Review: Madame Webb

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Sorry for the laughter, Madame Webb was one of the worst films if not the worst I've ever seen. That's coming from the guy who's seen Master of Disguise like 30 times. You ever feel the pain of digging through the garbage to try and find something you think you accidentally threw in, digging in further and further, constantly getting gross juices and smells and nothing of worth? That's what this movie is, digging through trash only to find nothing of worth because you forgot your keys in the bathroom. Lucky you, now you dug through trash for no reason. That's this whole movie, a bad experience for literally no purpose. It has no purpose, no grander ideas, just a bad story and bad characters and awful cinematography and awful writing. God, this movie sucks. Anyways, here's my review of Madame Webb.

PLOT: What plot?

This movie literally utilizes incorrectly-done CPR and Pepsi as plot points. This movie has no sensible plot, it just jumps from one bad scene to the next. They legit try and have the main villain here because he's afraid of death. Why? BECAUSE HE SAW IT IN A DREAM! Literally cannot make this up, but the plot kicks off because he saw himself dying in a dream. On top of that, the story involves the most incoherent explanation for Spider-Man (who does not appear here) yet. What is it? MAGIC SPIDER! Magic Spiders are the entire reason for this plot and they are supposed to (again) emphasize how important Spider-Man is without him ever showing up. The film is barely coherent as a movie, even without these elements. It just throws ideas at you without any substance at all.

CHARACTERS: What characters?

Madame Webb is barely a character here. She wants to help the three protagonist girls who barely get any characterization besides being nerdy, rebellious, angsty, or a mix of all three. The only one of the four giving a good performance is Isabela Merced (great actress, by the way!); the rest are all god-awful and not doing anything to save this movie. Dakota Johnson's so bad here, giving a stilted and lifeless performance that barely shows emotion towards her own mother's death. She's meant to be awkward, but the writing is so bad that she just ends up feeling mean for no reason at all. The villain, however, is the worst of it. He's badly acted, yes; badly written, also yes; but he also has the worst ADR I've ever seen. His first scene begins with bad ADR that doesn't even match his lips in the scene. He also has a very distracting Christian Bale thing going on where he's trying to be gruff and edgy, but it just doesn't work. He also has the weakest motivations of any character I've ever seen and is evil for literally just MONEY.

SHOTS: HAHAHA

The shots are so bad, we thought they left a boom mic in the corner of a shot at the beginning. The action is disorienting and uncomfortable. You can barely make out anything in the night scenes. Worst of all, the suits look hilariously awful. They look like suits I just saw at Comic-Con last week. I wish I was joking, but the suits are just... bad. They're also shot in a way that doesn't make them look any better. The CGI is even worse. Dear God, whoever rushed this film into production needs to be fired and thrown out of Hollywood.

SOUND: Not even worth discussing.

Nothing of worth here, move along.

WRITING: What were they smoking?

WHY? Dear God, why? This film not only makes its main characters and villains unlikeable, but it does the jaw-dropping task of making Peter Parker important again. The whole idea of Peter Parker is that he's randomly bit by the spider, he randomly has his uncle die, he randomly becomes Spider-Man, he's just a kid from Queens. ANYONE CAN BE SPIDER-MAN. So, why... why is Sony so obsessed with tying him to that fate? It's the movie's whole purpose: to show that Peter Parker is bound to be Spider-Man. Even the people who save his mom from dying are Spider-People. But, the story's writing does nothing to convince us it's about anything else. Madame Webb has no character arc, neither do any of the other Spider-Women. Heck, the villain at least has a motivation (even if it's awful), but he's the only one. Everyone else is thrown in because of him.

LITTLE THINGS: ...Fine, I liked Adam Scott.

Of all the things I can give a little praise to, Adam Scott did at least a decent job with what he was given. He's trying so hard to make Ben likeable and endearing. He should come back regardless of anything else that happens in the future.

VERDICT: Just... bad. Don't watch it.

Never watch this movie. You'll suffer through two hours of bad shots, bad acting, bad writing, and just overall bad filmmaking. Go watch something worth while. Don't watch it, not even for the funny factor of it being so laughably bad. They don't even say the funny "He was researching spiders in the Amazon with my mom right before she died" thing, it was ONLY in the trailers. Please, I beg of you, DON'T WATCH THIS MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SCORE: 0.5/10, what a waste.