Madame Web

I understand what the plan was here. They wanted a trippy film, focusing on a strong future for the Sony verse. The problem is the delivery. The camera work in this movie made it quite irritating to follow, as there was constant quick close up shots of the action. The dialogue was awful, and there was quite a lot of blatant voice over during the villain scenes.

So much wasted time was given to boring scenes in the movie, which led me to believe the screen writers finished the script and realised that it was under the word count.

Honestly the acting quality was quite poor across the board, especially the villain, who honestly seems as if they didn't cast for his role at all, just picked up someone off the side of the road.

For someone who's guilty pleasure is watching bad movies, I it was a painful time. Don't recommend.

Madame Web is the fourth film in Sony's Spider-Man Universe and depicts the origin story of Cassie Webb. The beginning felt awkward, with uninspiring performances from Kerry Bishé as Constance Webb (Cassie Webb's mother) and Tahar Rahim as Ezekiel Sims. The scenes were underwhelming and failed to engage the audience. The narrative then shifts to Cassie Webb's life, 30 years after her birth.

The story revolves around Cassie Webb attempting to save three young women from Ezekiel Sims, who is determined to kill them before they become Spider-Women in the future and ultimately end his life.

The writing could have been significantly better, and the poor editing was a major drawback. The transitions between scenes were jarring and disrupted the flow of the film. Dakota Johnson's performance was decent, and she looked stunning as always. However, Tahar Rahim's lackluster acting and poor dubbing severely impacted the movie's overall quality. Adam Scott and Emma Roberts were underutilized in minimal roles, while Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O'Connor were visually appealing but lacked strong performances.

S. J. Clarkson's direction was mediocre, although a few scenes, such as the chase sequences and train station moments, were executed well.

The background score and VFX were commendable, but overall, the movie failed to deliver a satisfying experience.

Final Rating: 4/10.

I don't understand what the big problem is. Yes, the movie may not be the best superhero movie, but the low ratings aren't justified either. Overall, the story is sometimes told in a rushed manner and the script doesn't deserve an Oscar, but overall the movie was entertaining. To be honest, I was expecting the worst and I was biased because of the negative ratings. After watching the movie, I couldn't understand all the hate for the movie at all. I'm already reasonably discerning when it comes to movies, but guys, let's be honest, this isn't an art house movie, this is popcorn cinema. The movie is supposed to entertain and it did. Even if it was a bit bumpy in places. Overall, I can recommend the movie to people who just want to be entertained. Not more and not less.

... when I saw Dakota Johnson was starring in it. Naturally I can't lay the entirety of this hot mess at her feet. But there is some really bad campy acting happening on her part, reminiscent of the Fifty Shades of Grey movies in which she starred. Perhaps it was because the director was more interested in the placement of Pepsi cans than her performance, but I digress.

Basically, this movie plays out like the cut scenes from a budget Xbox 360 game. From the ground up this thing just feels designed to fail. It feels almost Producersesque in its approach in just how every aspect is seemingly intentionally mangled, yet no one seems to care. How have we come so full circle to go through the glory of Infinity War/Logan/The Dark Knight to arrive all the way back to Batman and Robin and Catwoman levels of superhero flicks? (Bam!, Pow!, Gosh yes Batman!)

How did this movie make it so far that it has an actual release, and no one stopped it? How did this idea get green lit? Why did Sony give 80 million and turn over their valuable IP to the people that wrote Morbius, Gods of Egypt, Dracula Untold and The Last Witch Hunter? How did this get past the writing process and again have that script greenlit? How could no one on the set at any point stop things? How did no one in the editing room point out how bad it looked and how much of a mess it was?

But to the suits it's not about art and story. Instead it's about business, and people are just a commodity. It's cheaper to recycle known quantities, and practice nepotism and involve maybe less than talented friends, people you've worked with before, than go out and find artists with worthy stories. They don't care about art, they don't care about stories, they care about making this work for them financially, regardless of loss of reputation with audiences as a whole.

Youtuber Chris Stuckmann did a deep dive on the topic of big studios being generally run by folks who came up through management rather than the creative rungs such as writing and directing when he discussed this film. His take is worth watching. For some reason, Chris doesn't do critical movie reviews since he has become a filmmaker, but I can tell by his tone that, like me, he was completely displeased watching this one. I'd avoid it.

Look at the profiles for the writers that wrote Madame Web. You'll see virtually every movie they've written has a bad rating and bad reviews. Why then does Hollywood continually hire these same writers for these big budget films? I could understand if they wrote movies for Asylum Films because all their movies are terrible.

Madame Web is god awful! Very difficult to sit through. None of the main characters are likeable. Even the villain is lame. It seems like the entire movie was written to set up a sequel. But why would people spend money to see the sequel of a movie that is one of the worst movies ever written? I'm shocked at how bad this movie is and if there is a sequel I certainly wont bother watching it.

Stop hiring bad writers, Hollywood!