Madame Web - Movie Review

The Movie: Madame Web

The Director: S. J. Clarkson

The Cast: Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O'Connor, Tahar Rahim, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, Adam Scott

The Story: Cassandra Webb is a New York metropolis paramedic who begins to demonstrate signs of clairvoyance. Forced to challenge revelations about her past, she needs to safeguard three young women from a deadly adversary who wants them destroyed.

The Rating: 1 / 10

The Review:

Sony, we've had this talk before with the horrid Amazing Spider-Man movies and this really needs to stop. I will say the Venom movie you made was okay but the sequel was trash, and then just when I didn't think it could get any worse, out came Morbius. The one thing you've shown with any sort of consistency since you chased off Sam Raimi and Tobey McGuire with all your meddling is that you have no idea how to make a comic book movie so please just end it now. Madame Web should really be the final nail in the coffin yet I feel like you're going to just keep spinning these things out not matter how bad they are and no matter how much money they don't make.

Yes, I know the animated Spider-verse movies are also made by Sony but the studio executives get zero credit for how creatively brilliant those films are. I'm pretty sure they were completely unaware what was happening over in the animation department when those movies were being developed. Kind of like how I'm sure the execs at Warner Brothers had no idea that their Barbie I.P. was going to turn into a cultural movement, all they see is spreadsheets and dollar signs.

Okay, first off. How does Dakota Johnson keep getting hired? The way she manages to remove any and all emotion from every character she plays is actually an incredible skill unmatched in the industry, at least at the level she's been able to stay at. She doesn't give anyone any reason to be even slightly interested in who Cassandra Webb is or why we should care about her story. Does anyone care about her story? This is a Spider-verse movie, so where's Spider-Man. Thanks to the MCU, you had at least three to choose from!

Also, I'm finding it very hard to believe that Tahar Rahim is the same actor that was so good in 2021's The Mauritanian, a decent movie that was elevated by his performance alone. In this movie, any time he spoke, I cringed a little bit, I think partly because of the terrible accent and partly because the acting was just awful. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and chalk this up to bad directing and bad editing but, at this point, who knows. Some of his dialog is actually dubbed over by another actor in post production because they completely changed his story arc after filming was completed. Yes, I know that doesn't make sense. The entire movie is just a big train wreck from start to finish.

Do I really need to go on? The story is incoherent and any connection to Spider-Man lore involving Peter Parker's family is totally out of whack and none of it makes any kind of sense at all. They're really trying to just be like, hey let's connect this movie to everything else that came before it and yet totally disregard all of it as well because why not. This movie is a new low for super hero movies, is an embarassment to the comic book world, and there should have been someone, somewhere to put a stop to it a long time ago.