Critic Reviews

This affectionate hoot hardly breaks new ground with its film-within-a-film structure, but the South Korean auteur attacks the material with such good cheer, populating the story with a collection of daffy dreamers, that it’s easy to root for these characters as they reshoot the ending of a picture some of them are convinced is this close to being a masterpiece.

Kim Jee-woon’s film is smart and full of laughs but comes up against profound issues created by its gaming of reality.

It's far from perfect, but the production design of the film and the strong backbone of actors make Cobweb an entertaining film, though not a must-see.

Whereas I Saw the Devil was relentlessly violent and mean-spirited, Cobweb has a softer heart, and fixates on sloppier ensemble staging and to-the-hilt acting performances to the detriment of Kim’s considerable skills with the camera, and his ability to manipulate audience attention in a quasi-Hitchcockian manner.

Cobweb, directed by Kim Jee-woon, mines the comically absurd reality that is filmmaking, at times with bouncy cinematic verve, at others somewhat aimlessly and a little too indulgently.

There’s a slack nature to the film that almost feels like it has to be an intentional experiment from a filmmaker who has been so precise and intricate with his work in the past. It’s as if Kim is testing himself to see if he could make a self-indulgent, unsubstantial lark of a comedy. He can. Sorta. Now let’s get back to the good stuff.

A film containing another film; a filmmaker referring to the trials of a filmmaker: it’s a movie of many layers, all of them garish and goofy, none of them great.