PG-13 for people who are afraid of spider, people, or spider-people. Fundamentally, Spider-Man should be scary. But this takes the premise, "What if he was just a little creepy?" There's some murder and attempted murder in this movie. There's some mild superhero language. There's sad death. Also, if you are overly upset by jump scares, there's a lot of mild smash cuts in the movie.
DIRECTOR: S.J. Clarkson Y'all be some hyperbolic, dramatic turds. No, Madame Web is not a great movie. I'll agree with you. But to make it out to be this blasphemy, that's going a bit far. Also, some weird diagnoses about why this movie is no good. I think I have a lot to say about this, but maybe I'll be disappointed and Peter (Parker) out after a few glib paragraphs. I don't know. All I know is that there's a movie in here and I think I know what makes this movie the cause of derision. First of all, you know what this movie really is? People wanted a Spider-Man movie. It's not a Spider-Man movie. If anything, the Spider-Man stuff hurts it. There's a bit of kismet that this movie is set in 2003 because this movie is so 2003 that I am reminded what cinema in 2003 consisted of. 2003 cinema is an era of high premise sci-fantasy that is ultimately forgettable. We're talking about movies like Next, Jumper, Knowing, Limitless. That kind of stuff. Madame Web is one of those movies. Now, those movies aren't good. I find it weird when someone makes a Limitless reference today. There's a shot in Madame Web where an ambulance flies by a Blockbuster Video right after the film is established in 2003. Yeah, this is a movie that you would see a million copies of in a Blockbuster. It honestly shares more DNA with those movies. It takes a weird premise. Someone discovers that they have some kind of unique ability and they don't quite become a hero. Instead, they find out that there is some kind of weird society or parallel character that also has to deal with the same issues. The only problem? That person is using it for selfish reasons and it puts the protagonist(s) in danger. That's this movie. That's a fine movie. It's not a good movie. Now, people have been throwing stones at S.J. Clarkson, the director of this film. There's absolutely zero things wrong with the actual direction of the film. Clarkson had a middling script that was a big push from a studio. From what I hear, there were regular script changes and that had to be frustrating. I don't love that a studio would do that, but it is Sony, the dumbest film studio on the planet with the exception of their animation division, which is crushing it right now. Everything in the movie is shot competently. There's some fun special effects. Things that are supposed to look creepy look a little creepy. Things that are supposed to be epic and large scale are effectively epic and large scale. Clarkson made almost zero mistakes. Unless you consider "acting" to be the responsibility of the director. If so... ...DON'T BLAME SYDNEY SWEENEY! You thought that's where I was going to go? Listen, I haven't seen a ton of Sydney Sweeney stuff. This actually might be my first thing with her. I just know that people are either in love with her because she's attractive or that she's a terrible actress and doesn't deserve to be in movies. Um, has everyone just become a bully? While Madame Web might not be the Oscar reel that Sweeney might want it to be, she basically does the job. Sure, wardrobe tried stressing that this was an attractive young woman based on the outfits given to her. But she does what she can with a limited script. I just read something from Chris Helmsworth that I really liked. It harkened back to his days as a soap opera actor. I'm paraphraphing here, but it went something along the lines of "I wasn't there to give great performances to the good lines. I was there to make the bad lines sound good." Sweeney pulls that off. There are a lot of cornball lines, but she created a character that was allowed to say goofy things and it sounds believable enough that I understood the character. Yeah, I think people love blaming things on Sydney Sweeney. Nope, the real crime in this movie (shy of dealing with a middle-of-the-road script) is Dakota Johnson. Normally, I don't come after people so hard. I'm usually incredibly apologetic. Johnson is rough in this movie. She's the anchor for a giant setpiece that could have been okay had the performance been better. Now, I have two theories and I'm leaning heavier into the second one. The first theory is that Dakota Johnson is not a good actress. I don't know. While I heard that Fifty Shades of Grey was rough, Johnson has kind of gotten a certain amount of street cred between roles. But I haven't really seen her. Again, I watch a lot of movies, but apparently Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney don't tend to fall under the banner of "Literally Anything". In my mind, there's a kernel of truth to this. But I'm leaning harder into the second theory. Second theory: Dakota Johnson hated working on this and hate acted through every scene she was in. Immediately after Madame Web started getting bad press, she was the first to voice how bad the movie was. She distanced herself from that movie hard. Now, if she was great and then bad mouthed the movie, I might have a little sympathy. But she did the same thing with Fifty Shades of Grey. She couldn't wait to tell everyone how much she hated working on that. Now, could it be that there was nothing to work with in the movie? Again, I'm going