No, 'Madame Web' Isn't That Bad.

A (very weak) defense of the most mocked superhero movie of 2024.

Photo: Sony Pictures

Yes, Madame Web is a bad movie. I suppose I got you with that headline, didn’t I? But is it the absolute worst movie that came out in 2024? Apparently, that’s what the Golden Raspberry Awards have decided, when they nominated this film alongside Megalopolis, Joker: Folie à Deux, Borderlands, and Reagan. And no, I’m not writing this as a means of saying that it’s my favourite of the bunch (for all its problems, I think Megalopolis is just something I respect for how much it tries to lay ideas that don’t always come together), but I’m writing this as a case that can be made for the very kind of bad movie that Madame Web is.

It’s one thing to see a bad movie and then instinctively think, “this is the worst thing that I’ve ever seen.” But I think that in this age where people have become particularly obsessed with superhero movies to the point that Marvel under Disney have launched a big franchise by making a universe where so many familiar characters came together, everything that Sony’s own Spider-Man universe, built around villains or antiheroes that have existed alongside Spider-Man tried to cash in on that trend. These films never really worked, but they’ve always been the subject of mockery to the point that many people across social media were making memes about whatever it was that Sony had expected these movies to turn into.

And to say the least, the films were all failures in their own specific ways. But I’m very much fascinated by whatever Madame Web wanted to be more than I was Venom or Morbius. I think that all might be because Cassandra Webb never was a character who had her own dedicated comic book series, but there’s still enough lore within these worlds that might have made for something interesting — that’s exactly what Sony’s Spider-Man universe was able to give us with Madame Web but it wasn’t exactly the kind of “fascination” that I think they were heading for.

But that’s also what makes it entertaining to watch in my opinion. Dakota Johnson has been rather open in her own mockery of Madame Web prior to the film’s release, describing the entire production process of making movies amidst heavily overdone greenscreen effects based around studio expectations. And you can tell she didn’t really have enough interest in Marvel to the point that she even failed to name three other Spider-Man movies starring Tom Holland. You can see the short clip right down below:

Really though, if there’s anything else that this clip would be an indicator of, it might be that people’s expectations about the general consensus surrounding superhero movie franchises and their prevalence in the pop culture landscape is actually diminishing. Then again, this is also coming from someone who hasn’t been actively watching Marvel Cinematic Universe movies ever since Avengers: Endgame (and the last one I’ve went out of my way to watch was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3). So even while the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s own hits are coming about, the firm grasp that they have over pop culture just might be loosening.

It’s a good thing, I would say. I think that it’s a good thing, especially when we’re looking at how a certain kind of dedicated superhero movie fan is commonly responding to what they think the Marvel Cinematic Universe would represent alongside whatever made up version of “snobby cinephile” they come up with that reveres straight white auteur filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan. And so Sony ended up giving those people something they wanted; a superhero movie directed by a woman, starring women, co-written by women… and where’s all the fanfare now?

Perhaps that’s also what makes Madame Web a very befuddling presence to me at that. This is a movie that seems to have no idea what it wants to stand for, and you can tell that even the people making this movie were trying to make something else but expectations from the studio based on what’s working in the other Marvel universe would have them instead giving something that’s so lazily stitched together because everyone’s simply going after the brand. And you can tell that’s reflected in the production itself, given the fact that the ADR lip reads don’t even match up for Tahar Rahim’s performance, let alone any of what’s happening in here seems to make a lick of narrative sense.

Frankly, I think that something as nakedly bad as this one would be low-hanging fruit if you’re going to call it the absolute worst movie you’ve seen in some time. Perhaps that might just be because I’ve seen so many bad movies over the years that I felt miserable sitting through, and some of these have even received more positive remarks and I’m in a minority. Others are just bad and I at least found I was having a fun time watching it because you can tell that the people making these movies just simply didn’t care. You’re left wondering “how did this get made?” the whole way through and I think that’s just a more interesting factor to Madame Web in turn.

And if I’m being honest, I laughed more watching Madame Web than I did watching Deadpool & Wolverine. So that might tell you everything you need to know about my tastes.