As a rule, when writing reviews for this storied establishment, I try to stay away from two things: personal nouns, such as “I” and hyperbole, such as “this is the worst movie I have ever seen.”
Sony Pictures’ latest scrape at the bottom of their Spider-Man barrel, “Madame Web,” is so terrible that I am willing to break both of those rules, because it may very well be the worst large-budget theatrical release from a major studio in years.
“Madame Web” follows Cassandra “Cassie” Webb, a misanthropic paramedic played by Dakota Johnson, who discovers that she has the ability to see into the future, following a traumatic accident that any half-competent paramedic would not find themselves in.
Through her visions, she discovers that three teenage girls, played by Sydney Sweeney, Isabella Merced and Celeste O’Connor, are being hunted down by the very same man who killed her mother, Ezekiel Sims, played by Tahar Rahim.
The cast assembled is impressive, but cannot save the film. Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures
The cast assembled for this mess is actually pretty decent on paper, but they are given absolutely nothing to work with. Johnson’s performance has echoes of Marshawn Lynch- which is to say, “I’m just here so I won’t get fined.” It is hard to blame Johnson, though.
With four credited writers, the screenplay reeks of having too many cooks in the kitchen. The script has such baffling dialogue, awful story structure and a wholly unsatisfying and almost cruel ending.
One could say that there were actually no cooks in the kitchen, and they were all just arsonists who fed their audience a charred hunk of leather and told them it was beef wellington.
I am never one to say that an adaptation should slavishly adhere to its source material, but the changes made to Spider-Man lore in “Madame Web” are very clearly indicative of having nothing more than a surface level understanding of every character and event being brought to the screen.
Anya Corazon, played by Isabella Merced. Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures
That lack of understanding is most evident in Merced’s character, Anya Corazon. In the comics, Anya has a really fun origin revolving around ancient bug-themed societies.
It is part fantasy, part spy thriller and all around a really unique take on the concept of a Spider-Person. If any character from the “Spider-Verse” deserves a big screen adaptation, it is her. More than Morbius, more than Venom, Anya deserved her flowers on the big screen.
In “Madame Web,” her story is reduced to her being lonely because her Puerto Rican father was deported. While the stories of Latino people being deported are certainly worthy of being told, it does not fit the nature of Anya’s storyline. And, as previously mentioned, her father is Puerto Rican. That makes him a United States citizen. You do not just “deport” U.S. citizens.
Most, if not all, of the villain's dialogue is dubbed. Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures
The mishandling of Anya is just a microcosm of the lack of care and thought being put into the film as a whole. Everything on display is shoddy. Most, if not all, of Ezekiel’s dialogue has been poorly re-dubbed in a very obvious manner.
The characters’ super-suits, which have maybe three minutes of screen time, look cheap and plastic. The film almost feels like an experiment to see how many corners could be cut in a major studio film before audiences notice. Simply put, “Madame Web” is below the bare minimum.
And all of this comes before noting how strangely the film treats its female characters. Despite hailing from a female director and two female screenwriters, the film frequently features moments and costuming choices that put the leading teenage girls into compromising positions that the camera leers on.
Nothing in this film’s paper-thin story is aided by scenes where teenage girls dance on a table to impress a group of boys, with several shots looking directly up the short skirt that Sweeney’s character wears throughout the film.
The teenage characters are consistently objectified. Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures
And, spoiler alert, in a final act of cruelty by the film, Cassie is paralyzed and blinded during the climax. In no way is this sacrifice justified by the film’s story. It only happens because Madame Web is blind and paralyzed in the comics.
The way the film handles her “paralysis origin” does a little more than strip her of agency. Until that point, the film barely cared about the comics, so putting Cassie in a wheelchair felt cheap and unearned.
“Madame Web” is a disaster, full stop. It is not “so bad it is good,” it is “so bad I went home and watched videos of car crashes that somehow had better mise-en-scene.”
The film does not even have the mercy to be short, it runs for two full, dull hours of nonsense. The only reasonable way I can think of to watch this movie is on Netflix with a room full of friends and a bottle of something with at least 40% alcohol per volume.
If you are planning on seeing “Madame Web,” use the two hours you would have wasted to instead tell your loved ones how much you care about them. Use the money you would have spent on your ticket to buy somebody flowers. Hug somebody, because life is short and you never know what tomorrow holds. For the sake of all that is good in this world, do not go see “Madame Web.”
