Hey Somethings, PCR here!
So… I recently watched ‘Madam Web’ and… wow do I have thoughts…
For starters, I knew nothing about this character going in. While she first appeared in 1980 in the comics, I didn’t start collecting until later, and when I was into the hobby the deepest, Spider-Man wasn’t much of my weekly pull… so I won’t be talking about things like story arcs or how close they came to the comic portrayal.. this is strictly on the merits of the movie.
It is not good.
I don’t have anything against Dakota Johnson (though, looking through her filmography, I can’t say I’ve seen any of her movies.. but I’m aware of who she is and what she’s done), and.. I’m not sure her acting was really the issue here. The story overall seemed… Meh, the effects of Las Arañas doing their spider-walk stuff felt right out of the Batman TV show of the ’60s, I couldn’t get over the fact that the main villain looked like TEMU Matt Hardy from his “Delete! Delete!” era… but the most annoying part of the movie to me was Julia, Mattie and Anya who’s characters seemed more based on showing off navels and seeing how many times in one scene can they flip personalities and motivations.
The action sequences were filled with frantic jump-cuts, which is usually a terrible sign that none of them were really smooth or cohesive so they had to splice them all together. The way Cassandra’s power first starts getting revealed was jarring and giving me “Vantage Point” flashbacks (an action/thriller that consisted of roughly 39 minutes of footage), and was just… eh? I can see why in the comics she was more of a supporting role but.. what was the point of making a full-blown movie with her as the lead? Sony just doesn’t seem to have a good grasp of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to comic movies and are just looking for properties that are tangential to the MCU to hype, which might not be the best call since the MCU’s glory days are behind them and they’re clearly trying to figure out how to transition into a ‘post Tony/Steve/likely Thor’ world.
Overall, if you want to watch it just to watch it and check it out, make sure you set your expectations to “Morbius” levels and you might be ok…
– PCR
