Madame Web (2024)

I think the thing that confuses me is whether I give it a good review or a bad one. Going through the Rotten Tomato blurbs on Vudu made me increasingly angry and frustrated.

I am accused of constant negativity. All the time. I was recently booted off a site for it. But the fact that somebody actually called this the worst superhero film of all time with a straight face means you cannot trust critics. And let me assure you this. I would not call a film I disliked in this genre the worst superhero film I've ever seen unless it was. The worst superhero film I've ever seen is Spawn. It has yet to be matched on ANY level of awfulness by any recent DC or Marvel film, and anyone telling you Madame Web is worse than that is either lying to you to be an Edgelord asshole, or is actually shitty critic with terrible taste.

Is the movie good? No. Would I recommend it? No. Does the amount of pure shit is getting do anything but piss me off? No. It's infuriating.

Let me be fucking blunt. If this exact movie had come out in the 1980's, critics would be falling all over themselves to praise it. Yes, it's movie by committee, there's no creativity involved. And yet genre movies have evolved so much since the 1980's that a mediocre one today is better than a cult favorite from the 1980's. I've been throwing The Goonies out there when talking about bad 80's movies, but that's kind of low-hanging fruit. Let me hit you with a truth bomb you are going to fucking HATE me for. This film is FAR better than the first Terminator. The first Terminator was excruciating. This movie got a ton of shit for bad dialogue and poor story points. Terminator 1 is dumber and worse-written by far.

But God forbid somebody point that out. A Terminator fan might get their feelings hurt. All I'm saying is critics are bunch of fucking vipers that once they smell blood in the water (and Marvel, specifically the Sony end, has been getting increased scrutiny in recent years) they will fucking attack and attack and attack whether or not the horrible things they say about the movie are true or not. For critics, the written review is designed to impress the reader and indulge in stupid puns.

The movie is not good. I'm gonna honestly detail my problems with it now. After I do that I want to ask honestly if what I found wrong with it makes it sound like the worst superhero movie of all time. Because spoiler alert: It doesn't. It's fucking infuriating I was recently banned from a site for being too negative when every goddamn professional critic is a fucking troll. If I say something negative I come by that honestly. I ain't jumping on the bandwagon to gain credibility with assholes and cynics. I don't give a shit about that segment of fandom, and I don't give a shit if they are impressed with what I say or not.

Let's talk about ALL my problems (there were many).

The first scene of Cassie's mother talking to Ezekiel about the Spider People pissed me off. Because it was information both characters already knew and was simply being repeated for the sake of the audience. People don't freaking talk that way. I hate that movies have people talk unrealistically for the audience's benefit. Let's say we AREN'T given that exact one sentence context for the Spider-People. Would anybody in the audience reject their appearance five minutes later? Of course not. The movie did this out of a sense of narrative weakness instead of strength. It did not trust the audience, and that means it didn't trust itself.

A similar complaint can be leveled against it for Cassie reading her mother's notes out loud. Nobody does that. Well, maybe first graders.

And honestly, while I don't find the dialogue especially terrible in comparison to crap like The Terminator, that has coasted for DECADES despite being shittily written, the scenes of Cassie in the cave with the old man wise spider guy most certainly qualified as that. The dialogue was purely atrocious in that scene, and I DO want to point out that I only noticed it because the entire film was NOT like that. It is was, I'd be crapping on it too. But it wasn't.

The costumes at the end (especially Madame Web's) look fake. But I like that. It's looks like it takes Ben Affleck 45 minutes to get into the Batman suit. It looks great, but it is so elaborate it's frigging impractical for a dude who needs a quick-change to fight crime. Yeah, Cassie and the Spider-Woman's costume look like cheap Cosplay. I also imagine it doesn't take them too long to get dressed either. At least not compared to Batfleck.

Another major complaint is that the climax didn't need to occur. There was no real reason Ben couldn't have taken his sister in law to the hospital and kept the girls in hiding back at the house. At all. Cassie impressed upon him how important this was, and he seems like a trustworthy guy. The only reason he did that is because the movie needed the climax to happen, and it wasn't clever enough to create an organic reason to do it.

I also am not fully on-board Cassie being the one who killed Ezekiel. There was something disturbingly stupid about Ezekiel's actions that if the film were better would lean into. Ezekiel is never smart enough to ask himself WHY the girls kill him. Maybe it's because he's been trying to kill THEM nonstop for those ten years until the future it happens in for no damn reason. Maybe this is a self-fulfilling prophecy of his own making and they would have no beef with him if he left well enough alone. Interesting messaging about free will in a movie about choosing your destiny, right? And it doesn't occur to the filmmakers to even bring it up. Not even once. That is failing, and the writers not actually understanding the premise of what they were showing deep down.

All that shit. Annoying, right? Worst superhero film of all time? Give me a fucking break. Have some fucking perspective, Richard Roeper. Roger Ebert only gave THAT review to North the once. You keep calling mildly mediocre films awful just because it feels trendy in the moment to dunk on them, you aren't a film critic. You are a troll.

Do better, film critics. Discuss the film's real failings (which exist and are numerous) and leave the hyperbole and bullshit to Fox News. 2 1/2 stars.

Deleted Scene - You Died

This scene being deleted confuses me. It's only 43 seconds long, so deleting it doesn't help the film's pacing. And the scene isn't terrible at all so it doesn't hurt. My question isn't just why it was deleted. But why it's the only deleted scene on the Blu-Ray. The fact that it is is weird. 3 stars.

Gag Reel

First of all, gag reels are never funny. That's not why I found this interesting. What it is is more evidence as to why you should never trust a film critic.

A common refrain from those negative blurbs is that Dakota Johnson seems to be embarrassed to be in the film and is phoning it in. This gag reel proves those critics are full of shit. Maybe Johnson thought the movie sucked, but as she was making it it appeared like she was having a good time. But creating a bullshit lie that the film is so bad even the lead doesn't want to be there is how modern critics roll. Don't listen to them. Ever. They are paid to lie. 4 stars.