'Madame Web' briefing

1 (out of 4)

            I don’t see any reason to bury the lead: this is the worst superhero movie I’ve ever seen. In the last year alone we’ve had some truly awful, stinky contenders for the genre’s WOAT in the third Ant-Man and The Marvels, but this just takes the cake no question. I even went back to see how bad Catwoman is and sorry, at least all the other trash has some sliver of panache, especially Marvel comics’ baby step movies like Daredevil — speaking of it was nice to discover the impressively shot and edited Elektra spinoff is entirely underrated, so what if stakes are slim while characters are made room for? Blade: Trinity sucked and was a terrible first draft of Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool shtick, but at least as an action vampire romp it offered some sleazy satisfaction, fuck even Howard the Duck has ILM making some anthropomorphic miracles happen and a few real laughs (plus admittedly plenty ‘so bad it’s good’ humorous exhalations).

Once you’ve pondered the lowest of the MCU, even when you start taking into account the various other embarrassments around town — Suicide Squad, Dark Phoenix, Fantastic Four (2005 most of all, personally speaking), Amazing Spider-Man 2, Dawn of Justice, Green Lantern, the list goes on and on — I genuinely think this was the most irredeemable, unequivocally pitiful and pointless, dull, detrimental and moreover an insult to escapism. Supers took off in wake of the digital technology making it all possible, and despite a quiet year for the genre outside of Deadpool & Wolverine and a second Joker, 2025 has four MCU features plus James Gunn’s Superman reboot, so the itch will keep on scratchin’ or vice versa for as long as capeshit generally holds up its end of the bargain.

The thing is, even the sloppiest stuff had its moments, an actor that made you care, a shot that interested you, a spectacular concept, fascinating ability, awesome sequence or storytelling decision that justified its existence. Perhaps it’s how much Madame Web fails to measure up to even the lowered standards of the Sony-Spidey legal loophole spin-off universe — Venom is no masterpiece but top of the heap, Morbius is overhated gothic goofiness that still hardly feels like a full motion picture, a lot like the even worse Let There Be Carnage. With the same writers (Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless) as Morbius and Gods of Egypt's watchable B-movie camp, I figured Web had a chance to be surprisingly slick even in the most superficial fashion. No, even with a premise ripped off from Next (a poor Philip K. Dick sci-fi riff with a poorer Nic Cage wig) and Final Destination, Madame’s ability of near-(fore)sight can’t settle on the setups and payoffs of manipulating the predestined present, and so the only chance at a flutter of an inkling of a thrill is thwarted by indecision and the worst heist movie logic (we can’t show the plan in action if it all works out! Only if something goes wrong!). For as unique as these horror-tinged hybrid movies are, this has no seat next to crud like New Mutants let alone Unbreakable or the first Blade movies.

So yeah, this is the junkiest of junk, the least memorable moment in a wheelhouse that has been blurring by like some vomit-splattered carousel maxing out for some time, so it really takes a certain skillful laziness to be this daft, lifeless, fruitless and not even laughable enough to call it the schlock of the more modest early days of superheroes — Daredevil and Hulk at least were working through new waves of blockbuster attitudes and aesthetics, Evanescence notwithstanding. Madame Web has no style, no grace, nothing that could constitute a trip to the movies where you felt anything other than ripped off. When your villain’s motivation hinges on dream visions depicting superhero ladies that our zoomer supporting cast will one day become  — Isabella Merced, Celeste O’Connor, Sydney Sweeney and all with prerequisite personalities (the nerdy one, the mean one, the shy one,) and a punishing dialogue dump to quickly run through their nothing backstories — you know this flick’s agenda consists solely of stringing along the Spidey-simps (holy crap are you future superhero too Emma Roberts, or are you just giving birth to one offscreen?). If only this movie could’ve been saved by midriffs or bearing the male gaze in mind (Sweeney in a schoolgirl outfit is somehow not the most provocative thing here), but beyond sex appeal this movie isn’t doing jack shit with a nearly all-female ensemble. No amount of girl power or female directors (one S. J. Clarkson) can atone for dogshit, same went for The Marvels — you’re not anti-feminist for hating this movie.

Dakota Johnson’s done more reputable work than 50 Shades but this somehow feels even more degrading, like the paycheck must have made you as blind as the end of this movie where you’re Daredevil and Professor X in one — you ain’t no recent Oscar winner like Halle Berry sweetie, you might not recover from so big a misstep. Outside of the Grey notoriety, Madame Web is another embarrassing property to be tied down to, something like if K Stew went from Twilight to Charlie’s Angels, oh wait — all I’m saying is without a few key roles for Johnson in Bad Times at the El Royale and both Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash and Suspiria, there’d be no reason to say she should know better but damn she should’ve known better. The guy from A Prophet, Tahar Rahim poor fella, I’m sure he wishes there was something better to do with his time.

Even DC was never this embarrassing. Without a post-credits scene (curious since a third Venom and Kraven the Hunter will keep Sony’s sinister dreams alive), still the movies leaves you with stubborn sequel-prospecting: “look what this potential set of character and series COULD BECOME!” Sure, but at no point over the course of the generous 116 minutes did you make that an enticing suggestion — the irony of a superhero story constructed on the idea of limitless futures and pissloads of possibilities is almost NEVER (not since Argylle LMAO) has there been a more embarrassing, disastrous franchise non-starter. Few major motion pictures debut so DOA.