Will Donahue ‘24
Chief Copy Editor
The theater was freezing cold. My diet coke tasted like water. The kids in front of me would not stop vaping. So many theater pet peeves piled on top of each other would have ruined most movies, but Madame Web is not like most movies. With this newest outing in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, every quirk, mistake, and disappointment only enhances the viewing experience. As “Dreams” by the Cranberries played over the credits (yes, really), I found myself unsure of whether to burst into applause or laughter. It was truly one of the most unforgettable theater experiences of my lifetime.
To be clear, Madame Web is also bad. It is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. But for all its sins, it never once managed to bore me. I was mesmerized by how every creative choice in this movie – from the acting to the plot to the dialogue – managed to flop as hard as possible. And based on the extensive reshoots and hilariously obvious ADR (seriously, I think every line of the villain’s dialogue was dubbed in post-production), it’s clear that Sony had to cobble together a bunch of mismatched movie parts in a crude Frankenstein-esque fashion. The result? Something resembling a movie.
But what makes Madame Web remarkable to me is the sheer earnestness of it all. Not from the cast or crew, mind you; I don’t think anyone has ever put less effort into a performance than Dakota Johnson did in this movie. But somewhere in the development process, a Sony executive saw a cut of this movie and said yes. Someone thought releasing a movie in this state was a financially sound decision. That’s what makes it all so funny to me; Madame Web feels like a serious, wholehearted attempt from corporations to cash in on the trend of superhero cinematic universes, right as superhero fatigue is starting to settle into the mainstream. And for that, I consider it a camp classic.
I also do not believe director S.J. Clarkson, writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, or any of the (usually talented) cast members are responsible for how Madame Web turned out. I don’t think anyone with an ounce of filmmaking knowledge would have made a movie like this if executives were not forcing their hand at every step. Truthfully, my main takeaway from this catastrophe is that creatives have never had less control in Hollywood than they do now. Instead, we have studio heads without a creative bone in their body racing each other to put out as much “content” as possible. It’s a dire state of things, to be sure. But at least we’re getting some laughable movies out of it.
Copy Edited by Hannah Torrey
Featured Image Courtesy of Glamour UK
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