Madame Web (2024)

Score: 3 / 5

Getting back on my soapbox: In a time when it's cool to hate new installments of long-running franchises, nuance has all but vanished from conversations about film. Especially when it comes to superhero movies in the consistently flooded market of the genre. So I tuned out the vociferous outcry against Sony's latest Spider-man-adjacent title and went to see it with no expectations other than what little I remember of the character from the comics. And while its rushed story, heavyhanded exposition, and frustratingly messy climax do hinder its impact, the film is surprisingly delightful in its mid-2000s aesthetics and noir-thriller approach to its feminist story. Too, and perhaps more importantly, it reimagines its protagonist in such a fresh way that multiple times during the film, I forgot it was a "superhero" movie.

Madame Web refers to Cassie Webb (short for Cassandra, referencing the cursed Trojan prophet), a paramedic in Queens in 2003, who after a near-death situation begins having precognitive visions. Many of them are violent, of course, and no one believes her, but this isn't just Happy Death Day in the Spiderverse; she is inexplicably mentally tied to three teenage girls who are being hunted and attacked by a menacing man in a black bodysuit. As Cassie tries to make sense of her visions and rescue the girls from Grand Central Terminal -- in a breakneck sequence of earned suspense and action -- we learn that their pursuer also has the ability to see the future, bestowed to him by a rare Peruvian spider along with strength and rapid healing. He foresaw that these young women would kill him, and is now out to kill them first.

We know from the introduction scene that Cassie's mother was in the Peruvian Amazon thirty years prior looking for just such special spiders. It's all much ado about precious little, but the screenwriters -- a whole committee, it seems -- seem determined to make their Sony Spiderverse into its own thing, and this movie kind of fits the bill for an origin story of sorts for the whole shebang. By its conclusion, it seems to have established not only the origin of spiders with superhuman toxins, but it has also established one of the older and more mysterious characters in Spider-man lore as a sort of Professor Xavier, complete with retinue of Spider-girls ready to take on crime in the city. Clunky and expository as most of their dialogue may be in the film, the screenplay is narratively doing a hell of a lot, actually.

The feature film debut of longtime television director S.J. Clarkson allows that screenplay to be what it is, focusing her efforts on eliciting dedicated, grounded performances from her cast. Dakota Johnson plays Cassie with a frustrated world-weariness that authentically captures the angsty urban young adult in the mid-aughts. It's telling that Clarkson worked on Jessica Jones, because Johnson here comfortably handles the deadpan, wry humor that defined that character. The teens (Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O'Connor) are a fun and funny trio of energy, while their antagonist (Tahar Rahim) is legitimately scary in his handsome, brooding menace. More importantly, Clarkson and her editor use the frantic, stylized techniques of the period to frame the action and especially the scenes of precognition, making the whole experience feel like a blast from twenty years ago. More than once I wondered if Sam Raimi was part of this team, because it's got his energy all over it. And for a film that knows exactly what it is, what it wants to do, and why it's doing it, this is pretty solid stuff. I will champion any superhero film these days that doesn't overuse CGI to make a spectacle of world-ending, apocalyptic climaxes. This movie keeps things simple and straightforward and grounded, breezy and pleasant as it stays focused on itself. It's just out of time with the current state of the art, which is probably why so many people are writing it off.

Napoleon (2023)

Score: 4 / 5

Thank heaven Ridley Scott is still making movies. His style may not always land for everyone, and his subject matter certainly doesn't, but I've liked every title I've seen of his directorial filmography. With this ambitious biopic and historical war thriller combination, however, I think the vastness that is Napoleon might be slightly beyond Scott's grasp. At least as a lesson in history. The film, while endlessly engaging and fabulous in spectacle, tries to do far too much in its two-and-a-half-hours, and rumor has it that a four-plus-hour director's cut is in the works already. I certainly hope it is.

Scott is here doing what he does best -- or, at least, most famously -- in fictionally dramatizing real historical events mobilized by massive wars. He's also creating a project few filmmakers have dared attempt, though the most immediate comparison point I can conceive might be Oliver Stone's storied (and in my opinion, utterly brilliant) biopic of Alexander the Great. His focus, of course, is here Napoleon Bonaparte, who Scott tries to epitomize from the French Revolution in 1973 (as he apparently watches the beheading of Marie Antoinette) right through his defeat in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. That's a massive amount of time -- and accomplishments -- to fit into any film, but it does flow rather nicely for what amounts to a bullet-pointed summary.

