Spider-Man: Lotus

I will not, in this review, be addressing the controversy surrounding the people behind this film and their recorded racism/sexism. Because even going in to this film without any potential bias against it, it still fails.

Spider-Man: Lotus is a movie. Many dismiss criticisms of it under the pretense that it is a small student project and not an actual movie, but I adamantly reject that notion. It has a budget of $25,000. It has a runtime of two hours (meaning it's not even the shortest Spider-Man film). With the status of being a feature length indie film with a respectable indie budget, there comes expectations; it is very much within reason to expect this movie to be well-directed, well-written, well-shot, and above all, economic in its production. Spider-Man: Lotus is none of these things.

This movie is unpleasant on the eyes; the directing is deeply uninspired, shots being comprised almost always of very drab imagery that do not grab one's attention. Similarly, the movie is also unpleasant on the ears and brain; the script only shows slight potential just once or twice, and the entire runtime is a plodding chore to get through with a motionless story that numbs the senses at its best infuriates at its worst.

When Spider-Man: Lotus was first announced, the filmmakers affirmed their fans that they were going to work within the confines of their budgetary limitations by shooting a drama first and foremost; the typical hallmarks of what makes a superhero movie would not be a priority. This is not what they did. There are still two superhero-y fight/action scenes in the movie; they are both distractingly terrible. These, along with a few other severely misguided creative decisions, chew through much of the budget that should've been used in other, smarter ways.

Spider-Man: Lotus is not a good film. At best, it is still very much subpar. It had all the tools and ingredients necessary to be an incredible version of itself, but it used them either incorrectly or not at all. To those that still feel this is all too much to expect of a film of this size, here are some other movies whose budgets were at or below that of Lotus:

El Mariachi (1992) with a budget of $7,000

Primer (2004) with a budget of $7,000

Paranormal Activity (2007) with a budget of $15,000

Resolution (2012) with a budget of $20,000

Creep (2014) with a budget of $0

One Cut of the Dead (2017) with a budget of $25,000.

Making movies is hard.

Virtually everyone knows that, and you don't even need any experience having worked on film sets to know that. Between the numerous problems that can plague you in preproduction, production to post, it's virtually impossible for a first-time director to completely stick the landing.

Spider-Man Lotus is no exception.

Even to ignore the controversy that (reasonably) has driven away thousands of potential viewers from this project, at a fundamental level Spider-Man Lotus sought to curate some of the most iconic Spider-Man scenes across media and combine them into a single cohesive narrative. And to do so with Instagram-model non-actors and only a handful of setpieces.

To have successfully strung the true emotional weight & setup for these scenes (in their original versions being built up to episodically -- and instead presented here to viewers non-familiar with the books with virtually no context) and to have done so along their tight budget would've been daunting for even the most experienced director. So while the ambition is admirable, it comes as no surprise to casual viewers that a shoestring fan film with a huge PR campaign was... precisely that.

Additionally, it just plain suffers from a number of should've-been-solved-in-film-school-type problems. While coverage & camera-work is proficient for someone the director's age, a college level screenwriting class might've solved some glaring issues.

The plot jumps around with a non-chronological order as scenes play intermittently with flashbacks. Every scene is paced far too slowly and the editing lingers far, far too long. (Even watching on 2x speed I imagine would still feel too long.) It's a kitsch recollection of moments that are deliberately stretched to fit to resemble moments from the bronze age comics and transplanting the 90's moodiness... and as mentioned, without a nerd-level understanding of Spider-Man, casual viewers (like my viewing party) are going to be completely, and totally, bored.

And no amount of music swelling over a cross-dissolving camera panning across (presumably the director's) Spider-man memorabilia-decorated bedroom can save it from being a forced, and far too drawn out, scene.

The end result is something that felt painful to have watched. My heart truly goes out to the director who made this, as I'm sure the controversy already sucked most the wind out of his sails and likely made his passion project hard to complete to begin with. But it also just sucks because what is so obviously a hyper-emotionally-charged passion project doesn't, and will likely never, reach the audiences the director sought to give this to. Both because of a (deservedly) self-imposed downfall and because the end product just plain isn't that technically nor narratively impressive.

In the end, as mentioned, it's just another Spidey fan film and will probably be the one to dominate Youtube for the decade, as Peter's Web did the decade prior and Dan Poole's Green Goblin's Last Stand (an ironically STILL better film despite being crudely made with home-sewn costumes and filmed on VHS) did for the '90s. (Last Stand ironically also still having a better and much more tonally faithful adaptation of a crucial scene featured here.)

Konop (the director) has proven himself technically proficient enough to have done what most aspiring directors his age typically haven't mastered - actually producing something -- and he need not worry for the greater path of his career as he will easily be able to nab most any directing/ film & video production job if he opts to continue working in the industry. The actors (or models) -- I can't really say as much given the low quality of the performances and the obvious controversy being more likely to more greatly effect the film's lead (provided they become the 'face' of any production they're tied to whereas a director with some controversy generally can still slip under the radar of public scrutiny and continue to find work).

All in all, Spider-Man Lotus amounted to mostly everything it promised to be: a fan production led by an amateur director who is serious about film, helmed by instagram actor-models, and retelling transplanted scenes from the comics. Does it work? Not really. But like its now emotionally-battered protagonist who limps about its prolonged runtime in sloggish confusion, it's trying, and maybe that's what counted.

I went into this film ignoring the controversy. I hadn't kept up with it, I simply watched the film to judge it as a film. And, as a film, it blows. This movie is nightmarishly boring, horrendously paced, abysmally written, with so few redeeming qualities that I'd argue that this film should've never been made in the first place.

Gavin is a lifelong spider-man fan, as am I, and that is part of why I am so appalled by the sheer lack of passion felt within this project. It feels like chewing on a Popeyes biscuit with no drink and then having sand as a chaser.

I enjoyed two scenes in the entire bloated two hour film. The scene where Flash and MJ talk, and the final swing. The scene where Flash and MJ talk worked for me because I think it captures Flash's character quite well. Even with that though, the writing is still more interested in telling rather than showing, and beats you over the head with its messages.

The only scene I can call 100% good is the final swing, which is genuinely great and I give all the props to the visual effects team.

Outside of those two positives, this film was utter drivel. For a film with such an arrogant inception, it utterly fails to provide a film even remotely as good as the MCU trilogy, it can't even manage to be better than most fan films I have watched. "The fan film to end all fan films." Was Gavin's goal, and it once again shows the arrogance behind this movie.

I came into this, hoping for a decent time, instead I came out of it profoundly unfeeling, and with a sour taste in my mouth.

Do not watch this film. There is nothing in it that makes it worthwhile.

This movie is is just plain boring while i like some things about it the acting is bad and I felt it could have been handle better, and not to mention that with the racism and supposed grooming allegations against the green goblin actor I feel like every day this movie gets worse and worse. Also Harrys drug addiction is probably one of the worst adaptations of it as its only shown when peter goes to the apartment looking for harry and when Mary jane finds harry at his fathers grave after he had been walking around then has a conversation with her that was stupid. Unfortunately this movie overall is just terrible.

Such a slog. Utterly dragged by flashbacks and drawn-out dialogue scenes. Very little actual Spider-Man.

It strays from a conventional story structure, much to this film's detriment, even if it's what the filmmakers were going for. All I can say is, learn the rules before you break them. Very little setup and payoff in this film, resulting in extreme boredom. The group I watched it with was not invested at all in the characters or the plot. Please, learn the fundamentals of writing before starting such an ambitious project.

Glad to see fans make content like this, but sad to see it executed so poorly.