Madame Web (2024)

Movie · 2024 · Action, Fantasy · 1h 57m · PG-13 · English

Curator score: 0.1/10 (624.2K ratings)

Her web connects them all.

Overview

Forced to confront revelations about her past, paramedic Cassandra Webb forges a relationship with three young women destined for powerful futures...if they can all survive a deadly present.

Ratings

Director

SJ Clarkson

Production

Columbia Pictures, di Bonaventura Pictures

Cast

Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O'Connor, Tahar Rahim, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, Adam Scott, Kerry Bishé, Zosia Mamet, José María Yázpik, Kathy-Ann Hart, Josh Drennen, Yuma Feldman, Miranda Adekoje, Deirdre McCourt, Naheem Garcia, Jill Hennessy, Rosemary Crimp, Brian Faherty

Where to watch

Disney Plus, fuboTV

Curator Review

Verdict

A spectacularly messy superhero spin-off that plays more like an accidental comedy than a coherent action-fantasy. The film’s weak dialogue, choppy editing, and flat storytelling are so notorious that any entertainment value is mostly ironic rather than intentional.

Best for

  • Viewers who enjoy laughing at big-budget disasters
  • Fans of so-bad-it’s-good movie nights
  • People curious about one of the most infamous studio comic-book misfires

Skip if

  • You want polished action or clear mythology
  • You’re looking for strong performances or character development
  • You dislike clumsy editing, awkward ADR, and incoherent plotting

Overview

Madame Web is the kind of studio superhero movie that seems assembled from fragments rather than designed as a whole. The premise has a pulpy, fate-and-visions hook, but the execution is dominated by stiff dialogue, abrupt cutting, and a sense that every scene is fighting the one before it. It rarely builds momentum as an action film, and it never quite settles into a satisfying fantasy world either.

Worth noting

What lingers is less the story than the experience of watching it collapse in real time. Some viewers may find a strange, camp-adjacent amusement in its earnestness and chaos, but that’s not the same as being good. The movie’s reputation is deserved: it’s memorable mainly as a cautionary example of how expensive superhero filmmaking can still feel amateurish.

Bottom line

If you’re in the mood for a sincere comic-book adventure, there are far better options. If you’re in the mood for a disaster movie you can laugh at with friends, this one has become a minor cult object for exactly that reason. Either way, it’s hard to recommend as a worthwhile watch on its own terms.

Top Letterboxd reviews

Mike Flanagan · 18420 likes

We come to this place… for magic.We come to the theater to laugh, to cry, to care.Because we need that, all of us:that indescribable feeling we get when the lights begin to dim,and we go somewhere we've never been before;not just entertained, but somehow reborn.... together.Dazzling images, on a huge silver screen.Sound that I can feel.Somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place like this.Our heroes feel like the best part of us, and stories feel perfect and powerful. Because here... They are.

adambolt (0.5★) · 18260 likes

I was at the dentist today for an hour and a half with imagine dragons playing in the background the whole time and I can’t believe that wasn’t the most painful experience I had today

zoë rose bryant · 14572 likes

the editing in this is enough to kill a small victorian child

James (Schaffrillas) (1★) · 13560 likes

When she taught them CPR I was like "Man I hope they use CPR on her in the final battle" and then THEY DID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Poetic cinema

David Sims (1★) · 11877 likes

every line reading feels like it's on a Zoom delay

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Topics

superhero, fantasy, action, camp, misfire, precognition, ensemble, studio blockbuster, so-bad-its-good, 2000s-style comic-book energy

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