Skylar Savarin

“Madame Web” is a superhero film from director and co-writer S.J. Clarkson (“Marvel’s Jessica Jones”), and it follows paramedic Cassie Webb who, after gaining the power of clairvoyance, must protect three teenage girls from a madman while also reckoning with her past. The movie stars Dakota Johnson (“Fifty Shades” trilogy), Sydney Sweeney (“Euphoria”), Tahar Rahim (“A Prophet”), Isabela Merced (“Dora and the City of Gold”), Adam Scott (“Severance”) and Celeste O’Connor (“Selah and the Spades”).
This film was easily one of my most anticipated of 2024, though not for the reason you might expect. “Madame Web” was as awful as the trailers made it out to be, but it was thankfully an unintentionally comical experience as well, all thanks to its borderline incompetence in almost every aspect of filmmaking.
When it comes to positives, I would like to note that most of the performances are mediocre at best. It didn’t seem to me that any of the cast members were passionate about the material, but they are all naturally talented enough for them to at least deliver semi-competent performances.
And that is seriously the only good thing I have to say about “Madame Web.” Practically every other element of the film comes off as amateurish, and it’s a treat to watch.
While most of the performances were just alright, I’d say that Rahim delivered what was easily the worst performance of the entire cast. In his defense, I don’t think this was his fault, as most of his dialogue seemed to have been dubbed over in post-production. His lips rarely look like they fit the words coming out of his mouth, and he also sounds like he’s in a different environment from any character he’s talking to. Not only that, but the film keeps cutting away from Rahim whenever he’s speaking, as if they’re trying to hide something. I can’t imagine why the decision to re-record his dialogue was made in the first place, but either way, the poor dubbing was endlessly entertaining to watch.
The worst element of the film is its screenplay, which will not surprise anybody who watched the trailer and heard the line: “He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.” While that ridiculous line didn’t end up in the actual movie, the script is still full of bizarre moments that had me laughing out loud in the theater — which makes sense considering that this movie is co-written by the writers of “Morbius,” another hilariously bad entry in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU). Almost none of the dialogue ever sounds like a human being wrote it, and the story is a mix of superhero movie cliches and absolute absurdity.
Another big issue with this film is the SSU, a franchise based on supporting characters from Spider-Man comics. The franchise started in 2018 with “Venom” and was then followed by “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” and “Morbius,” with “Kraven the Hunter” and an untitled third “Venom” film slated for release later this year. However, besides its lack of Spider-Man, the problem with this franchise is that most of these characters are purely supporting characters who aren’t interesting enough for a standalone film. Venom is the only character out of the four that actually has his own comics, whereas the others are solely associated with Spider-Man.
Also, Morbius and Madame Web are both very deep cuts as far as comic book characters go. Venom and Kraven are both iconic Spider-Man villains, with both of them featured in some iconic runs of the comics (e.g. “Kraven’s Last Hunt”) and in other media. Morbius and Madame Web, on the other hand, are comparatively less iconic among casual superhero fans (in fact, I don’t think I’d heard of either of them before the movies were announced), so it doesn’t make sense why these films were even made in the first place, other than for monetary gain.
All in all, “Madame Web” is a complete mess, continuing Sony’s series of poor corporate decisions. I do feel bad for director S.J. Clarkson, as it feel like she was trying to make a good movie under the studio system. Still, unfortunately, her efforts ended up resulting in one of the most incompetent superhero films I have seen in a long time (and I’ve seen the 2016 “Suicide Squad”).

RATING: 1/10