Madame Web is the newest Sony Spider-Man Universe movie (though they only have the rights to Spider-Man adjacent characters, not Spider-Man himself). The film stars Dakota Johnson in the titular role and co-stars Sydney Sweeney and others. Incompetently directed by S.J. Clarkson, the film runs for (a seemingly interminable) hour and 45 minutes. Before diving into the movie’s many flaws, here’s a plot rundown: Cassie, Madame Web, can see the future and must protect three teens from an evil spider man-esque. That’s the basic setup- now for the flaws.
This movie has so many fundamental flaws that it fails at being a movie. Scenes are filmed with such a sub-par understanding of basic directing that the experience is more spatially disjointing and confusing than a strobe room. To make things worse, everybody is constantly talking in a bored teenage girl voice- even those who aren’t teenage girls. There’s a line where Sydney Sweeney’s character says, “What’s going on?,” a line meant to be delivered with concern. Instead, it is delivered with absolutely no inflection or emotion. For another example, Madame Web, at one point, asks the crew, “What is your name?” Why they didn’t retake that scene and have her say “names” is beyond me, but it truly shows how little effort and care was put into the production. As if that wasn’t enough, EVERY line spoken by the antagonist is out of sync with his mouth. As far as writing goes, the dynamic duo of writers who regurgitated Madame Web (also the writers of the cinematic masterpiece Morbius) fail at writing dialogue, of which not a single word said in the entire film resembles even remotely a sentence that an actual person would ever say to another human being. This atrocious dialogue is spoken by characters with absolutely zero semblance of arcs, making them incredibly annoying and painfully uninteresting.
That covers the fundamental flaws, and then the plot holes are too many to list. Characters will inexplicably movie from location to location, technology not available in 2003, when the movie is set, is consistently used and Madame Web’s powers are inconsistently utilized. There’s a scene when the main characters are staying at a safe house. However, one of their harborers, Mary Parker (yes, that one), is giving birth (the implication is that she’s giving birth to Peter Parker– However, his name is never explicitly stated because Sony doesn’t have the rights to the character). She must be taken to the hospital. The logical conclusion would be that her brother, Ben Parker, would take her to the hospital while the main characters remain in the safe house. However, they decide to tag along and are almost killed by Ezekiel. Why did they do this? The answer is simple because the writers needed the plot to happen.
The film fails in every single aspect of filmmaking. Everything was executed terribly by editing, acting, directing, effects, and even music. All of this results in an utterly hilarious film. This movie wasn’t trying to be bad like the Sharknado films, it was just un-ironically terrible. However, it was also unironically the funniest movie I’ve seen this year. It is so inexplicably terrible yet so unbelievably funny that I have difficulty rating it. It should have a 1/10, but in Mr. Richards’ spirit, I give it a 2/10 for funny points. Terrible and hilarious; check it out. However, I recommend watching it with friends regarding home release so you can make fun of it while watching.
Final Rating: 2/10
