1yeah, there is tons what was the cringe?
Speaker 3like dad jokes that were in this movie that were like I just, you know it was.
Speaker 1Maybe it wasn't so much like what, it wasn't so much like the marvel of seeing something explode and being like, well, that just happened. It wasn't like that. But it was just like these constant, like lame quips from everybody that were just okay, that's a different level, that's a different animal altogether.
Speaker 3I'm talking about what you just said, which is like somebody's on a bus and like the bus gets cut in half and they're like whoa and like don't see that every day yeah, yeah, I did not expect that.
Speaker 1Yeah, stuff like that I don't there wasn't. It was just lame like supposedly funny quippiness, which was just bad yeah.
Speaker 3Now I'm feeling like, oh man, I should have just said I hated the movie, but I don't get why it's so horrible and it's like please watch the Flash, Please watch Aquaman 2, which are insufferable films which I actively wanted to leave during the movie because I was like this is so bad, these are so terrible. I mean, aquaman two was literally. You said this movie was edited to death. Check that one out.
Speaker 1Really, I just think about it.
Speaker 3He wrote the movie while they're filming it.
Speaker 1Where she can like go into the force world and she's talking to the bad guy and like he's appearing and they're talking and like in some spirit realm and I'm like what the fuck is going on here, you know, and like he just kept appearing in other places and I'm like what? But, by the way, dude, the bad guy, one of the worst I've seen in a long time, horrible, and his little like computer girl. I have spent a lot of money on this technology. Use it, was he dubbed.
Speaker 3Was he dubbed? Was he dubbed?
Speaker 1It sounded like it. Yeah, Actually, Jeremy.
Speaker 3Johnson's review was funny. I don't think he's one of the worst villains by far either. I mean he's not good, but you know.
Speaker 1Dude these three girls. They killed me. I must kill them before. I'm like are you shitting me? I'm like this is so stupid. You know, like I don't know man know, I don't know the motivation is that.
Speaker 3I would have liked to know what his actual motivation, though beyond that, was. What is he doing otherwise? Like what? What is his, what is his operation? What does he?
Speaker 1what does? Why did he want? What does he do? Yeah, he just hangs out and he has like a chloe from 24 like fucking around a computer for him yeah like that that I'd like to know um, so here's.
Speaker 3So that was my, those were my pros, so my cons that I did write down. I uh generally not a fan of the mystification of the spider-man mythology, which is supposed to be rooted in science, not fantasy. Uh, anytime you start adding in magic spiders with special powers, it makes my eyes glaze over. I talked about the ezekiel motivation, which made no sense other than killing the girls, the Ben and May Parker things. Pacing was bad, especially the flashbacks.
Speaker 1Yeah, and every time she's like, okay, I'll be right back. I got to go do something.
Speaker 3I was like, just like you know they need to create an artificial environment, to create more danger for the girl so that she can come in and save the day.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean there were some cool things. I thought the movie was just it, didn't? It just was lacking in action.
Speaker 1But like I want to return to your point about how it felt like an old, bad superhero movie yeah at the same time, though and this is almost endearingly bad, because you and I have fond memories of these sorts of things but it felt like it was just like back then, where they would be embarrassed that they were making a superhero movie. So they almost try to sell the movie as if it wasn't one. You know what I mean. Like so they could get. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1It's like oh, it's a comic like blade, like blade is it would be based on a comic, but like you could watch that and not know that. Do you know what I mean? Right, and they seem like there were a lot, of a lot back then where they were kind of embarrassed, but something was based on a comic, so they kind of sold it as something else. But this is both those things, because somebody watched it and was like in the spider-man, where the hell are the superhero girls? And they were like here's what we'll do. We'll just shoot some, we'll do reshoots, we'll shoot three of them in spider-man costumes and we'll we'll put that in the trailer on television and fucking just trick everybody to coming right I agree.
Speaker 3I agree, um, it didn't need to be two hours, that's also yeah, I felt long and and and I'll talk about things I like I got 30 minutes out of there dude, I'm.
Speaker 1I'm like at the end when they're like, oh, I'm seeing the future where you're all spider people, I'm like how the fuck they get powers. They all get from here to there different ways.
Speaker 3You know, it depends on their origin story. Uh, personally, do I remember? I only remember julia carpenter. Uh, she came out in the secret wars. Um, that's about it. The other ones I barely remember them came out. Aranya is like very new, maddie Franklin's from the 90s Boy brother.
