Madame Web

Now obviously Madame Web has gotten a lot of shit and I had no doubt in my mind that it was going to be bad. Because let’s be honest, Sony can’t handle live action superhero movies. The Spiderverse movies are brilliant due to the fact that they are produced by a completely different department. But between this, the Venom movies and the Kraven movie we are all going to sit through, they aren’t a good studio for superhero films. Now we all know by now that I don’t believe you have the right to an opinion unless you can defend it, so does Madame Web really suck as bad as the internet says? Let’s find out.

Not even a ding specifically on this movie but I am so tired of superhero origin stories having flashbacks. We don’t actually need to see how every single superhero became a superhero. An origin movie is simply their introduction, that doesn’t mean I need every background detail.

The too literal music choices are in fact a ding on this movie specifically. I shouldn’t know the stroybeats of the film by listening to the soundtrack, I just need to know the vibe.

Dakota Johnson is beautiful and a wonderful human being but as an actress she is in fact a nepo baby. It looks like she is trying to make facial expressions but her face isn’t getting all the way there. Also her line delivery is all the same. It sounds like she’s forcing her voice into a softer and higher pitch, like she can’t do anything but the submissive sex kitten thing she did in 50 shades of gray. There is just no character awareness from her at all.

The first act (save for the flashback) actually isn’t terrible. The activation of her powers with the time cuts was actually done pretty well and it was very clear what was happening. Then we have the villains first scene, also a pretty solid introduction. The connection between his powers and Madame webs was well set up. Now look, the action scenes are terrible, the fight choreography and the CGI are not good but the cinematography is done really well. I like the interesting angles and balance of shots. It is at least visually interesting.

So it feels like the filmmakers did do a decent amount of research. The characters are accurate and Cassie bringing them together is good. It's got the framework of comic book accuracy but the dialogue and reveals are just so bad. The scene where Cassie learns that the guy that is after them knew her mom would have actually been a lot more impactful without the flashback at the top. Writers need to learn to let the audience learn things with the characters. It's so much more enticing that way.

They did not spend enough time developing these character relationships. The dynamic between Cassie and the girls, and just the girls is really loose at best.

Cassie traveling to Brazil was really stupid, it really doesn’t feel like they had a definitive storyline laid out. This film feels like some random ideas were tossed around in the writers room and they were all written down. There is really no pacing or structure and that is my biggest pet peeve.

Yeah…I don't think the internet did a good job of articulating why Madame Web was bad but it most definitely wasn’t good. Most of the flaws were with the writing and direction, something Marvel isn’t immune to either. I don’t think that it was any worse than the worst Marvel movie, it wasn’t good. But visually it was an interesting film and it had the vague illusion of comic book accuracy, both of which is more I can say for Thor: The Dark World. And I would definitely rather watch Sydney Sweeney than anyone in the second Thor movie.