Movie Reviews

Madame Web | Reelviews Movie Reviews

Published

2 years ago

February 15, 2024

If there’s a rule to be aware of when it comes to Sony’s
so-called “Spider-Verse” movies, it’s this: If Spider-Man isn’t in it, it’s
likely to disappoint. That applies to Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Morbius, and now Madame Web. Although all these
properties have comic book sources, none has translated well to the big screen.
This is in part due to poor writing but is equally the result of a general lack
of direction on the part of Sony which, outside of its partnership with Marvel
Studios for the Tom Holland Spider-Man series, doesn’t seem to
understand the characters over which it has stewardship. Madame Web is
another example of a comic book movie no one was clamoring for.

Two things come to mind immediately when considering this
production. The first is how disjointed and haphazard the storyline is,
frequently employing sleight-of-hand to resolve conflicts. It is evidently the
first chapter of a longer story since three of the four principals never develop
their super-powers (which are hinted at in flash-forward dream sequences) and
exist predominantly to fill “damsels in distress” roles. The second is how
juvenile the dialogue is. This is especially evident at the end with a
voiceover pronouncement that would have been at home in a Saturday morning
cartoon.

Like Argylle, Madame Web makes for a better
trailer than a full movie. That’s because the central premise – a superhero
whose power is the ability to see short distances into the future and thereby
alter the timeline (if she wishes) – is ripe with possibilities. None, however,
are effectively explored. Maybe that’s the trap of the origin story nature of
the narrative. It’s so busy introducing characters and establishing situations
that there’s no time to do anything more than dispatch a feeble villain in a
perfunctory fashion. One of the reasons why Madame Web doesn’t work is
because there’s rarely any tension. For an action film, even one falling into
the superhero subgenre, the dearth of excitement is a death sentence.

Although it’s refreshing to see studios continue to uncover
female action heroes worthy of screen exposure (this one follows The Marvels
in that regard), it’s disappointing to find how shabbily treated they are.
Perhaps Madame Web might have worked better had it narrowed its focus to
a single character – in this case, Cassandra Web (Dakota Johnson). The addition
of three teenagers in need of protection – Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney),
Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), and Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor) – muddies
the waters. This would-be series might have been better served by delaying
their inclusion until a potential sequel.

Speaking of elements that were not in the final cut of this
movie, it’s evident that some connective tissue with the Spider-Man movies
was sloppily edited out of Madame Web. The footprints have been left
behind – the character of Cassie’s best friend, Ben (Adam Scott), is
unquestionably a younger version of Spidey’s Uncle Ben and the baby born during
the course of the proceedings is Peter Parker. It seems likely that these
things were acknowledged in the script at some point but were elided from the
final cut. Those who watch the names scroll by at the end will learn the truth;
Adam Scott is credited as playing “Ben Parker.” (Mary Parker, Ben’s sister-in-law
and Peter’s mother, is also in the movie, played by Emma Roberts.)

Madame Web opens with a short prequel set during 1973
in the Amazon jungle. It introduces the mother of the film’s main character
(played by Kerry Bishe), a scientist studying rare spiders. After discovering
an amazing new species, she is attacked by her alleged bodyguard, Ezekiel Sims
(a dreadful Tahar Rahim), who steals the spider and leaves her for dead. She is
rescued by local tribesmen who are able to keep her alive long enough to give
birth to Cassandra.

Thirty years later, Cassie is a New York ambulance driver.
After being involved in a near-death experience, she begins having episodes in
which she can seemingly see into the future. After determining that she’s not
hallucinating, she begins to tinker with her abilities. Meanwhile, Ezekiel, now
possessing powers gained from the spider’s venom, is having recurring dreams of
his death at the hands of three women. He uses stolen AI to locate them and plots
their murders. When it comes time to execute his plan, however, his murderous intentions
are foiled by Cassie, who has a vision of him killing Julia, Anya, and Mattie,
and acts to save them.

Sadly, Madame Web fails to rise above its pedigree as
a lesser superhero movie. It does nothing to convince viewers that there’s
value to be found in a story not featuring a marquee comic book character.
There’s a growing sense that Sony is overreaching by plumbing the bargain bin of
the IP for which it owns the rights and trying to force-feed the public with
characters like Venom, Carnage, Morbius, and Madame Web. We’ll never know
whether a well-crafted, riveting Madame Web might have made this an
early-year box office gem because that’s not what director S.J. Clarkson has delivered.
Her vision – or at least the one Sony allowed to reach the screen – is a tired,
infantile exercise in exploring the worst tropes of origin stories.

Madame Web (United States, 2024)

Related Topics:Entertainment movie movie reviews

Click to comment

Movie Reviews

Jeremy Schuetze’s ‘ANACORETA’ (2022) – Movie Review – PopHorror

Published

11 hours ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

Jeremy Schuetze’s ‘ANACORETA’ (2022) – Movie Review – PopHorror

PopHorror had the chance to check out Anacoreta (2022) ahead of its streaming release! Does this meta-horror flick provide interesting story telling or is it a confusing mess.