Speaker 1Sorry, I didn't mean to like oversell it.
Speaker 3I would not recommend this movie to people unless you know that you're going to like a movie like this, and there are people that know. So if you like, I think this is the same level that I like like the Underworld and Resident Evil movies. Those movies are also garbage, but like well-made, well-made garbage, so I just man.
Speaker 1I felt like if they gave me, if they gave me this movie, I would have. I would have made something, something for daddy, if you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3Sure, there's a lot of lost potential here, but I don't think the end product is as hyperbolically bad as people are making it out to be.
Speaker 1Like this is not the be all.
Speaker 3End all of superhero movies. There's a way worse.
Speaker 1I came in hot because I was expecting it to be better, and it was worse.
Speaker 3Like.
Speaker 1I was saying, okay, everyone's saying this is dog shit, it's probably fine, they want to do the memes, Right. But then I right. But then I found myself astounded at how poor I thought that it was and just all the missed opportunities. And I was just, I just, you know, again advertising sydney sweeney in this little spider-man costume and then not giving us that. I was just shocked, shocked, right. But um, hey, I read the first two appearances of man and webb and amazing spider-man before we started this. Oh, did you? I did, yeah, in spider-man 210 and 216 do you mean this?
Speaker 1no, you possess of course.
Speaker 3What does it cost this? Like 50 bucks. Well, it's marked at ten dollars, so it means that they probably bought it for five dollars. Um, I don't know both this I think it's probably like 15, 20 years ago, probably at this point.
Comic Book Origins vs Film Adaptation
Speaker 1I need to read more of those early 80s Spider-Man comics because they were really good. The two issues I read with Madame Webb this is Denny O'Neill's time on Spider-Man he rocks it dude. Yeah, yeah the second appearance.
Speaker 3Have you read that one, 216? I don't have that one. The other one that I do have are her later her others. Probably the only other significant story that she's in is the nothing can stop the juggernaut.
Speaker 3Uh, two-parter where she basically almost dies oh really, yeah, the juggernaut um is after her because I can't remember. Black tom cassidy is after her and she's having visions and she asks Spider-Man to help stop them. He sends the Juggernaut after her. Black Tom does. He almost kills her. She gets disconnected from her life support system. She's at death's door. He stops the Juggernaut by encasing him in cement or something like that.
Speaker 1I often read those because I thought she was an interesting character and I thought that by introducing her, she was an interesting new element of his milieu. I don't know what they're planning on doing with this shit. Are they going?
Speaker 3to hire an older. Yeah, nothing You're right Dead on arrival.
Speaker 1It's going to go in a bin.
Speaker 3Dead on arrival this movie. It's making some money, though, isn't it? No, the Bob Marley movie is doing much, much better, which I wanted to see, probably before this one.
Speaker 1I was in line at the bar. I was in line at the bar, by the way. This entire operation was my idea. I thought we could grift off of the memes of this movie and try to and look what Guess what Seven viewers at like three in the afternoon, that's movie. And try to and look what, guess what? Seven viewers at like three in the afternoon. That's a cool, my friend. We're rocking and we're doing well.
Speaker 3Are you guys enjoying if I have a positive opinion? Oh man, that's, that's not. Not a good, not a good.
Speaker 1Look, you know I should have seen aquaman in the second kingdom and fucking loved it, and just I bet I would love it oh, atrocious atrocious um I will say, oh, I want, I wanted to.
Speaker 3Well, we can examine some of the critical reviews after. But just talking about her, we talked about her in the comics. She was also a huge part of the Spider-Man animated series in the 90s, which was like my bread and butter growing up.
Speaker 3That show rocked my world for comics and Spider spider-man at the time and she was introduced in the third season as his like mystical guide, um. She came onto the scene and was like I'm gonna train you and prepare you for this big battle that you're going to experience and, like along the way she was, she was very sarcastic, very quippish. She had a real personality to her, unlike the movie um, which is like bland um. She was voiced by joan beely, who was the wife of stanley actually, which is an interesting is that right?
Speaker 3yep and um she. Then they have a falling out at the end of the season uh, due to some shenanigans with the green goblin. And then at the end of the series she comes back and recruits him to fight in the Secret Wars. You find out that she has some kind of more extraterrestrial origin to her. In the cartoon she's with the Beyonder and other people like that. I would love to show a clip of that. I have no idea how to do that from my end.
