Madame Web — Movie Review

Going into Madame Web, the newest addition to Sony’s Spider-Man canon, one thing is clear: all of the studio’s modern efforts at nailing the superhero’s live-action extended universe have had mixed reviews at best. From Venom to Morbius, forgettable has ruled the day.

Now, with Madame Web, we dive straight into bad. Even for a viewer with a high tolerance for superhero fare, enjoyment of this film may be a bridge too far. Let’s start with the good.

The film is in focus, so kudos to the cinematographer for that. A few instances of CGI spiders looked pretty darn good.

That’s about it.

Let’s touch a bit on the bad. It wouldn’t be surprising to find out that Madame Web was written by Tommy Wiseau. Indeed, some of The Room’s dialogue was delivered more subtly than we see here. Characters regularly explain plot points and connections aloud. The villain is one of the worst offenders, describing every moment of his part of the story with a hammy menace. Our protagonist does the same, sometimes speaking with either no one in the room with them or to animals who have no way of comprehending the plot.

Not that the plot is comprehensible, anyway. The mish-mash of superhero movie tropes includes an inadvertently hilarious scene where four main characters compare outlandishly tragic backstories, all while speaking in prose that no humans would use. It’s all just a stark reminder of the wear on the tires of the superhero genre.

But the genre isn’t the only element of Madame Web on trial here. Dakota Johnson is the lead here, mustering the energy of soggy toast. Tahar Rahim portrays the aforementioned villain like he’s accepted a role in a college student’s first experimental film. The half-baked trio of teenage girls that become the film’s focus, played by Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, and Isabela Merced, don’t bring anything interesting to the table. To be clear, these are capable actors, but they are given nothing to work with and produce even less in return.

Madame Web is possibly the worst comic book movie of all time. That’s not hyperbole. The film is bound to be forgotten in the annals of time as a tax write-off for Sony, and the quicker it dissipates into the ether of culture, the better.

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