Tag: Mike Epps

Cinema Dispatch: Madame Web

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Madame Web and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing

Directed by SJ Clarkson

Sony’s attempts at building their own Marvel mini-verse out of the Spider-Man license have yielded mixed results, to say the least. I, for one, appreciated the two Venom films for their shameless swagger and playful take on the material, but Morbius was an absolute bore and I never thought Kraven was a good idea unless they got Sharlto Copley to play the part. Now we have this slice of the expanded Spider-Man canon that Spider-Verse hasn’t laid a claim to, but hey; at least this one has actual Spider-People in it which you’d think would be a bare minimum requirement to making a Spider-Man connected movie. Is this the film to finally get the Sony-Verse on track and competing with Marvel, or are those dreams as lofty as Warner Bros bringing back the Snyder-Verse? Let’s find out!!

Cassie Web (Dakota Johnson) is living a normal, unassuming thirty-year-old life in the early 2000s as she drives an ambulance with her best friend Ben Parker (Adam Scott) and… well, that’s about it. She does have a mysterious past as her mother died in Peru while researching spiders, but hey, what Gen Xer doesn’t have some weird stuff going on with their parents? Cassie just wants to get through life one day at a time without making any strong connections or getting wrapped up in other people’s problems, but fate has other things in store for her as a near-death experience starts to awaken future-seeing powers that are a real drag when you’re just trying to get through your shift. With great power comes great responsibility, however, as she sees three young women (Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O’Connor) getting attacked on a train by what appears to be an Evil-Spider-Man (Tahar Rahim), though since this takes place before Spider-Man, I guess that would make Spider-Man the good version of whoever this is, and manages to save them while putting a target on her own back for the Spider-Jerk. Why are these three girls so special that they incur the wrath of the Wicked Web-Head, and what role does Cassie have to play in this clash of destiny? Does the Not-So-Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man hold the secrets to Cassie’s past that she’s been desperately searching for?  If Spider-Man doesn’t exist yet, does a guy walking on walls and wearing a spandex bodysuit even read as a spider?

“Why are we being chased by a sticky man!?”     “What even is his gimmick? Mr. Adhesive?”     “How about The Human Lint Roller?”     “How about we run, instead!?”
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Cinema Dispatch: Uncle Drew

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Uncle Drew and all the images you see in this review are owned by Lionsgate

Directed by Charles Stone III

Has anyone been looking forward to this movie?  I’m not the only one who thought this was going to be a very mediocre cash grab from that awful trailer with the bobble heads and the Sugarhill Gang song, right?  Then again, I’m one of those darn Millennials who thinks that Space Jam is the height of basketball comedies, so maybe the lack of Warner Bros characters was throwing me off here but I still got a real bad feeling from this as it checks off a lot of bad comedy tropes.  Old age makeup, retro soundtrack, goofy sports premise (“There’s no rule that says a dog can’t play basketball!”), all the favorites from movies that you may have liked as a kid but really doesn’t hold up now… except for Space Jam.  Will this be a nostalgic throwback to the era of silly sports movies, or will this be more painful than if Tyler Perry did a Madea basketball movie?  Well I’m pretty sure NOTHING would be worse than seeing Tyler Perry’s A Medea March Madness, but let’s find out!!

Down on his luck Dax (Lil Rel Howery) has been training his whole life to be a basketball player but decided to go into coaching after… the incident, and has a team that might just win a basketball tournament in Harlem known as the Rucker Classic and win a boat load of money which he’ll use to… I don’t know; pay his rent I guess.  It all depends on his star player Casper (Aaron Gordon) who is PHENOMENAL on the court but kind of a douche in real life, and he’s been making eyes at fellow douche Mookie (Nick Kroll) who’s Dax’s big rival (especially after… the incident) and coached the last five teams to win the Rucker Classic.  Sure enough, after draining Dax of all his money, Casper goes to join Mookie and the rest of the team just kind of goes away as well.  Not only that but his girlfriend Jess (Tiffany Haddish) kicks him out of the house because she was banking on that prize money and has no use for the shmuck now that he doesn’t have a chance to win it.  Left with absolutely nothing but the clothes on his back and a spot in the tournament, Dax starts scouring the area for unaffiliated ball players but has no luck and is about to give up when he sees an old man school one of the young dudes in basketball; showing him the value of fundamentals over being able to show off.  The old man turns out to be Uncle Drew (Kyrie Irving) who was a legendary basketball player in Harlem that disappeared forty years ago under dubious circumstances, and he might just be the man Dax needs to avoid living on a park bench!  Uncle Drew agrees to play for him, but only if they find the rest of his old team (Shaquille O’Neal, Chris Webber, Reggie Miller, and Nate Robinson) to play as well.  And so they’re off on a road trip to find Uncle Drew’s old friends, mend some bridges, learn some lessons, and play basketball against dudes a quarter their age!  Will Uncle Drew be able to show these youngsters what it means to be a TRUE player of the game while also making up for the mistakes he made all those years ago?  What chances do these older gentlemen have against Mookie’s team, and will Dax be able to get past… the incident?  Did you know there’s a new Shaq Fu game?  I wonder if this is some sort of crossover…

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Heck, you can make a convincing argument that this is a sequel to that Super Globetrotters cartoon!

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