Speaker 1Do you see present? You see, uh present?
Speaker 3yes, hit plus and then video file okay, and let me find the video file I wouldn't have mentioned.
Speaker 1One more thing about the movie is that I was I. It was directed by I can't remember her name, but I thought for the most part it was, like you know, bad line readings, like serviceable. I thought there were moments that showed some like filmmaking heft. Like I really enjoyed that scene where cassie has to go save the flipped over car that's hanging off the edge of the bridge and you get the car pulls in and she opens the door, grabs her bag and like I thought that was well done and I was interested in that sequence.
Speaker 1But for the most part I thought that it was kind of a blandly shot movie. But I I did notice that every time a car pulled out of anywhere, like it was like amazing, like they had like a camera on like a crane, and when they pulled out of that diner it was like I'm like dude. Like every time there was there was insert shots or anything like that it was impeccable. So I was like who's the second unit director on this? He's a guy named Darren Prescott. Okay, he was the second unit on Black Widow, black Panther, baby Driver, ford vs Ferrari and Nicholas winning Reffens Drive. So this dude's the real deal.
Speaker 3He got devoted to this huh.
Speaker 1I would say so, but he did inject a lot of editing juice where there wasn't any, because sometimes in the film I did like transition scenes there's a moment where the bad guy Tarantula which, by the way, why would they just make him the Tarantula or something? You know what I mean. Why did he?
Speaker 3have to be. I don't know why it has nothing to do with anything.
Speaker 1He pulls his car out. She pulls her car into the forest where she left them to talk. Yeah, about nothing, but go ahead, play your Madam Web.
Speaker 3Before that. So Madam Web is dead in the comics right now. She's been dead for quite a while. You know how she died for real.
Speaker 2It's an interesting it's one of the better story. Yeah, she saw this movie and died of boredom.
Speaker 3No. So there's a story called the grim hunt and you should look this one up. It's a really good, it's one of the better modern Spider-Man stories. So the Cravenoff family, the family of Kraven the Hunter, are trying to resurrect him from the dead and apparently they have this idea that if they start killing spider people, that their like mystical juice will like revive Kraven. So they start kidnapping all of these ancillary Spider-Man characters, like Madam Web, like Aranya Julia Carpenter, all these people, and they start like Madam Web, like Aranya Julia Carpenter, all these people, and they start killing them, sacrificing them, and they start reviving other members of the Cravenoff family. So Madam Web gets her throat slit at the end of the story or something like that what?
Speaker 3That's terrible, and she passes on her visionary powers to Julia Carpenter, who becomes the new Madam Web at that point.
Speaker 1Okay, and then they all think that's clones later on, but they die. I know she predates, you hit add or I can do it.
Speaker 6What do you mean? You want to end our relationship.
Speaker 4Just what I said. I don't have time for your games anymore because right now I have everything I ever wanted. Mary Jane loves me and I love her. This big battle you say you're training me for I'm not interested. My life is complete.
Speaker 6Complete, is it? Have it your way, spider-man. One day you will yearn for the wisdom of Madam Web, and that day will come soon, when the two-headed monster rises from the netherworld. No, no, yes.
Speaker 3Spider-man monster rises from the netherworld so that's when he tells her like, hey, listen, I'm through, not interested anymore, and then everything goes to hell. Okay, so the green goblin attacks, finds out his identity, kidnaps Mary Jane and they didn't kill her, because she's this is the cartoon she got ended up sending into a portal that goes to another dimension or something like that effectively dead. And then now he's like pissed. So he calls her back and this is play the rest can you bring them back? I'll do anything you want.
Speaker 6I can't can't or won't. This is the path you chose for yourself to do things on your own. Once that decision is made, there is no turning back. It is yet another thing that you have to learn.
Speaker 4Learn. I am tired of you and your riddles and your lessons and your supreme arrogance. Don't you ever, ever, enter my life again. Do you hear me, do you?
Speaker 6hear me as you wish, I shall leave you for now, but you are still the Chosen One, and when the time comes for the ultimate battle, I will return and send for you. That you cannot escape. It is your destiny.
Speaker 3See. I mean the character has a lot of flair, a lot of style, a lot of charisma. There's some definite banter back and forth and all of that's lost here.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's a weird. I mean maybe if they had introduced Madam Web as an old lady in a Spider-Man movie and then made this.
