Forced to confront revelations about her past, paramedic Cassandra Webb forges a relationship with three young women destined for powerful futures...if they can all survive a deadly present.
I’m not doing my typical intro this time, let’s just dispense with the niceties and get this over with. Calling “Madame Web” “like if A.I. generated your boyfriend's perfect movie”, is simply code for flaming hot dogshit; one of the most artistically bankrupt, cynical & clueless superhero films that I’ve ever seen.
How were you able to make Morbius look like Hamlet compared to this?
First of all, I need to ask what the mindset was behind this presentation. Retrograde superhero movies back in the early 2000’s are known for being deliberately goofy on purpose with an extra slice of cringe on top; if dipping headfirst into the so-bad-it’s-kind-of-good” vibes of “Elektra” & “Catwoman” was your strategy here, it’s not gonna work a second time. Thin and contrived in looks and execution, it is truly remarkable how unremarkable this movie’s attempt at B-movie silliness only fuels the inevitable frustrating indignation to come. Some of the most incompetent and inconsequential production design I’ve seen is in here, with splotchy as hell world-building that feels coughed up after an all-nighter in Vegas, instead of any faint resemblance of a world teeming with history, passion or consistency.
Cornball dialogue is EVERYWHERE, littered with clunky exposition, and dismal decaf line delivery oozing out of every pore. It’s also flagrantly obvious whenever any ADR is used thanks to the villains STUPID onscreen presence. Music is once again either unmemorable or ripped straight from other popular soundtracks, they purposely blue ball and cheat you out of any invigorating action sequences, the few action scenes we get are over before they even start and every actor succumbs to the basic mismatched archetypes of their characters, striking zero passion or chemistry with anyone. Every character is reduced to sticking to ONE gimmick only and anytime they’re not written to focus on that gimmick, they have no voice and whenever they do get splicings of one, it’s dry and tired.
I will admit the diopter lens of the camera does lead to a couple interesting shots; plus the manner in which it illustrates Cassie’s clairvoyance, having it mimic the way a stray thought or memory passes through the mind by stuttering the frame, is vaguely interesting. But the repeated uses of it disoriented me quickly, especially when you consider the editing’s jittery clumsily inter-splicing, the visual effects steadily torpedoing into incoherent gossamers and how the film constantly looks like an untested CW pilot episode (you know the ones I mean) filmed by a crack addict.
Why does this entire plot feel like a lesser-man’s Doctor Strange or Minority Report meets Final Destination? Hell, it’s practically a shittier version of That’s So Raven except this story’s so obstinate in its internal logic, so desperate to justify its own existence and so shameless in how half-assed, quarter-assed and inside-out ass-first it is. The story borders on satire and parody so frequently that the unsubtely of everything becomes a twee bit uncomfortable; it feels like an episode of terrible writing advice come to life. Honestly, you can use this to teach a writing class on mistakes to avoid.
As the movie’s very essence flaunts itself between the spirit of a roadtrip dramedy and a wannabe psychological thriller, there’s an obvious clashing of tones as the story just meanders through a disjointed plot with abysmal pacing, devoid of any compelling stakes or gripping conflicts that define the superhero genre. And that’s before it blindly stumbles towards an anticlimactic conclusion where Sony, ONCE AGAIN, uses the multiverse as a crutch to stand on blatantly false advertising without the balls to back it up. It’s basically another backdoor pilot, a Trojan horse for a maybe sequel that likely isn’t gonna happen; it’s so mildly over-complicated and short-sighted with its intentions, it can’t even chart out a proper roadmap to its own destination properly.
Even though the occasional concept and setup used has the TINIEST bit of intrigue sprinkled throughout, you cannot deny that the actual individual structural beats that compose Madame Web’s story lack any and all sense of momentum or expressive amplification. For all the hard work S.J Clarkson does to try and make the film look as presentable as possible, so much just gets in the way.
Plastered with a giant Kick Me sign on its back since day one, the mockery and ridicule this film has gotten is well-deserved. The heinous presentation and goofy jaw-dropping miss-aim story doesn’t elevate this to The Room levels of enjoyability; it’s so bad that it’s HORRIBLE.
