Madame Web Blu-ray Review

THE MOVIE — 2/5

Plot Synopsis: Cassandra Webb (DAKOTA JOHNSON) is a paramedic in Manhattan who may have clairvoyant abilities. Forced to confront revelations about her past, she forges a relationship with three young women — Julia (SYDENY SWEENEY), Anya (ISABELLA MERCED) and Mattie (CELESTE O’CONNOR) — destined for powerful futures… if they can survive a deadly present.

Review: Much has been said about the state of the comic book genre with the box office failures of The Flash, Aquaman 2, The Marvels and the subject of this review, Madame Web, which is the latest entry in the Sony Marvel Universe alongside the Venom franchise and Morbius, and yet another that only hints at Peter Parker/Spider-Man. I’ve heard plenty about Madame Web prior to viewing and while it is indeed a bad movie, films like Batman & Robin and Superman IV still reign supreme as the worst comic book movies of all-time.

Madame Web is a movie with really no redeeming qualities. The acting ranges from downright mundane with Dakota Johnson, whom I generally like and can turn in fine performances, most notably Bad Times at the El Royale, but here she seemed to be checked out maybe realizing early on she signed on to a turkey of a film. Then there’s the “villain”, and I use that term loosely. As dumb as it was with Lex Luthor’s obsession of creating real estate in Superman Returns (or Superman 1978 for that matter), Tahar Rahim’s Ezekiel Sims motivation is because three current teenage girls will one day kill him as forseen in his nightmare visions. That’s it.

As for the aforementioned girls, none really stand out as they don’t get a whole lot of back story outside of just telling audiences of their poor home lives. Obviously Sydney Sweeney is the most notable of the three though her shy-girl, don’t rock the boat, personal doesn’t exactly jive with her outside appearance. The film also includes supporting roles from Adam Scott playing Ben Parker while Emma Roberts plays a pregnant Mary Parker, thus why this film is set in 2003 to align itself with Tom Holland’s Peter Parker.

Outside of the acting, the writing and dialogue was all sorts of cringe-worthy and no surprise two of the four were responsible for Morbius with director SJ Clarkson, making her feature film debut following numerous stints on television that includes Jessica Jones and The Defenders. I don’t know who came up with the now “iconic” line of “When you take on the responsibility, great power will come” but it at least was unintentionally funny.

I suppose SJ Clarkson tries some different tricks with the direction flipping the camera 360 degrees to the point it lost any effectiveness and hardly brought any suspense or thrills to the scenes. And how the film was shot, under the cinematographer, who has a noteworthy filmography (Avatar, Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Island), was itself pretty lackluster. Beyond the look, even the music sounded like it was found off of some royalty free website.

And perhaps the biggest sin of this comic book movie is you have characters, outside of Rahim for some reason sporting a black Spider-Man costume (never explained where it came from), our heroes don’t don their iconic outfits save for a few minutes during future vision moments which probably only lasts 2-3 minutes. The movie is just these four girls running from place to place, with the teens making poor choices, before being pursued by Sims, which I guess brings a conundrum that had he not targeted these girls, would they have ever bothered him, let alone notice him at all? Sims entire actions was to find and kill them, no ulterior motives going on, not even world domination or wealth beyond his imagination.

In the end, when there’s a debate whether Madame Web was worse than Morbius, you know you’ve got a stinker and I can’t name one thing that even remotely makes this worth wasting your time.

SPECIAL FEATURES – 3/5

This release, at least the copy I received, did not come with a slip cover. Inside is a redemption code for the Digital HD copy. Included are a few featurettes: Future Vision (6:51), Casting the Web (9:09). Oracle of the Page (4:54) and Fight Like a Spider (5:31); Easter Eggs: The Many Threads of Madame Webb (3:55); a Deleted Scene (0:41) and last a Gag Reel (4:31).

VIDEO – 4½/5

AUDIO – 4/5

OVERALL – 2½/5

Madame Web might have an interesting story somewhere but is another Sony/Marvel that fails just about at every level from the acting, writing and direction, it doesn’t even have that trainwreck aspect going for it either.