Speaker 3Yeah, this is a very Wikipedia-level introductory. I felt like they read the Wikipedia page for Madam Web and they're like we can't do anything with this, let's just create our own story. And they created this rather generic story. Again, I don't think it's so bad. I don't think it's so bad, but like it's nothing to do with. Madam Web.
Comparisons to Other Superhero Films
Speaker 1I wanted to talk about the press tour surrounding this movie, because I think Dakota Johnson's embarrassed of it, which you know, and she's like, oh, I'm not going to see it, maybe I'll see it someday. Ha ha ha. And I'm like I made a post about how, like Arnold Schwarzenegger would get on Jay Leno and be like end of days is the best movie I've ever made, because, like he was a shot and paid him. You know what I mean. Yeah, so like I just don't understand. Like you read the script, lady, like maybe, maybe sometimes, though they don't. I mean, maybe the way that they pitch, um, these movies is just, hey, you're gonna be in. This is a big thing. Sony's putting a lot of money behind this. They're gonna do multiple movies. They want you in it. Uh, yes or no? And then you say yes and then you just you get the script later and you go, oh, shit, shit, right, I think that's how that works.
Speaker 3Yeah, they're like hey, we're going to put you in a Marvel movie Spider-Man affiliated Marvel movie. It's just the origin one for now, but later on you'll be with Spider-Man in that movie and that'll be huge for your career.
Speaker 1And then I think maybe they looked at this and were like, well, there's some girl appeal here, we girl appeal here, we could make this like a girl movie, you know? Um, also, by the way, this week I think the idea of the premiere has been shattered a little bit because, um, we see dakota johnson looking hot with, uh, sydney sweeney at the premiere, but then she said she didn't see the movie. So, like, what do people do at these premieres? They go take photos and just leave. Uh, and then zendaya showed up, yeah, dressed like barbarella, and it's like, did she sit down and watch the movie in that outfit? I guess not. So what's going on with these premieres, dude? This is all a shame, but, uh, I don't know, it's too bad. I saw her on snl and she said, oh, madame webb is like if ai made your boyfriend's perfect movie. I don't think so. No, no, I don't think so. This is a good girl movie, they. But my wife hated it.
Speaker 3Okay, well, I'm sorry to hear that you didn't enjoy it you put serious strain on my marriage, or I did, I guess. Oh, come on, there's so much. I mean I enjoyed this much, much more than Argyle, which I thought was a much worse movie Like worse constructed, worst acted, worse written, you know, more poorly written than this.
Speaker 1I, you know, I guess like.
Speaker 3this is like a two star movie, which is like bad but watchable, but there's nothing there's nothing schlocky enough, though, to be like.
Speaker 1This is a good bad movie, which is what I was hoping Like, like ghostwriter. I was re-watching ghostwriter today on the treadmill in the form of this is like as if cw made spider-man.
Speaker 3Yes, exactly exactly which I love.
Speaker 1Love stuff like that I'm watching ghostwriter 20 2007 in the form of just like the 10 clips that are available on youtube. Do you know what I mean? Yeah so I'm like filling in the blanks, but I was like you know this is not a good movie, but they got shit going on here. It's like you have Nicholas cage doing goofy stuff. You've got like a guy whipping a chain around people and turning them to ash. You ain't got nothing like that, and this movie did.
Speaker 3No, this by yeah, you know what else is even better ghostwriter spirits of vengeance.
Speaker 1The second one it's not that movie's horrible, that movie's awesome. No, he's fucking dope ghostwriter shit. There's so many great like action moments, like it's a great movie. It's badass. Nicholas cage is on point in that film.
Speaker 1Let's see where he's like grabbing that guy and going like I'm turning into ghostwriter, like that's like so cool, like it's it, it's great, it's totally unhinged. I would watch five hour and 20 minute long Ghost Rider films that are just bare bones plot of him just going around fighting people when he grabs Syrian hands in that chain and throws them in the air, then brings them down and smashes them back to hell. This is sick, dude.
Speaker 3That's a cool movie, I think there's an interesting list on Rotten Tomatoes of the worst superhero movies ever.
Speaker 1Can I guess some?
Speaker 3Number 17, with 14%.
Speaker 1This is 17? Yes, what else is on there? Elektra.
Speaker 3Let me pull up the list.
Speaker 1Punisher, which I remember actually enjoying. I've liked all the Punisher movies.