Let’s have a look…

Synopsis

A group of friends heads to a secluded woodland cabin for a weekend getaway, planning to film an experimental horror movie. As the shoot progresses, the project begins to fall apart—until a real and terrifying presence emerges from the darkness.

Anacoreta is directed by Jeremy Schuetze. It was written by Jeremy Schuetze and Matt Visser. The film stars Antonia Thomas (Bagman 2024), Jesse Stanley (Raf 2019), Jeremy Schuetze (Jennifer’s Body 2009), and Matt Visser (A Lot Like Christmas 2021)

My Thoughts

Antonia Thomas delivered an outstanding performance as the female lead in Anacoreta. It was remarkable to watch her convey such a wide range of emotions with authenticity and depth. I was continually impressed by her ability to switch seamlessly between different dialects. I absolutely loved her delivery of the dialogue of telling The Scorpion and the Frog fable.

Anacoreta employs a distinctive, meta-horror style of storytelling. The narrative follows a group of friends creating a “scripted reality” horror film, and as the plot unfolds, the boundary between their staged production and their actual lives becomes increasingly blurred. This was interesting, but at the same time frustrating as a viewer.

Check out Anacoreta on Prime Video and let us know your thoughts!

Movie Reviews

‘Hoppers’ review: Pixar’s best original movie in years

Published

23 hours ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

‘Hoppers’ review: Pixar’s best original movie in years

“So it’s like Avatar?” one character quips in Disney and Pixar’s “Hoppers,” bluntly translating the film’s high-concept premise for the sugar-fueled kids in the audience. And yes, the comparison is apt. The story follows a nature-obsessed teenage girl who manages to quite literally “hop” her consciousness into the body of a robotic beaver in order to spark an animal rebellion against a greedy mayor determined to bulldoze their forest for a freeway.

It’s a clever hook. The kind of big, elastic idea Pixar used to make look effortless. “Hoppers” does not reach the rarified air of “Up,” “Wall-E,” or “Inside Out,” but after a stretch of uneven originals like “Turning Red” and “Luca,” and outright misfires such as “Elemental” and “Elio,” this feels like a genuine course correction. The environmental messaging is clear without being preachy, the animals are irresistibly anthropomorphized, and the studio’s once-signature emotional sincerity is back in sturdy form.

Pixar can afford to gamble on originals when it has a guaranteed cash cow like this summer’s “Toy Story 5” waiting in the wings, but “Hoppers” earns its place in the catalogue. Director Daniel Chong crafts a warm, heartfelt film that occasionally strains under the weight of its own ambition, yet remains grounded by character and theme. Its meditation on conservation and animal displacement feels timely in a way that never tips into after-school-special territory.

We meet Mabel, voiced with bright conviction by Piper Curda, as a child liberating her classroom pets and returning them to the wild. Her moral compass is shaped by her grandmother, voiced by Karen Huie, who imparts wisdom about nature’s sanctity. True to both Pixar tradition and the broader Disney playbook, this beacon of guidance does not survive past the opening act. Loss, after all, is Pixar’s favorite inciting incident.

Years later, Mabel is still fighting the good fight, squaring off against the smarmy Mayor Jerry, voiced with slick menace by Jon Hamm. He plans to flatten the glade where Mabel and her grandmother once found solace. Mabel’s resistance feels noble but futile. The animals have already mysteriously vanished, the machinery is coming, and her last-ditch plan involves luring a beaver back to the abandoned forest in hopes of jumpstarting the ecosystem.

That’s when the film gleefully pivots into mad-scientist territory. At Beaverton University, Mabel discovers her professor, voiced by Kathy Najimy, has developed a device that can project human consciousness into synthetic animals. The process, dubbed “hopping,” allows Mabel to inhabit a robotic beaver and infiltrate the forest from within. It’s an inspired escalation that keeps the film buoyant even when the plotting grows predictable.

Her new posse includes King George, a lovably beaver voiced by Bobby Moynihan with distinct Bing Bong energy; a sharp-tongued bear voiced by Melissa Villaseñor; a regal bird king voiced by the late Isiah Whitlock Jr.; and a fish queen voiced by Ego Nwodim. As is often the case with Pixar, even in its lesser efforts, the world-building is meticulous. The animal hierarchy, complete with titles like “paw of the king,” is layered with jokes that play for kids while slyly winking at adults.

The plot ultimately follows a familiar template. Scrappy underdog rallies community. Corporate villain twirls metaphorical mustache. Emotional third-act sacrifice looms. At times, you can feel the machinery working a little too cleanly. Pixar, and Disney at large, has grown increasingly reliant on sequels and established IP, and “Hoppers” does not radically reinvent the wheel. In an animated landscape where films like “K-Pop: Demon Hunters,” “Across the Spider-Verse,” and “Goat” are pushing stylistic and narrative boundaries, being safe and sturdy may not always be enough.