to preach that this is an incredibly forgettable movie under the best of days, but it isn't outright awful. I've seen way worse movies. But everyone else seems to be trying really hard to make this movie good. The supporting cast is honestly pretty fine. Case in point? Adam Scott's Ben Parker is charming as heck. Adam Scott is amazing as a charming dude. He shares a lot of that with Paul Rudd. You know that they can do charming very well when needed. While Ben Parker actually shouldn't be in this movie (I get it, the studio. You want to remind everyone that Spider-Man is connected to this without actually using Spider-Man.), he does a solid job with the part he has. And Adam Scott is a pull for this movie. If anyone should be dragging their feet with a bad script, Adam Scott probably has the career that's more at risk from this movie than anyone else. Yet, still there. Still putting in the work. Yet, Dakota Johnson just looks annoyed to be in anything. If anything, the script adapted to her performance of being annoyed at everything. There are so many crappy moments of Cassie just being a turd to everything, even down to a scene where she can't accept a thank you card from a child. She looks downright mad to be in that scene. I almost can't believe that it would be a character choice. Also, it doesn't look like Cassie Webb is annoyed. It looks like Dakota Johnson is annoyed. So many lines are given to other people in those scenes. Honestly, Ben Parker is the only one talking in that scene. Dakota Johnson's direction is just to stand there. It almost feels like she's sabotaging the entire film. Like, it's bad. But, that being said, I still have to acknowledge that the script is all over the place. Here's where I'm going to complain because this is how I would have reacted that the audience not made the biggest vocal stink of the movie. There are so many lather-rinse-repeat moments in the movie and they somehow escalate. Cassie, for some reason, loves abandoning these three girls. It's weird that they don't just hang out with her. Cassie will have a flash of the girls in trouble, often murdered in her visions, and then she'll run to their rescue. Then she'll abandon them again. At one point, she goes to Peru. Man, that was a beat that absolutely didn't need to happen. Cassie's big master plans don't make a ton of sense. And I also get that Cassie looks cool when she lands in water and tall of the ripples in the water form a web around her. But that image is done too many times in this movie. Okay. This next complaint is just a bummer for me and only for me. I really like Ezekiel Sims. It was at a weird time for Spider-Man comics, but I also really liked them mainly because we didn't harp on them for too long. I think that this was during the J.Michael Straczynski period of The Amazing Spider-Man. Ezekiel Sims posited that Peter Parker was always supposed to be Spider-Man. If anything, the radioactivity was a hampering to the true connection that Peter was supposed to have with his spider side. It's a bit silly, but Ezekiel himself was kind of cool. He was a guy who had spider powers and had no desire whatsoever to become a hero. As far as I remember, his interactions with Peter brought out something heroic and self-sacrificing, ultimately leading to his death if I remember properly? It's been a minute. All I know is that this ultimately led into the Morlun storyline and Morlun does the same thing that Doomsday does for me wtih Superman. I like knowing that there's a villain out there that really terrifies the hero. Instead, Ezekiel comes across as a very Sony bad guy. It's a parallel of the villains that we see in both Venom and Morbius. They love rich guys who come into power and want more power. Sure, at least Ezekiel has a quasi-sympathetic reason for becoming a bad guy. His version of spider-sense only lets him see his death. He's going to kill his killers before he gets killed. If Ezekiel wasn't a bad person up to this point --gosh darn it-- he could have been the hero of his own story. But no, he killed Cassie's mom and he keeps making morally bankrupt choices, making it cool to hate him. But, give the movie some points. I do kind of like the scary evil Spider-Man that this movie created. While not nearly as impressive as Brightburn with Superman, there are some notes that absolutely work for the character. But the problems even with this portrayal is that Ezekiel's powers are mostly undefined. He seems very Spider-Manny throughout the movie, but he can also Kylo Ren himself to Cassie for some reason? Also, if he has spider-sense, it's all over the place because he gets hit with a lot of cars in this movie from behind. Honestly, you pull the superhero tropes out, and a lot of the movie is okay. It's a salvagable movie. But I also think that people really want to hate this movie. There have been some abysmal movies out there that might be worthy of such hatred. Like, that last Fantastic 4 movie was pretty rough. We just love hating things that aren't perfect today. I think it's fair to complain about this movie. But to say that it is one of the worst movies ever? That's a bit much. It's, at best, incredibly forgettable. Stop enjoying your dislike of things so much. |
Film is great. It can challenge us. It can entertain us. It can puzzle us. It can awaken us.
AuthorMr. H has watched an upsetting amount of movies. They bring him a level of joy that few things have achieved. Archives
February 2025
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