Speaker 3I liked Punisher Warzone much better than the first one that got shellacked, though People hated it. But you know which is the best one? The 80s Dolph Lundgren, one which I have not seen.
Speaker 1Really Shame on you, but he doesn't wear the skull on his chest, so it's like what the fuck?
Speaker 3Even better, you know.
Speaker 1You don't have to just call it killer guy, it's the origin.
Speaker 3It's the origin. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1Oh, okay, he'll. At the end just someone say, hey, I got a new t-shirt for you.
Speaker 3Because they were embarrassed. They were embarrassed by it.
Speaker 1I don't know why.
Speaker 3Copy and paste the hyperlink properly. Oh, my goodness Having a boomer moment here, that's okay. Oh, here we go.
Speaker 1So number one is Max Steel 0%. Oh, I remember that I remember that cartoon.
Speaker 3I didn't know, they made a movie of that. Yeah, I didn't know either who's in it. Nobody I've ever heard of Max Steel movie Number two is Zoom 2006. Was that with Tim?
Speaker 1Allen.
Speaker 3Yes, Tim Allen, Courtney Cox.
Speaker 1That was advertised heavily in comics back then. Go ahead.
Speaker 3Three is Son of the Mask.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, I remember that 6%.
Speaker 3Number four is Catwoman Holly Berry. I have not watched it since it came out. I don't remember.
Speaker 1Catwoman with Holly Berry.
Speaker 3I don't know if it's actually bad or not, supergirl. Thanks, navy 4. That's if it's actually bad or not? Supergirl 1984. That's pretty bad Steel 1997. Let's go yeah.
Speaker 1It's just like Steel. It's like adjacent to Superman but too embarrassed to like.
Speaker 3That's a very, very good analogy is Steel. Yeah, number seven is the Fantastic Four from 2015, the Josh Trank version, which is pretty awful. It's pretty bad.
Speaker 1Just looked kind of miserable to me.
Speaker 3Robocop 3. Bad Superman 4, the Quest for Peace.
Speaker 1Dude. This villain in this movie is the new Mark Pllo. Nuclear man like this dude is gonna do this and be fucking done like and number 10 was electra okay, I guess electra right so worse, worse than uh.
Speaker 3Madame webb also included batman and robin jonah hex. Oh yeah, jonah, this is, this is better than jonah hex.
Speaker 1Okay, that's I never saw that yeah, that was.
Speaker 3That was like almost didn't even feel like a real movie. It had like a very very short runtime, like it was like 80 something minutes megan fox in it as the hooker with the heart of gold. I think, right, that was it. Yep, uh, howard the duck.
Speaker 1Okay, the spirit really, really bad movie, never saw, it, should see it.
Speaker 3I think this is unfair. The Underdog movie from 2007.
Speaker 1I enjoyed that one how about like High School, high or whatever with like?
Speaker 3or Sky High.
Speaker 1Sky High.
Speaker 3Yeah, let's see they have. What else they have on here? Turbo, power Rangers movie pretty bad League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which is not bad, I don't think. So what else do they have on here? Turbo, a Power Rangers movie, pretty bad, league of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which is not bad?
Speaker 1I don't think so. I haven't seen it Really With Sean.
Speaker 3Connery? No, it's his last movie, wasn't it? Yes, spawn, which is not bad. Ghost Rider. Spirit of Vengeance.
Speaker 1That is bullshit.
Speaker 3That's a cool movie With a weak script uneven CG work and a Nick Cage performance so predictably loony, it's no longer amusing. Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance aims to be trashy fun but ends up playing trash.
Speaker 1No, it's trashy fun. It's dope. And Ghost Rider looks cool as shit in that movie. He's all burnt up and his leather's all bubbling and his skull's all. He looks sick. It's so much better than the 2007, so much better no, also the teenage mutant ninja turtles movie from 2014.
Speaker 3Like that, I enjoyed that on the same level as this. Like that was also just from 2014 oh, the live action one yeah, the one with megan fox I enjoyed that movie. Sorry I will be not, you know I'm not.
Speaker 1I'm a fake fan, like I haven't seen any of this shit. I didn't see those dark phoenix.
Speaker 3That was garbage. I fell asleep that was.
Speaker 1That was tough, that was bad. Also, a very short movie. It was like an hour and a half long I fell asleep.
