February 14, 2024
Well. It was better than Venom 2. It’s wasn’t an altogether bad movie, it wasn’t amazing, but I’ve seen worse movies.
There are numerous Marvel related problems (which I will vaguely mention later) all over the place, but honestly the most distracting thing was that characters just made decisions that didn’t make much sense some of the time. One that has nothing to do with plot is a camp fire was left as characters were leaving and they didn’t make sure it was out. I would think a director would think about something so simple. But again, they are small thing that just irked me.
The cast did a good job I thought. I would have enjoyed seeing them in a Marvel Studios produced version of this since it would have been more well put together. Though I can say that about all of Sony’s Marvel movies since Venom. They all kind of feel like they could all be movies on their own without any of the Marvel characters there.
Oh, and this movie was set in 2003, for no discernible, reason. And it also felt like a superhero movie that was made in 2003.
I don’t tend to notice a lot of cinematographic things while watching movies unless they really stand out, but there was some quite shaky camerawork in some scenes that I was surprised by. Like I could feel the camera moving as it rotated. Maybe that was just a quality problem with the film file or something, I’m not sure.
The plot was essentially what it was advertised as in the trailer. it just seemed like similar circumstances continue throughout the movie to put characters in danger and then it all eventually ends. Just a bit repetitive. The characterization of the girls was a bit weak, we got introduced to them and then had maybe one or two scenes learning a tiny bit about them and that’s all. And I know that this is Cassandra’s movie, but a little more character development for the girls would have been nice.
The villain. In the comics, he’s really not that important a character, and one could argue that he’s really not here. He doesn’t even have powers in the comics. But after the initial scenes with him, the movie doesn’t really give us character development of him either other than his mission throughout the movie. But we didn’t learn anything else about him at all. The actor did a good job, but the writing was just barely serviceable for his character.
I think they did an ok job with the time-powers ish, but I don’t know, something felt off about the editing. Also, I think the sound-design was a bit too loud in many scenes.
Now for the Marvel related issues. The fact that this takes place in 2003, is just odd. I don’t know why that choice was made, and all three girls being around before Spider-Man exists is just weird. Cassandra being around beforehand, sure, but the others being around is just messy. And just, wow, the origin of the powers is just totally made up. in the comics, Cassandra is a mutant. Of course they couldn’t do that origin here, but this seems to be Sony’s main problem, they keeps picking characters whose origins tie into heavy Marvel lore but Sony doesn’t have access to many of these things. For example, Venom without Spider-Man, one of the only Spidey villains whose origin directly is connected to Peter and Spidey in the comics, and Sony makes it without that aspect. I’m guessing that what they actually did was based in some actual mythology, but it just was a bit cheap. There were some other aspects that I won’t mention since they’d be more spoilery, but after watching the movie and then reading this or the other way around, you’ll probably get what I mean.
In general, it wasn’t horrible, it just was a bit chaotic. I still like this movie over Venom 2. Maybe it’s tied with Morbius. It was still fun at times, but things moved so fast that there wasn’t a lot of time to sit with characters. I would probably wait to watch this at home. But this technically should eventually connect to the other SSU movies and shows, so we’ll see what happens with these characters. Like I said, I liked the acting from everyone.
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Mid-credit scene: No
End-credit scene: No
The Phandom Bender 