Just got out of Madame Web, and as I posted in my reaction video (watch below), the movie is complete garbage. It’s horrible. It’s worse than anything you can imagine.
Whoever is in charge of Sony Marvel should be fired. I would never hire S.J. Clarkson, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Adam Merims, and Claire Parker ever again. I would demand a forensic audit of the reported $80 billion budget. I’ll definitely think twice before I ever see any of their future projects. Yes, it’s that bad.
Let’s also again tackle the notion of superhero fatigue: Let’s get this straight, there is no superhero fatigue, there is fatigue of crap movies. This is simply proven by the fact that the Deadpool & Wolverine trailer has the most views ever. That says fans want to see superhero movies, they want to see good movies, they don’t want to see the crap we’ve been getting for the past five years, save for a handful of superhero films.
It’s the studios and creators behind these films that are to blame. Marvel Studios had Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon, the Russos, and James Gunn, who are all BIG comic book fans. Whoever is making the call on these new movies doesn’t have a damn clue, and that includes Kevin Feige, because everything MCU has SUCKED since the release of Avengers: Endgame, save for Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (James Gunn) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (somehow only the Spidey movies remain good, why is that???).
Regarding Sony Marvel, Madame Web follows Morbius which was just as awful. Well, guess what? They were both written by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless. I’d never let those two clowns near another comic book property ever again. Fuck, they must come on the cheap.
Is there no one at Sony that has a clue about how to make a good movie? You can’t tell me there wasn’t one person that said Madame Web sucks. That’s the guy you want in charge. The question is, does Sony even care? Judging by the movie, nope.
Warning: Spoilers follow
Madame Web features way too many characters, so much so, that the “cool” parts don’t even matter.
Get this, all the cool costume scenes you’ve seen in the trailers and on the posters aren’t even a part of the film! They’re only featured in Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson) and Ezekiel Sims’ (Tahar Rahim) visions! WTF!
I figured something was up because as I was watching the movie and the clock was ticking, I was thinking to myself, “How are they all going to get powers?” Then it dawned on me — they don’t!
Then at the end, they are all thrown together in their costumes, and it’s just awful.
I’ve never been a huge Spider-Man comic book fan, but I believe they completely changed the origin story. In the movie, there are “Spider-People” in Peru who all have Spider powers, so whoever goes there and finds one of the magical spiders and gets bit, gets powers. I felt that took away from Spider-Man big time. He’s the OG, not this trash.
The movie also does a lot of telling not showing. There’s a journal that gives all answers. Blah blah blah. I know there have been comparisons to The CW, and while watching, I felt this would have been a lot better as a CW TV series as things needed to be fleshed out a lot more.
Everyone in the movie also has mommy and daddy issues, most everybody is broke AF, and they’re all complaining about it, including the villain who is as vanilla as they come.
I mean, he found a magical spider because he grew up broke or some shit, and then because of his powers became rich AF, but apparently that also made him some sort of supervillain? I didn’t know what the fuck was going on.
Speaking of, why did Cassandra Webb take the girls to the woods? It seemed as if she took them there because Ezekiel was looking for them using hacked NSA surveillance tech, so in the woods there is no tech but they didn’t know that. You might argue she is just trying to hide them from the cops. Well, what about the taxi cab? It has markings all over it, even though she ditched the license plate. Why then would she bring the girls to a motel or let Ben Parker (Adam Scott) watch them? I guess that explains why she might not know about the tech, but again, why take them to the woods?
Regarding Ben Parker in the movie, the dude is an EMT and he didn’t seem like he knew what the fuck was going on when Mary Parker (Emma Roberts) went into labor. Why didn’t Ben simply tell the girls to stay at his home while he took Mary to the hospital? It seems as if Cassandra showed up minutes the fuck later (they didn’t know when she was coming back and when her plane would be landing?). Also, when they were leaving in the car, did you notice it was a ONE WAY STREET? But then the garbage truck comes down that ONE WAY STREET nearly causing an accident! Almost something similar happens when Cassandra leaves Ben’s house! WTF!
The third act was a complete disaster
The first two acts I could deal with, but again, I could tell the clock was ticking and the runtime was running out and not a lot of anything has happened. That’s when I knew the three girls wouldn’t be getting their spider-powers (you know, that’s what everybody wanted to see!!!) and that all the costume stuff happens in the visions.
So the big third act happens at the building where there was the fire at the start of the movie. It turns out it’s a fireworks factory. Well, fireworks happen to be illegal in NYC! So why the fuck didn’t the police – or whoever – take away the fireworks from the building after the fire? Especially considering that they all knew the building was dangerous (even before there was a fire)! The third act occurs at least a week later, because Cassandra goes to Peru for a week!
The movie is just so bad.
I wouldn’t even call this a superhero movie as there are no superheroes in the film. They literally use a cab and then an ambulance to attack the bad guy! Who the fuck actually came up with that and who the fuck thought that looked cool and was a good idea?!
It’s just unbelievable the amount of garbage that Hollywood puts out to the tune of billions and billions of dollars.
As I say below, movies like Madame Web hurt female superhero characters. How come they can’t make an awesome female superhero movie? Ditch all the diverse bullshit and just tell a good story!
Sony also hurts their Spider-Man brand by putting out garbage like this. Kraven? Good luck. Venom 3? Good luck. Tom Hardy, get your head out of your ass and tell Sony to stop putting out these shitty movies!
I give this movie a 2/10 because the cast is decent, and that’s about it.
Here’s my video reaction after leaving the theater:
#MadameWeb reaction: horrible, garbage movie. pic.twitter.com/kiGiuS5lXe
— Cosmic Book News (@cosmicbooknews) February 16, 2024
