Madame Web

I went in with very low expectations and I felt like I got better than I was expecting and had a nice time watching the film. Despite having a budget of 80 million dollars, the movie feels low budget. Was not to the level of a modern marvel film but more like a marvel tv show.

The characters were not as well established or as likable as they could of been. It was cluttered and cliche and suffers form a lack of originality. The cast deserved better, wasted talents of Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney. The villain was generic and uninspiring. Constantly complaining about "everything he as built' being destroyed, while not showing anything that he has built.

Im not fully up on the real origin story but after looking into it more it seems Sony fully molested the comic book version for their own that barely resembles anything of the original. I see why that would make many purist upset. That would help explain a current rating of 3.7, which is crazy considering all the far worse films with higher ratings. I was entertained watching this film but that is with the caveat that this was not a good or very well made movie. The film fell flat on the execution of creating a compelling narrative.

The pepsi product placement rivaled the pepsi placement in the "I will not bow to any sponsor" scene in Wayne's World. "Its like people only do things because they get paid, and its really sad" -Garth.

... 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.

Based on Madame Web's woeful reviews I was expecting this film to be an utter car crash. To its credit I will say it isn't entirely without merit, but it is incredibly boring and bland.

Mostly this is because nothing particularly happens. It's a superhero movie with little to no superhero action and a painfully long set up for an underwhelming final act. The characters are so underdeveloped that there is no emotional connection or investment in any of them. Everything about the story and writing just feels lazy, vacuous and corny.

Then there's the villain who is utterly uninspiring. He is constantly complaining about 'everything he has built' being destroyed. What has he built you might ask? The film has no interest in exploring this question. He's easily one of the more two dimensional and weak superhero villains I've ever seen committed to screen.

Perhaps the most heinous crime this movie commits is to waste the talents of Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Adam Scott, Emma Roberts, Zosia Mamet and more. Such a good cast was assembled and they were given absolutely nothing to work with, so I don't blame the performers. It's just such a shame to see such great talent put to the sword like this.

As if all of this wasn't enough, the movie also feels remarkably low budget and feels excruciatingly long despite its relatively short runtime.

Ultimately I think this film suffered because it was clearly intended as a set up for a wider Spider-Woman franchise which is unlikely to come to fruition. There seemed to be no interest in making a good stand alone movie, and no respect for the audience. A massive waste of time.

Literally one of the worst superhero movies I have ever seen.

From the advertisements, I knew this movie wasn't going to be great but still, it surprised me how bad and boring it was. Everything about the direction, writing, characters, technical aspects, and designs are really awful. The writing is poor as there are many concepts, ideas and aspects that are messy and bland. The messy script creates poor dialogue from the cast and the characters are not interesting. The special effects looked even worse than the marketing and all of the performances were pretty bad. I honestly do feel bad for Dakota Johnson cause she is a good actress but she deserves to have better roles then this. It can be said for the same for the rest of the cast members.

The uses of product placements are annoying, action moments are dull, and and all in all, it was boring. Superhero movies shouldn't be boring but this really dragged on. It's unfortunate cause female superhero leads are something I love to see more like Wonder Woman and The Old Guard which are pretty fun. But unfortunately, it seemed that it likely isn't going to happen anytime soon.

There really isn't anything else to say.

Bad.

It's astonishing to think that Sony could put out a worse product than 2022's Morbius, but boy, "Madame Web" manages it. It is an embarrassing mess. Talented stars wasted on probably one of the worst comic book movie ever (which nobody asked for). Filled with atrocious dialogue, awkward editing and laughable structure. It's a clunky, poorly-written, messy, and sloppy movie packed with some mediocre editing and performances.

The concept is interesting on paper, but it couldn't be saved due to it's terrible execution. "Madame Web" simply lacked the spark it needed in nearly every dept.

There is simply nothing memorable in this movie, except maybe some superhero costumes, but that doesn't redeem the fact that the movie is bad.

So yeah..."Madame Web" is yet another disappointing entry in the Sony's Spider-Less universe. It's like a love letter to an era of superhero films that people largely want to forget. The "Pepsi" adds are stand-out, it falls short of what could have been a decent movie in the hands of someone else twenty years ago.