Speaker 3Thunder force, which was total garbage. Okay, judge, dread, bulletproof monk blade trinity. Green lantern okay, also not a bad movie. Sorry, really, I don't. I don't think so. I think that's this. Have? This has the same um fan response as green lantern, where everyone's just trashing on it oh, it's the worst movie ever. It's so bad, it's so bad, oh it's so bad. Um no, there's way worse movies out there that just have. Just because they come from the Walmart Disney factory, where they're just assembly lining these movies out there, and they have good production values, doesn't mean that they're better than this garbage. You want to weigh your garbage here and there. I'll take the Madam Web over the Marvels.
Speaker 1The thing about this is that it had something going for it. There's kind of a vibe there Like the score is kind of cool, like you know what I mean, madam Web like I just wish it would have been worse, you know, like worse.
Speaker 3Sure, I totally see your point. I would not recommend this to people but like.
Speaker 1Yeah, I wanted a girl power movie of like not so fast, you know, and like whip up the bad guy and be like go get her Cassie. You know, that's what I was thinking this was going to be, and it wasn't, it was just like four morose people Totally cringe yeah. It was just like four morose, like YA novel characters, like walking around and going from place to place. That was it. And then like the bad guys, like in his computer layer, like I have to find match with his voice, which I like.
Final Thoughts and Critical Reception
Speaker 1I like that, like that was something jeremy john said where he goes, this character will like run on a building and normally spider-man is like oh yeah, I'll be right there. You know like talking this guy's like running on a building and just goes, yes, I am immediately almost there. You know like exerting himself like with, like this, full power. You know, I don't know, dude, I don't know, I don't know you know what else this is my perfect thing.
Speaker 1Remember that scene where the bad guy he walks into like this opera and sits down next to this gal who I guess works for the nsa, right, yes, and he's like, he's like holds up that guide to her, like, do you want to read the, the show book or whatever? Yeah, and she reaches for it and he like playfully grabs it away and then gives it to her. Right, that was every joke in this movie, whereas, like you ever had someone do that to you in real life and then you're just kind of like, yeah, yeah, very funny, you know what?
Speaker 1I mean that was every fucking joke in this movie was like my reaction it should have written something down.
Speaker 3Can I read some of the reviews that were out there? So Rolling Stone, david Fear, I'm not familiar with him, but rolling stone he wrote madame webb, isn't as bad as somewhat uh botched as the somewhat botched promotional campaign might suggest. It is in fact way worse a genuine chernobyl level disaster that seems to get exponentially more radioactive as it goes along. This detour to one of the dustier corners of the Marvel's content farm is a dead end from start to finish.
Speaker 1The dusty corner of the content farm.
Speaker 3A bit of hyperbole there.
Speaker 1But the idea that it's nuclearly bad, come on, it's just kind of boring, I agree with the Christy Lemire review, who I'm a big fan of hers.
Speaker 3She used to work for the Associated Press, now she writes for RogerEbertcom and she just basically wrote kind of consistent with what I said. Madam Web is not the unmitigated disaster that its clunky trailer or its calendar spot in February would suggest. Still within these oversaturated times for comic book movies, madam Web is blissfully breezy in its pacing, which helps make it more enjoyable to watch than some of the other super serious end of the world fare we often see. She talks about there being some legitimately suspenseful scenes and basically it's like, eh, it's okay.
Speaker 1By the ending dude. I was kind of just tuned out.
Speaker 3When she's like running around and then holds up like a piece of metal, it's like first of all come on where she's using her clairvoyant powers to like predict where the stuff is going to land on the factory roof. So they know she does it like one time.
Speaker 1And then the bad guy, he's like Two or three times, because the whole time I'm thinking. I'm like the whole time I was watching it I was like, well, are there three girls going to kill this guy at the end, or what's going to happen? And then she just is like Actually, you were it's I was gonna kill you.
Speaker 1Um, I'm honestly blanking on what happened to him at the end of the movie. They just run around and like fireworks go off, which, by the way, I was like wasn't this a building that burned down at the beginning?
Speaker 3yes, it was why?
Speaker 1why are there still fireworks in it?
Speaker 3well, it was too dangerous to go in to get them out probably if it was on fire, that would have all.
Speaker 1They would have all exploded at the time, but they some only some of them blew up, and then they just left him in there.
Speaker 3Give me a fuck did he die at the end of the movie?
Speaker 1I can't, I can't remember yeah, a giant pepsi sign falls on him. He gets hit. He gets hit with the p or the s and the.
