“Madame Web” is a thriller/superhero movie in Sony’s Spider-Man spinoff universe and it’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen in theaters. I’m not saying I didn’t get a kick out of it, but it was enjoyable in the wrong way. I was laughing the whole time, and this movie is supposed to be a thriller. Here’s what went wrong with “Madame Web.”

SPOILER WARNING: Writing below may contain movie spoilers.

The Madame Web trailer and marketing made one thing clear: really cool suited-up spider women would appear. They did. In the worst way possible, the shortest way possible and completely different from what they led us to believe. In the most bizarre shot fight scene I have ever seen, the spider women and the villain do not fight in the final battle as shown in the trailer, they show up in a dream. Well, a vision that the villain has. They also briefly show up at the end for another weirdly shot “fight scene.” Anyway, they literally edited the trailer to make the scenes with them look like they’re in the final battle, look more prominent and more long and meaningful when really it’s just flash forwards. They most likely did this to get people in the seats, when instead of false advertising they could’ve made it the final battle. This would not only be better written and cooler, but it would in fact get people in the seats.

To be honest, just making this movie a pre-origin, the origin before the classic getting-powers origin story, of the spider women is just weird. They didn’t get their powers at all in the movie, leaving that for a sequel that will most likely never happen. The main reason people even went to see the movie despite all of the negativity was for them to be in the suits. It would’ve fit better with the story and with everybody and it just confuses me. 

Like I said, I enjoyed this movie. Was it in the way they intended? Not at all. But Ezekiel Sims, the villain, is one of the worst villains in Marvel movie history. I think his  motivation is cool, but the execution is horrible. His motivation is barely even explained and left to the audience for interpretation. So what I think is cool could not even be right. But normally I’m all for the leaving-for-interpretation, but something as big as a whole motivation should have some sort of telling. Also, you can tell that when they were reshooting this film, the whole plot changed and so did his motivation. Almost all his lines were all automated dialogue replacement (ADR). His mouth would be forming words but what was coming out would be completely different. He would also be jumping, flipping or just running around, but his voice would sound like he’s not out of breath or doing those actions. And let’s not forget how he gets defeated by a Pepsi sign. A Pepsi sign falls and defeats the villain. 

Cassandra Webb’s “development” is the funniest thing about this movie. Basically, what the writers were going for was Cassandra, Madame Web, going from being bitter and alone into the somewhat positive caretaker and protector of these three girls. It was executed so badly. The lines that were being said and what was going on were so poorly written it felt like the writers just gave up. Right when Cassandra goes blind and gets paralyzed by a firework and Pepsi sign, that’s when she switches into mom-mode. Not progressively, not even in the middle where it could make a little sense, right at the end of the movie. My friends and I laughed so hard. One called her “Madame A.I.” because she was actually robotic.

If you think Cassandra’s development was bad, at least they tried. The three girls, Julia, Anya and Mattie, have none. They go nowhere. The only thing I can think of is that they all grew more fond of each other. Normally I only go into these kinds of movies for fun and I’m not critical about things like development, but in a superhero movie the superheroes should have some sort of independent development. 

Although I know the movie’s bad, I still enjoyed watching it. In my opinion, I think this will definitely be a classic “so bad it’s good” superhero or even thriller movie in the future. For right now though, it’s far from good.