I confess not knowing a lot about the Napoleonic Wars, but I followed this film generally well, though my notes include several questions for light research. While I knew Egypt was part of his empire, I didn't know about the Battle of the Pyramids; while I knew his invasion of Russia is usually considered a failure, I didn't know that Moscow had been abandoned and burned in 1812. A better screenplay would have found ways of providing more context and information in addition to the "dramatic bits" that seem to dominate the dialogue. And really, that's my only complaint with this film in general: David Scarpa's screenplay just doesn't get deeper than a surface-level survey of Napoleon's wars, shallowly avoiding insight or even much explanation while tying together massive set pieces and Big Ideas. Stringing us from battle to battle, the screenplay only dramatizes Napoleon to the extent that he starts as a terrified soldier and ends as a tragically confident emperor, with only an enigmatic and erotic marital arrangement to flavor his life between wars.

The deeper parts of the screenplay -- and yes, they do exist -- are the more melodramatic and private. Scott's film is wielding a dual purpose: one, to chronicle Napoleon's imperial ambitions, and two, to dramatize the obsessive and contentious romantic relationship he shared with Josephine, an aristocratic widow who takes notice of him after his heroic victory in the Siege of Toulon (which is one of the film's best and most graphic battle scenes, and be warned if you dislike the idea of seeing a horse's torso explode from cannonball impact). Their meeting in 1795 starts a lifetime of passionate lovemaking, grueling political intrigue, and letter-writing that apparently served as inspiration for the entire project. Joaquin Phoenix is never less than arresting as Napoleon (though not always believable with his lack of discernible accent and his age, which doesn't always match the age of the character), but it is Vanessa Kirby whose performance deserves more attention. Kirby has the thankless job of playing a mysterious character mostly lost to history, whose sole purpose in the film -- and, arguably, in life -- is to be a mirror of sorts to the emperor, policing his ego, stroking his ambition, and of course providing sustenance for his desires. Josephine's inability to provide Napoleon with an air becomes the central problem in their relationship, but beyond that familiar plotline is a wealth of weighty power dynamics and sensual challenges between them.

Frankly, I'd have liked this film to either be a miniseries (which, with a potential four-plus-hour cut, I guess it essentially will be) or two separate films, one focusing on Napoleon's wars and public persona and one on his private struggles with family and politics. Both are deserving of more screen time and more dramatic and thematic depth. What is it about Josephine that makes Napoleon all but go mad for her? What is it about him that she apparently loves so much? We're never really given insight into their relationship; the actors are both masters of creating backstory and internal conflict with little more than a silent look, but the screenplay could and should help its audience a bit more. Especially since the film suggests to a lesser extent that it's in pursuit of Josephine that Napoleon finds his motivation for warmongering and empire-building. Neither the director nor writer seem interested in making broad statements about Napoleon as a man, tyrant, or anything else; there's nary a moment of insecurity about his height or attempts to compensate (as pop culture would otherwise imply), about colonialism, madness (I mean, not even a hint of insight into the Napoleon Complex, if you please), or anything that makes Napoleon out to be more than a figurehead, fated to rise and fall in preordained beats of life or a cinematic reel.

So, while it's frustrating to not know much more about Napoleon after viewing the film than before, it's also clear that Scott and his team aren't interested in a history lesson or character discussion. Those are movies that could (and should) be made. This is a period war movie, one that takes its apparent purpose as something akin to war epics of decades gone by. It uses relentlessly impressive battle scenes on enormous scale to cow us into awe, alternating these massive sequences with private bedchamber scenes to underscore Napoleon's "home" life and how it interplays with the man we know from history. With the graphic battle scenes, and the film's closing text discussing the estimated three million deaths during the Napoleonic Wars, I wish the film had leaned into an understanding of him as a warmonger, yes, but also a deathmonger; he seems most lively on screen only when battle rages around him and the threat of death is imminent. This would have been a fascinating lens to view the film through, especially given the contrasting desperation for new life Napoleon craves in begetting a son. It's telling that, once his son is born, he completely disappears from the film and is not mentioned even in the closing text.