Speaker 3The best, other best review is uh, sam sam adams from sam adams, nice name from slate. If marvel is the coke of superhero movies and dc is Pepsi, sony is the RC Cola. A passable substitute when they're out of what you really want.
Speaker 1Beautiful. That's tough Because there was a lot of Pepsi play in this film. A lot of Pepsi. Can I have a beer? No, enjoy this Pepsi.
Speaker 3I hope they at least got some budget down from that Pepsi endorsement.
Speaker 1I bet they did. I bet it was $10 million.
Speaker 3Oh, I meant to find my Madam Web action figure but I was not able to go and dig it up.
Speaker 1You know, if you were to ask me, who the first character retrospective of a superhero we would ever do. I would not have thought it would be Madam Web and we'd come prepared with cartoons and read the book and fucking have the toy and the McDonald's and the Happy Meal and the fuckingdonald and the happy meal and the fucking.
Speaker 3Well, she was never in a happy meal. Okay, she was never in a happy, she was never that good um. The action figure, though, does have some infamy associated with it, because avia rod, who's the um? Who was the president?
Speaker 1of toy biz and he was like the bad guy in this movie.
Speaker 3That guy fucking literally was like a young avi rod is like yeah, yeah, it was, yeah, um he famously did not want mad Web used, I think, in the cartoon or made a toy or anything. Because he's like his exact quote was hold on. I've dropped my paper to quote he couldn't make a toy out of an old broad damn dude. Not want her included.
Speaker 1Dude this guy literally didn't know shit about anything and just like they just like oh god, what a philistine. Yeah, he sucked. What happened to?
Speaker 3him. I mean come on, it's like most. Most people are not going to want to buy that toy. It's a cool toy, though, because she comes with the wheelchair and the spider web apparatus.
Speaker 1No, he's exactly right, but like not to put her in the cartoon like that with that clip you showed, like that's. It's a cool character dynamic for spider-man to have this sort of like or who you know what I mean that he can return to it sometimes, like that's kind of a cool idea. It works in the comics, that's all John Semper.
Speaker 3John Semper Jr Was the like EP on Spider-Man animated series and he basically ran that show and and course corrected it early in the first season and got it to being like the, the epitome of like perfect Spider-Man in animated form. When the show first came out it was a mess. I mean they were having directions from the toy studio, basically a toy company directing which characters were supposed to be included and which were not. That's why Hobgoblin was the premier goblin character in the first season of the show and Green Goblin didn't show up until like season three because they made the Hobgoblin toy and Avi Arad was like you need to put the Hobgoblin toy and Avi Arad was like can you put the Hobgoblin in there?
Speaker 3Oh, wow, yeah, carnage was also one of the toys, but they deferred that for a while.
Speaker 1Well, that's good. Any other comments on? I think it'd be interesting maybe to go through the career of, like, avi Arad. And who's that other guy that, like, owned a Marvel. Like the guy that like no pictures exist of.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, yeah, ike Perlmutter, yeah those people are still involved, you know. But the Disney proxy war and all that uh no yeah, ike Perlmutter, ike Perlmutter and there's another guy, nelson, uh, somebody else, or something like that. They're trying to take over the Disney board from the inside and outspot Iger. Yeah, there's a whole thing. There's having active board, elections and stuff going on for stockholders.
Speaker 1You know, surprisingly no Funko Pops for this film. Good, you know I make up my little thumbnails without thinking I was going to grab a picture of like one of the Funko Pops for it or something. They don't have any. They didn't make them, which is shocking call that a success anything else, brother. Sorry I had to keep it short today, but I got to get to a thing.
Speaker 3I don't think there's anything else left to discuss for this movie. Final recommendation is you can watch it on TV when it comes out on streaming, If you want to. I wouldn't recommend going to the theater. I enjoyed it on a superficial level.
Speaker 1This reminds me of, like the city Sweeney, as far as where this will sit in. One of those like like a bad, like like Saturn three for like Farrah or something. Yeah, you know one of those like a bad like saturn three for like farah or something. Yeah, you know, footnote, a footnote. All right, brother, great talking to you, as always all right until next time. Hopefully we'll pick a better movie maybe we should do more things like this, where we just hit one and just you know yeah, yeah, especially contemporary films.
Speaker 1This is a good way to just kind of burn it through because I haven't reviewed reviewed a contemporary movie for like five years on YouTube, so this is a new one, but hopefully people enjoy it. Everyone take care. Have a great Saturday night.
