“Madame Web,” the newest film in the Sony-Marvel cinematic universe, is a waste of your time. If you want to have a better time, take the $9 you would spend on a ticket, set it on fire and watch it burn.

With a budget of $80 million, “Madame Web” is an insult to the craft of filmmaking. It relies on flashy, overblown special effects to cover its terribly written, lackluster story. This film is the cinematic equivalent of jingling a set of keys in front of an infant – it’s shiny but has little else of value or consequence.  

The film’s plot is as confusing and convoluted as the titular character’s superpowers, neither of which are properly explained in the film. Though Madame Web can see into the future, it is never fully explained why she can do this. Her mother was bitten by a magic spider while pregnant and somehow that gives Madame Web the ability to see into the future.  

The villain, Ezekiel Sims, has similar powers to the titular hero but even less is explained about how he got his powers, other than that he stole one of the aforementioned magic spiders from Peru. 

Sims’s desire to kill three teenage girls he envisions will one day grow up to kill him with spider abilities of their own drives the plot. Meanwhile, Madame Web tries to protect the girls with her clairvoyance. 

How the girls become superheroes is never mentioned or hinted at in the film. It’s assumed the girls’ abilities will be revealed in a future sequel, but because of this, the film comes off as a messy, convoluted advertisement for upcoming films, instead of existing on its own merit.

The film tries to set up a found family-type trope between Madame Web and the three girls, but the one-sidedness of the characters means any emotional connections fall flat. Instead of trying to build up the characters’ bonds through personal growth or change, the film attempts to force an emotional connection by throwing all of their tragic backstories at the viewer, hoping one will stick.

The film’s writing is clunky and rife with cheesy one-liners, meant to supply some vague sense of comic relief that rarely lands properly. Most of the characters are given one or two personality traits and then never expanded on. This gives the film the feeling of watching someone drag cardboard cutouts across a screen for two hours.  

“Madame Web” ultimately represents the hollow cynicism plaguing comic book movies as of late. Its bloated budget, terrible writing and overblown reliance on visual effects combine to make a film much less than the sum of its parts. However, there was a cat in the film, so that automatically gives it one additional point. 

Final Score: 2/10

Categories: Arts & Entertainment