Madame Web Review

 

Madame Web is a comic book movie based on the Marvel Comics' character of the same name. The movie serves as the fourth film in Sony's Spider-Man Universe. It's produced by Columbia Pictures, Di Bonaventura Pictures, and Marvel Entertainment and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. Madame Web is written by S.J. Clarkson, Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, and Claire Parker and directed by S.J. Clarkson.

The story is EMT Cassandra Web is suddenly getting visions that can predict future events. When she gets a vision that three girls will be killed by a crazed madman, she now has to do everything she can to protect them.

Initial Reaction

Now this movie was by no means my most anticipated. If anything I just wanted to how in the world can you possibly make a Madame Web movie?

Cons

Oh boy, this movie has quite a few problems. One of those being our villain, Ezekiel Sims. Now him trying to prevent his future demise is a great gimmick to give a villain, sadly he's not a great villain. He's boring and I predict that when this movie is done being mocked and memed, nobody's gonna remember him. Then there's character, or lack thereof. First we have Cassandra. She's not really all that pleasant to be around. After her first rescue of Julia, Anya, and Mattie, her first action isn't to continue to be on the move, it's basically "Okay, I rescued you. Now go to the police". It almost came off like she didn't even care. Then by the middle of the movie we're lead to believe she's changed, and then by the end she's become their mother figure/mentor. But it didn't feel that way. It felt like at first she's begrudgingly protecting them, and then one snap of a finger later, she now cares for them. Which brings me to the Spider-Girls. Basically Julia's the dorky/shy one, Mattie's the rebellious troublemaker, and Anya...well I'm not quite sure what her character was. And much like Cassandra, by the end of the movie, we're supposed to believe they've changed but no, they really didn't. For the most part all three of them remained the same. Really the only development those three had was they now know how to do CPR. Like I said before, the movie wants us to believe Cassandra and co. changed, became better people, and will go on to become these great superheroes, but only the bare minimum of character development happened. Just because Julia, Anya, and Mattie danced together at a diner and Cassandra taught them CPR, doesn't mean a development happened. Then there's the CGI and ADR. Sometimes the CGI's fine, but man, those moments when it isn't...yikes. It almost looked cartoonist. And with the ADR it can be so obvious. I swear there are numerous moments where Ezekiel is speaking, but his mouth doesn't match up with what he's saying. Then there's the dialogue. One piece of it is just plain corny (which I didn't mind, cause sometimes corny dialogue can be fun), another piece of it is just info dump, even though a scene previously already showed us this info. Or it's a wink and a nod to Spider-Man. With lines just as "When you take on the responsibility, great power will come". Or because Ben's an uncle he'll have "All the fun and none of the responsibility". I want everybody to apologize to Morbius. I know you all eye rolled at the mid-credit scene, but that was just ONE Spidey wink. Madame Web does it far too much. Sony, we have the internet, we know you're cinematic universe is Spider-Man connected. You don't need to slap us in the face with this stuff.

Middle Ground

I've got nothing.

Pros

The only two things the movie has going for it is the cinematography and the performances. The movie does has a good look to it, and even though the writing isn't good, our cast found someway to pull through and act well. Nothing award winning by any means, but still something that let's you know that still cared enough not to half-ass anything.

Before I get to my final though and rating. I do want to bring this up.

Hope you weren't too hyped for this, cause it doesn't really happen. We do see the Spider-Girls in their suits, but it's three minutes and it's just some future vision stuff. And we see Dakota Johnson in the Madame Web suit, but it's also future vision and it's even less than the Spider-Girls. I think we see her in the suit for like a minute, maybe even less. Don't you just love false advertising?

While I do have some harsh things to say about Madame Web, I can't really say it's the worst comic book movie I've seen of recent years. I mean come on people, three months ago we got The Marvels and that was far worse than this, but I digress. This is one comic book movie you can definitely skip.

My final rating is, Bad, But Harmless.

Okay, that's going to do it for now. Come back on Monday, Feb 16th, for my review of season two of Star Wars: The Bad Batch. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.