The new Marvel/Sony film, Madame Web is a disaster. It’s not so bad, it’s good; it’s so bad, it’s bad.
The rumors were true. This movie stinks. It’s not The Room, where it was so bad; it’s good. Madame Web (2024) will possibly go down as one of the worst superhero films ever. Madame Web (2024) also flopped at the box office, and it seems to have put any Sony Marvel films on hold. We saw that the Venom films over the last couple of years seem to make decent money but do not have the best reviews. Of course, the Spider-Man films did very well, but it seems any Spider-Man spin-off is doomed at this point.
When we saw the casting announcement years ago for Madame Web (2024), it seemed like this film had a lot of potential. But once we saw the trailer, we all knew how bad this film was going to be. Even one of the biggest actresses in the world right now, Sydney Sweeney, can’t save this abominable film.
Madame Web (2024) fails in almost every aspect. A feat that is very hard to do. The cinematography, the acting, the writing, the wardrobe, the editing—it’s all horrible. I think AI could’ve done a better job. I think AI could’ve grasped the concept better, as the material seems good. Madame Web (2024) also features one of the worst villains in a superhero movie ever. I think he might be the worst-written villain I have ever seen.
Madame Web (2024) also has some horrible cinematography that makes me sick just watching it. The camera seems to jump around and zoom in and out for no reason other than to disorient you. When there’s a fight scene, the camera moves in every single direction other than the spot it needs to be so we can see what’s going on. It also seems to happen randomly in random scenes. This makes these scenes completely unwatchable.
I had to turn away at most parts because it was making me sick. It also made me upset because of this. I wanted to see some of the action because it was the only thing I felt like it could’ve done right. These kinds of films at least have decent action at the end of the day, but there was barely any, and when there was action, I could barely even see what was going on. When I could see what was going on, it was a CGI mess. For as big of a budget as it had, it could’ve done a lot better. At the very least with the CGI and action.
I will say that I don’t know a ton about the comic lore of Madame Web. I know a decent amount about Spider-Man, but not a ton about Madame Web. So maybe there were some fan service scenes in there that I missed out on that could’ve made it better. But from what I’ve heard, it doesn’t seem that way. From what I’ve researched, these characters seem interesting, and it’s crazy how they made them so terribly written in the film. Every single character in Madame Web (2024) is written horribly; there isn’t even one that I feel we are supposed to like. I legit didn’t care if any of them survived their life-or-death scenarios.
I feel bad for the actors and actresses in Madame Web (2024). I’ve seen them perform well in other films, such as Sydney Sweeney, Dakota Johnson, Emma Robertson, and Adam Scott. All of those actors and actresses play important characters in the film, and all of them have done great jobs in other films and TV shows. But this will go down as the worst movie and the worst performance they’ve given, more than likely. Some of that might come down to the direction of the writing. But it’s really hard to watch these scenes where we are supposed to care about our leads.
Dakota Johnson plays Cassandra Web, and she is our lead in Madame Web (2024). There isn’t a moment in the film where I seem to care about any aspect of her character in the story. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a film that made me feel that way. But her character writing didn’t even make her seem like a decent person at all. I like Dakota Johnson as well, so I gave it a chance.
It seemed like she should not have been the lead in the film, and they should’ve cast somebody else. But I don’t even know if the best actress in the world could’ve done a better job with the writing that was there. So I guess I can’t put all the blame on her, but she’s still a miscast.
The three young girls in the film that Web is trying to save are also very poorly written. They are so cliché and stereotyped. It’s something that you would see in a really bad student film when it comes to how they are written, as each of them gives into a cliche of their own.
One of them is named Maddie Franklin, who is played by Celestia O’Connor. She might be the worst-written of them all. She is supposed to be a bad girl. Kind of a punk rock cool chick, I guess. Anytime she opens her mouth, it’s super cringeworthy and cliché. It’s not all the actress’s fault, but the lines are horrible. For some reason, they make her have all the punch lines. These one-liners are what Marvel is infamous for at this point.
These were so terrible that not a single person in the theater even chuckled at these parts. This is the first time I’ve been to a movie that had so many comedic pauses, and not a single person laughed at them. There weren’t even any audience reactions to anything that happened in the movie beyond comedy.
Then the villain we have is Ezekiel. He is the worst-written villain I’ve ever seen in a superhero film. There is no reason why we should be scared of him or care about him at all. He doesn’t even have enough screen time to make me feel any way about them. He is just one of the many things that does not make sense in this film.
Which can be a good thing if you watch The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger, gave a phenomenal performance but wasn’t on screen for maybe 30 minutes. But this movie felt like they didn’t even need a villain. It could’ve benefited from being a TV mini-series, and we just saw more of Madame Webb developing her abilities. And instead of giving us such a poorly written rushed villain.
I actually can’t think of one thing I liked about Madame Web (2024). Maybe at the end of the film, when they showed the costumes of the characters, I thought that looked OK. We saw what the three kids would grow up to be. Seeing Sydney Sweeney as a superhero was actually kind of cool for the five seconds I saw it. Sweeney’s last film “Anyone But You” might be a saving grace as it’s success can overshadow this disaster.
But it was so fast, I couldn’t even take it in. I guess they planned on having other films in the series since it seemingly ends with them about to get their abilities. But I don’t think they’ll ever continue this film series, as it’ll go down as one of the worst films of the year, if not the worst.
