It’s hard to argue with Nick’s brutal review of Madame Web, in which he ripped apart the film’s lack of polish, terrible performances and Sony’s utterly incoherent approach to cashing in on IP adjacent to Spider-Man in its brand portfolio. Look, Madame Web is a bad film, maybe the worst Sony has produced in its weird Spidey-spinoff experiments. It’s certainly no Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Pretty much every major name in the case has disowned the film, with Dakota Johnson running a mortifying press campaign to distance herself from a film that is worse for the fact she didn’t even try to save it onscreen. Not a good look for anyone.
However, as a lifelong aficionado of all this superhero stuff, I’m still happy to own a copy of Madame Web because its level of awfulness transcends simple badness. We’ve had quite a run of bad superhero movies in the post-pandemic years, with every studio taking a hit, but I’d argue it has more re-watchability than most. It’s not smug like Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam; it’s not confusing and frustrating like Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania; and it is not as obnoxious as Shazam: Fury of the Gods.
Madame Web has just the right level of straightforward terribleness on every level that it feels like a benchmark for the genre. Compared to the other Sony films, well, I’d revisit it before Morbius.
For what it’s worth.
Which ain’t much.
Special Features
- Gag reel
- Easter eggs
- Behind-the-scenes featurettes: Oracle of the Page and Fight Like a Spider
- Deleted scene