Why does Sony keep making Spider-Man spin-offs? Most of them have been notoriously bad (“Morbius”), while others have looked terrible but are of unknown quality (“Kraven the Hunter”). “Madame Web” was in the second camp until it was released. Instantly, both fans and critics alike came together with a universal disdain.

Why they made the movie, we can’t be sure. The movie utterly fails in everything it tries to do. In some ways, this makes it significantly more fun than most of the soulless Marvel garbage to come out as of late. “Madame Web” almost teeters to “so bad it’s good” which is admittedly better than tedious nothingness.

Madame Web

“Madame Web” stars Dakota Johnson as the titular “Cassandra Web.” She’s a paramedic in New York who discovers that she can see into the future. In the comics, Madame Web is one of the most important figures in the extended Spider-Man Universe. She leads Spider-Man in discovering all of the alternate “Spider-Verses,” a concept that has skyrocketed in popularity over the last few years with the boom of the Miles Morales Spider-Man films.

Dakota Johnson

Spoilers ahead so be warned. However, the plot is so unremarkable that it doesn’t matter.

In “Madame Web,” the character is kind of a joke. She doesn’t do anything until the last little bit of the movie. Here, we finally see her as Madame Web. Up until this point, she is just Dakota Johnson being Dakota Johnson.

I don’t fully understand why anyone thought she would make a good lead in a superhero movie. She doesn’t feel at all like a proper fit. She is a great actress, but her bizarre delivery and seeming refusal to get out of character ever (between movies, in reality, etc.) makes her a very silly protagonist. Not an interesting or driving one at all.

She is probably the highlight of the movie, just because she elevates the “so bad it’s good” status. One that I feel even surpasses “Morbius” in terms of actual enjoyment watching (besides the scene where Matt Smith dances in “Morbius,” which is cinematic perfection).

Technical Disaster

Technically, the movie is a disaster. The audio mixing is terrible, the cuts are jarring and out of place, the camera is uninteresting at best and detrimental at worst and the CG is horrible. So often the audience has no idea what is going on. The dialogue is the star of the show. I have never heard such bizarre lines uttered so seriously. They are not meant to be funny at all, but they completely miss the mark consistently and made me laugh the whole movie. 

It’s nice that these studios are trying something new, but this movie is just another nail in the coffin of the superhero movie fad. These movies keep coming out and flopping. I’m equally as car-crash excited for “Kraven” as I was for this, but I have a feeling it is just going to be hard to watch.

Don’t see “Madame Web” unless you have nothing better to do. If you do see it, make sure you have the theater all to your group of friends. That way you can just laugh out loud and make fun of the movie the whole time.

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@EthanBlume07