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.

The cinematography, CGI, and most of the acting in this amateur project aren't totally bad, but It's all over the place, and the pacing doesn't help at all. I mean, I sat through over an hour, and I still couldn't figure out where the heck it was heading. It wasted so much time on those pointless flashbacks and cheesy lines. Plus, there's barely any fight scenes, except for this quick two-minute bit where Spider-Man's just taking on some generic bad guys and Shocker. Just go rewatch any other Spider-Man movie; that'd be a better use of your time. I kept an open mind, even after hearing all the stuff about the people behind this, but I honestly ended up wasted my time. It's not a good Spider-Man movie or a good movie at all. Nothing really makes this one stand out; so why do I, or anyone for that matter, have to sit through two hours of just talking? Can't believe they used all that donation money for this garbage.

So many things to dislike about this movie so ill just state what is the worst aspect. This movie feels like it's told out of order, and the editing is extremely horrible . Scenes that should happen to set up character connections happen way too late in the movie for me to care about any characters. There is about 10mins collectively of spiderman in this movie, it's mostly a really bad melodrama about peter parker. Relies way to much on prior knowledge of the comics and movies. I genuinely can't find one silver lining about this movie, having a low budget is not an excuse for a terrible story.

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.

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.