We start off with an heavily pregnant woman deep in the Peruvian jungle looking for a very rare spider with her pal "Ezekiel" (Tahar Rahim). Guess what? Yep - she finds it, and almost immediately too! Anyway, it turns out that her pal isn't so friendly after all and pretty sharpish she is shot and face up in a pool of healing waters where her baby is being delivered by a jungle people with spidey-skills. Advance twenty-odd years and we meet paramedic "Cassie" (Dakota Johnson) who drives around with her partner "Ben" (Adam Scott), indifferently saving folks from disaster. It's one such disaster, though, that sees her tumbled deep into the river and having to be rescued by her buddy. This trauma appears to trigger something weird. She is getting flash-fronts. She can see the tiniest snippets of the future - and that doesn't usually bode well for anyone, including her! A trip on a train to a funeral proves decisive as three of the other passengers also feature in her dreams - all being the targets of a mysterious lycra-clad tunnel-climber bent on slaughter. Can she rescue them and find out just what's going on? Well possibly, but the story is just thin and the characters so undercooked that I didn't really care. The whole arachnid story line is under-developed to the point that I couldn't see what her skills really had to do with a spider at all. Tahar Rahim seemed uncertain if he was supposed to be "Deadpool" and/or Antonio Banderas and hats have to come off to Celeste O'Connor for playing the entirely obnoxious and attitudinal "Mattie" with quite such aplomb. The denouement is straight out of "Highlander" (1986) and I'm afraid that rather summed this up. Not an original bone in it's small and squidgy body, over-scripted and made for the sake of it. Sure, it's all about team bonding, trust and finding yourself (quite literally), but the readiness with which all concerned buy into this increasingly repetitive and whacky scenario is just daft. Like the whole multi-verse concept, the studios have decided to take super-hero films and flog them to death without worrying about concept, character or a decent story, and though Johnson does try to lift this where she can, it's ends up being something akin to one of those "Superman" television episodes we used to watch with Dean Cain - only with monotonous time-shifting!

Ouch, that average rating! I'm not going to lie though, I genuinely had a fun time watching <em>'Madame Web'</em>... perhaps I should be keeping that fact quiet? I don't know what to say, I found it to be suitably entertaining. I'm sure there are plot holes aplenty (I noticed a few) and it probably makes zero sense/isn't a good adaptation compared to its source material or whatever but honesty... I don't care, it gave me enough enjoyment that I wasn't questioning anything about what I was watching. The cast are probably the key factors as to why I did enjoy this. I previously knew of Dakota Johnson but hadn't actually seen her in anything properly, I found her performance to be more than noteworthy and she spearheads the film strongly. The trio of Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced and Celeste O'Connor are positives too. Tahar Rahim's antagonist, meanwhile, is poorly written and portrayed, though I personally thought the actor did a good job. I have no complaints with anyone who appears onscreen to be honest. Away from them, the pacing and score are also standouts. In my recollection of viewing this, I truthfully haven't got any issues with it. If it wasn't for the slight bad murmurs that I did hear about pre-watch (though not much of it as I avoid as much as I can with movies) and the reaction on sites like this post-watch, I'd not be questioning my thoughts about this whatsoever. As I always say, to each their own. For me, gimme a sequel (as long as the cast remain, mind). Not even sorry.

Is Madame Web the worst superhero movie ever made? Not by a longshot as Superman IV, Batman & Robin and Supergirl would take a front seat in that department. Now the argument can be made it's the worst in the modern era of superhero movies, though personally it's "better" than Suicide Squad but even that one had costumed heroes in it versus MW which only had maybe a few minutes of the ladies in their costumes and even then, it's via future visions. Beyond that, nothing really works. The direction, even with the twisty-turny camera movements felt familiar as I'm pretty sure I've seen it done before but minimally. The performances from everyone was either bland, Dakota Johnson especially, or downright awful (Tahar Rahim), not helped by the stilted and oft atrocious dialogue from no less than four writers, two of which were responsible for Morbius. I didn't hate Madame Web more so that I found it downright dull and boring. There's no reason to watch this and with the terrible box office, the last line of "And you know the best thing about the future? It hasn't happened yet" is pretty poignant. **2.0/5**

## **Madame Web (2024) Review: A Catastrophic Failure on Every Conceivable Level - 1/10** To call *Madame Web* a movie feels like an act of generosity. It is less a narrative film and more a corporate-approved collection of scenes haphazardly stitched together, devoid of soul, coherence, or basic competence. Walking in with zero expectations is no shield; its profound awfulness is so comprehensive it becomes an almost impressive feat of filmmaking malpractice. ### A Symphony of Failure This isn't a film with one or two flaws; it is a masterclass in how to fail at every single element of the cinematic process: * **Casting & Acting:** The casting is baffling, pairing talented actors with a script that gives them nothing but wooden dialogue and motivations that change between scenes. The performances range from visibly bored to wildly over-the-top, with no one seeming to be in the same movie... or even the same dimension. * **Dialogue:** The script is a relentless assault of exposition, clunky one-liners, and lines so unnatural they feel generated by an AI trained on discarded soap opera transcripts. Characters don't converse; they announce plot points and then stop talking. * **Plot & Logic:** The premise is paper-thin, but the plot holes are a canyon. Character motivations are nonsensical, the rules of the titular powers are vague, contradictory, and conveniently forgotten, and the entire story feels like a first draft that was accidentally greenlit. The central conflict is so poorly defined it evaporates upon the slightest scrutiny. * **Direction & Pacing:** The direction is utterly lifeless. Action scenes are poorly choreographed and edited with all the tension of a grocery run. The "climax" is so anticlimactic and the ending so mind-blowingly ridiculous that it doesn't feel like a conclusion, but rather the film simply giving up out of exhaustion. ### The Embarrassment of a "Power" The film's cardinal sin might be its handling of its protagonist's abilities. Madame Web's clairvoyance, a potentially fascinating power, is presented in the most visually and narratively embarrassing way possible. The "visions" are repetitive, lack any sense of urgency, and ultimately render the character a passive observer in her own story. It is a superhero power that manages to be both overpowered and utterly useless, a perfect metaphor for the film itself. ### The Verdict **1/10 - An Unmitigated Disaster** *Madame Web* is not just a bad comic book movie; it is one of the worst films of the modern era. It is a hollow, cynical, and artistically bankrupt product that insults the intelligence of its audience at every turn. The one point it earns is for its sheer, audacious consistency in being terrible across the board. **What was going through their minds?** It is a question with no satisfactory answer. Perhaps it was contractual obligation, a tax write-off, or a desperate attempt to cling to a shred of a fading cinematic universe. Whatever the reason, the result is the same: a piece of irredeemable trash that serves as a stark warning of what happens when filmmaking is stripped of every last shred of passion, skill, and purpose. Do not waste your time. Do not hate-watch it. Simply let it fade into the oblivion it so richly deserves.