Madame Web: A disgrace to filmmaking

By James Burkhalter

Picture of Madame Web Movies poster taken by Kennedy Schlotthauer

Since Marvel studios was officially created in 2012, there have been 52 released Marvel films. I have watched every single one of them and have strong opinions on each one. I have enjoyed quite a lot of Marvel movies and disliked a few, but Madame Web is not only the worst Marvel movie I have seen but may be the worst superhero movie I have ever seen. When a superhero movie has a lackluster story, I can always comfort myself with mindless action and cheesy comedy, but Madame Web rarely gives me that solace. I did laugh at Madame Web a few times but almost never at the jokes. 

There were a few big issues with Madame Web: the production value and writing were most at fault, both influencing the final big issue, the performance.

The Production Value

Madame Web had an estimated budget of 80 million, which should have given the film plenty of resources for digital graphics. However, CGI did not seem to be the production team’s priority. The CGI in Madame Web tended to be sloppy and choppy, leaning more towards a middle schooler’s attempt at stop motion rather than a feature film. Not only was their CGI appalling, but Madame Web’s audio mixing was exceptionally mishandled. A character in the movie had many lines that were dubbed in post that did not sync with his mouth to any degree. In a scene in which the dubbed character was sprinting, the voice actor sounded as if relaxing in a lawn chair. This issue would be much more prominent if not overshadowed by the notion that nothing these characters have to say has any real value due to the fact that, for the lack of a better term, the script for Madame Web is garbage.

The Writing

Madame Web was written primarily by Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama, known for their work on Gods of Egypt and Power Rangers, both exceedingly mediocre films. Sharpless and Sazama also wrote another movie, one of the most critically derided movies of 2022—Morbius. The writers of the worst-received Sony Spiderman movie were given the opportunity to write yet another Spiderman movie. It is possible that the casting directors at Sony studios believed that Sharpless and Sazama had learned something from the failure of Morbius, that they’d learned what it meant to craft a great script—they had not. The script is filled with dry jokes, trite references and over-expository lines that sound AI-generated. While the writing is often lazy and contrived, there is nothing more lazy in this movie than the actors.

The Performance

Madame Web is riddled with immensely talented actors which directly contradicts the characters feeling so flat and uninspired. Every deadpan joke looked as if it physically pained them as they said it. When interviewed about the progress or thoughts on the movie, the cast was either oblivious or so uninterested that it looked like the interviewers picked up random strangers on the sidewalk to talk about a movie they had never seen. Dakota Johnson, the lead actress in the film, fired her team of agents following Madame Web. 

When hosting SNL, Sydney Sweeney, who played Julia Carpenter, said this in her opening monologue. “You might have seen me in Anyone but You or Euphoria…You definitely did not see me in Madame Web.”

Madame Web is not a great movie. The producers, the writers and the actors don’t care about this movie, which means that the audience can’t either. There is no love in this film, which leaves a bland mess that attempts to be passed off as a movie. There’s no longer any doubt in my mind: Madame Web is the worst superhero movie I have ever seen.