Madame Web is the first superhero film to debut in 2024 and it is religiously keeping up the downfall of the superhero genre. If Sony’s universe of spider-man villains wasn’t a joke already then it has certainly become one now. Ever since its inception, the studio has followed the same principle – take famous spider-man villains and make lackluster movies around them with A-list celebrities. As Morbius wasn’t enough, Sony’s latest victim to fall prey to their ambition of finally creating a successful Spider-Man franchise is S. J. Clarkson directorial. Well, to no one’s surprise, Madame Web has debuted to horrible critical reviews. If you care about the film enough, then read the reviews below.
Madame Web Reviews Are Horrible!
At the time of writing, Madame Web has accumulated 17% Rotten Tomatoes score from 87 reviews (no audience score available). This rating is only slightly better than 2022’s abomination Morbius. These two films can easily end up being the worst rated films of the Sony universe. However, there is still a chance that this RT score might improve when the film opens up to the audience.
Jake Cole (Slant Magazine) – “Madame Web grinds to a halt as it gets bogged down in scene after scene of characters, both good and bad, standing around explaining their backgrounds, hang-ups, and desires.” Original Score: .5/4 |
Benjamin Lee (Guardian) – “There is something sickly compelling about how disjointed and thoroughly incompetent Madame Web is, less as so-bad-its-fun Midnight Movie and more studio film-making in the 2020s at its very worst case study.” Original Score: 1/5
Mick LaSalle (San Francisco Chronicle) – “For much of “Madame Web,” even when it turns bad, it’s a pleasure to see Johnson in this kind of movie.” Original Score: 2.5/4
Tim Grierson (Screen International) – “Madame Web argues that no one’s future is written, but it is very easy to see exactly where this film is going.”
Katie Walsh (Tribune News Service) – “Is “Madame Web” a good movie? No. Is it hilariously delightful? Often.” Original Score: 2/4
Nell Minow (Movie Mom) – “If you could see ahead like Madame Web, you might fix your future by waiting to see this on streaming.” Original Score: B-
Odie Henderson (Boston Globe) – “Oddly enough, the most fascinating thing about this movie is its Pepsi product placement. Original Score: 1.5/5
Manuel Betancourt (AV Club) – “Madame Web is a laughable affair. Intentionally so, at times. But for much of its two-hour runtime, the laughs come at the expense of the arguably capable work being put in by its charming lead.” Original Score: D
Kristy Puchko (Mashable) – “Madame Web is burdened by too many threads and not enough fun. Still, it could be worse. It could be Morbius.”
Valerie Complex (Deadline Hollywood Daily) – “Madame Web embodies the pitfalls of mainstream superhero cinema: films not driven by story and character but seemingly by studio mandates, and franchise considerations.”
Michael Phillips (Chicago Tribune) – “Nobody in this movie pops, or crackles, or snaps, or finds ways to energize the blah blah. The action’s not much; the acting’s minimalist bordering on somnambulant.” Original Score: 1.5/4
Lindsey Bahr (Associated Press) – “It’s too bad because there could have been a more fun movie in here — Clarkson imbues it with a distinctly feminine and teenage energy that makes good use of its soundtrack. But it spins itself into a knot trying to justify a silly story instead.” Original Score: 1.5/4
Alonso Duralde (The Film Verdict) – “Isn’t going to reverse the ongoing decline of superhero cinema, but unlike some of its notable contemporaries, it’s strong enough to make its intended sequels feel like promises rather than threats.”
Christy Lemire (RogerEbert.com) – ““Madame Web” is not the unmitigated disaster that its clunky trailer or its calendar spot in February would suggest.” Original Score: 2.5/4
Kimberley Jones (Austin Chronicle) – “A car crash would be more interesting. Madame Web is a fender bender — nothing calamitous, just a time suck. An annoyance. A waste.” Original Score: 1.5/5
Lex Briscuso (TheWrap) – “Not only is the latest addition to the Marvel canon lacking a true emotional core, it’s devoid of many key elements that make a movie successful in the translation from the screen to the audience’s psyche.”
David Fear (Rolling Stone) – “It is the Cats: The Movie of superhero movies. Not a single decision seems of sound mind. Not a single performance feels in sync with the material.”
Barry Hertz (Globe and Mail) – “Today, I owe Morbius an apology, because it turned out that Sony Pictures just needed a little more time and a whole lot of misplaced confidence to make an even worse Spidey spinoff, the astoundingly abysmal Madame Web.”
Richard Lawson (Vanity Fair) – “Mostly, the movie is a Pepsi ad strangely populated by performances turned to low volume. Johnson, so likable in fare as varied as 50 Shades of Grey and Suspiria, is a minimalist performer. Her casting here is an unfortunate mistake.”
Brian Lowry (CNN.com) – “Madame Web might have sounded like an interesting experiment, and it sort of is, but the execution feels less like a fully realized film than an extended prologue for a movie to come.”
Madame Web stars Dakota Johnson, as well as fellow co-stars Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, Isabela Merced, Tahar Rahim, Emma Roberts and most recently Severance’s star Adam Scott. The film is to be directed by S.J. Clarkson and the screenplay of the film is written by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, with a previous draft having been penned by Kerem Sanga.
The film is slated to release on 16th February 2024.
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