The Mauritanian (2021)

 Score: 3.5 / 5

In 2001 only two months after 9/11, Mohamedou Ould Salahi was arrested at his home in Mauritania. After the authorities, desperate for justice, traded him around a bit, he found himself a prisoner at the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Although he was never formally charged with a crime, and only circumstantial evidence even marginally related him to one of the hijackers, Salahi was held there for fourteen years, tortured for information he did not know. It's an horrific story, one that lends itself well to a cinematic medium, especially carried by such a stellar group of actors. It's also a distinctly manipulative screenplay by writers M.B. Traven, Rory Haines, and Sohrab Noshirvani, more or less the kind of "dear reader" pathos structured into an equally manipulative courtroom drama. Told in this way, the film must be inevitably compared to other, less timely, dramas, and found wanting as a result.

That's not to say the story isn't as interesting as the previous times we've heard it, on the news and never more than when Salahi's whistleblowing account of his time at Guantanamo Bay was published, heavily redacted by the government. After an initial sequence of Salahi's arrest, the film jumps to 2005, when a concerned lawyer named Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster) decides to defend Salahi and either get him charged or released. As she goes through the process of entering the detention camp, I couldn't help but feel that the film was hinting at the similar introductory sequence to her character in The Silence of the Lambs; she enters a warren of nightmarish holding cells, most of the base obscured by hanging tarps and stone walls, stripped of potential weapons, and advised to wear a head scarf. She's primed to fear and dehumanize the man she's promised to help, and through Foster's eyes you can see the unspoken battle of wills in her mind.

Joining her is Teri (Shailene Woodley), an associate who has never seen anything like this. During the course of their research, and visits to Salahi (played by a brilliant Tahar Rahim), the two women constantly fight red tape, analyze redacted documents, and slowly but surely seek to rectify the wrongs done not just to their client but to all the inmates. In this way, the film often feels a little out of time; the now publicly known problem that was Guantanamo Bay -- essentially a brutish and brutal prison of torture and total lack of oversight -- is the villain here, but its human rights violations have been the subject of scrutiny for years. One can only guess that the filmmakers, whose project was greenlit in late 2019, felt inspired after the 45th president signed an executive order to keep the prison open indefinitely. Now, however, President Biden's administration has publicly planned to close the prison. Hopefully this movie will add to the support for that plan.

Perhaps the most interesting character arc in the film comes from Benedict Cumberbatch as the Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Couch, representing the U.S. government even as he becomes disillusioned and disturbed by the information coming out about Guantanamo Bay. His is the proverbial fall from grace, and his oaths are put to the test as the government's crimes are finally spoken in courts of law. But, interesting as he is and effective as Cumberbatch makes him, he feels a little too thinly written; actually, I'd say all the characters in this movie -- specific as they are, nominally -- are little more than archetypes. Bouncing off each other in familiar ways, the stakes are never particularly high. Even if you don't remember this story blaring from the morning news years ago, you instinctively know how this story will progress, regress, turn, and end. While that's not a negative quality in any film, much less one that recounts real events, it does make The Mauritanian surprisingly dull viewing.

But, bland and trite as it feels in retrospect, there is a lot to appreciate in this film. Not only is its earnest attempt to vindicate Salahi's name and life a more than worthy cause -- and, I think, largely succeeds, emotional manipulations aside -- but it features really wonderful performances and a few interesting aesthetic choices as well. Lengthy flashback sequences, especially near the film's end, depict Salahi's many years of torment in the prison. These are largely presented in boxy 4:3 aspect ratio, isolating the frame and cueing us to see Salahi as trapped and under a microscope. It's arguably unnecessary, as the climactic sequence is a lengthy and particularly violent series of horrors much like we saw in Jonathan Demme's The Manchurian Candidate; and its placement as the climax feels extremely exploitative and sentimental at the same time. But the layers of mindful, if heavy-handed, direction makes the film immediately accessible to average viewers who may have no idea what they're in for.