And yet, there is something refreshing about a Pixar original that remembers how to tug at the heart without squeezing it dry. “Hoppers” is playful, peppered with cheeky needle drops, and builds to a sweet emotional catharsis that may or may not have left this critic a little misty-eyed. It feels earnest and engaged.

“Hoppers” may not be top-tier Pixar. But it is a welcome return to form, a reminder that the studio still knows how to marry big ideas with a bigger heart.

HOPPERS opens in theaters Friday, March 6th.

Movie Reviews

‘Hoppers’ review: Who can argue with hilarious talking animals?

Published

1 day ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

‘Hoppers’ review: Who can argue with hilarious talking animals?

Just when you think Pixar’s petting-zoo cute new movie “Hoppers” is flagrantly ripping off James Cameron, the characters come clean.

movie review

HOPPERS

Running time: 105 minutes. Rated PG (action/peril, some scary images and mild language). In theaters March 6.

“You guys, this is like ‘Avatar’!,” squeals 19-year-old Mabel (Piper Curda), the studio’s rare college-age heroine.

Shoots back her nutty professor, Dr. Fairfax (Kathy Kajimy): “This is nothing like ‘Avatar!’”

Sorry, Doc, it definitely is. And that’s fine. Placing the smart sci-fi story atop an animated family film feels right for Pixar, which has long fused the technological, the fantastical and the natural into a warm signature blend. Also, come on, “Avatar” is “Dances With Wolves” via “E.T.”

What separates “Hoppers” from the pack of recent Pix flix, which have been wholesome as a church bake sale, is its comic irreverence.

Director Daniel Chong’s original movie is terribly funny, and often in an unfamiliar, warped way for the cerebral and mushy studio. For example, I’ve never witnessed so many speaking characters be killed off in a Pixar movie — and laughed heartily at their offings to boot.

What’s the parallel to Pandora? Mabel, a budding environmental activist, has stumbled on a secret laboratory where her kooky teachers can beam their minds into realistic robot animals in order to study them. They call the devices “hoppers.”

Bold and fiery Mabel — PETA, but palatable — sees an opportunity.

The mayor of Beaverton, Jerry (Jon Hamm), plans to destroy her beloved local pond that’s teeming with wildlife to build an expressway. And the only thing stopping the egomaniacal pol — a more upbeat version of President Business from “The Lego Movie” — is the water’s critters, who have all mysteriously disappeared.

So, Mabel avatars into beaver-bot, and sets off in search of the lost creatures to discover why they’ve left.

From there, the movie written by Jesse Andrews (“Luca”) toys with “Toy Story.” Here’s what mischief fuzzy mammals, birds, reptiles and insects get up to when humans aren’t snooping around. Dance aerobics, it turns out.

Per the usual, “Hoppers” goes deep inside their intricate society. The beasts have a formal political system of antagonistic “Game of Thrones”-like royal houses. The most menacing are the Insect Queen (Meryl Streep — I’d call her a chameleon, but she’s playing a bug), a staunch monarch butterfly and her conniving caterpillar kid (Dave Franco). They’re scheming for power.

Perfectly content with his station is Mabel’s new best furry friend King George (Bobby Moynihan), a gullible beaver who ascended to the throne unexpectedly. He happily enforces “pond rules,” such as, “When you gotta eat, eat.”

That means predators have free rein to nosh on prey, and everybody’s cool with it. Because of bone-dry deliveries, like exhausted office drones, the four-legged cast members are hilarious as they go about their Animal Planet activities.

No surprise — talking lizards, sharks, bears, geese and frogs are the real stars here. They far outshine Mabel, even when she dons beaver attire. Much like a 19-year-old in a job interview, she doesn’t leave much of an impression.

Yes, the teen has a heartfelt motivation: The embattled pond was her late grandma’s favorite place. Mabel promised her that she’d protect it.

But in personality she doesn’t rank as one of Pixar’s most engaging leads, perhaps because she’s past voting age. Mabel is nestled in a nebulous phase between teenage rebellion and adulthood that’s pretty blasé, even if a touch of tension comes from her hiding her Homo sapien identity from her new diminutive pals. When animated, kids make better adventurers, plain and simple.

“Hoppers” continues Pixar’s run of humble, charming originals (“Luca,” “Elio”) in between billion-dollar-grossing, idea-starved sequels (“Inside Out 2,” probably “Toy Story 5”). The Disney-owned studio’s days of irrepressible innovation and unmatched imagination are well behind it. No one’s awed by anything anymore. “Coco,” almost 10 years ago, was their last new property to wow on the scale of peak Pixar.

Look, the new movie is likable and has a brain, heart and ample laughs. That’s more than I can say for most family fare. “A Minecraft Movie” made me wanna hop right out of the theater.