★ (out of 5)
Do NOT go see this movie!
Madame Web is the biggest argument for why the Spider-Man rights need to revert from Sony back to Marvel. Not only is Sony making TERRIBLE movies featuring Spider-Man villains as anti-heroes and trying to pass them up as MCU entries, but they are also single-handedly ruining the legacy of these characters. Madame Web is no exception; perhaps Sony’s worst offense yet. It truly, horrendously sucks. It plays like a goddamn fan film. It is unbearable to watch. Not only is Madame Web set in 2003 but it may have set the entire superhero genre back that far as well. What are we even doing here? Unless this is a deliberate attempt to recapture the so-bad-it’s-kind-of-good (but not really) vibe of Elektra and Catwoman this is bewildering on literally every level. From the dizzying camera moves, the incoherent editing, the terrible ADR (the villain had some of the worst dialogue replacement I’ve ever seen in a big-budget movie), writing, horrendous dialogue, acting, visual effects….literally, everything. The only form of entertainment comes from laughing in disbelief at its dumbfounding awfulness. They couldn’t even include the viral line from the trailer to give the audience the satisfaction of bursting out in applause at whatever you perceive to be as ignorance or camp self-awareness. I thought we were past this, but maybe we never were to begin with. It just feels like a movie everyone gave up on — it’s an embarrassing mess and one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. Honestly, it is so bad, and so amateurish, that it shouldn’t have even been released.
Fuck Sony for tricking people into thinking this is a movie made by Marvel Studios. Fuck you for making me sit through an unbearable piece of garbage that should never have been released all so you can keep the rights to some Spider-Man characters. Sony can’t get away with releasing garbage like this anymore. Do not waste your money on Madame Web (or your cinema’s rewards, points for that matter).
The popcorn was good at least.
Sorry, a couple more unorganized notes (because this movie pissed me off);
A supremely boring, plodding, and ineffectual film that manages to waste all of its acting talent (including Sydney Sweeney and Isabela Merced) in a futile effort to tell some supposedly heartbreaking mother/daughter or parent(s)/daughter abandonment stories.
The ridiculous script is full of laughable lines, unearned story conveniences, ridiculous character decisions meant just to get you to the next plot point, characters popping up with no explanation and disappearing just as quickly, and wholly unearned moments of closure from emotional trauma that’s never really presented or explored in any meaningful way. There’s also a hint of cultural appropriation within the story which is a convo for another time. And those Spidey references were just painful.
There’s barely any action in it and when we do see it, it doesn’t last long and is so haphazard that it loses any of its power.
I sat there baffled scene by scene that someone actually approved this.
Film Info:
Comments