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by Blender Dumbass

Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".

Having a sort of a cyber-crush on Isabela Merced to the point I watched her Dora the Explorer movie made me okay with putting one of the most hated movies of 2024, S. J. Clarkson's Madame Web. One more interesting thing is that me and my girlfriend ( who is okay with me having a crush on Merced ) were discussing the American Eagle commercials and how maybe she ( my girlfriend ) looks a bit like Sydney Sweeney which also appears in this film. So I had two very strange reasons to give this movie a try. And I think this movie had potential.

Clarkson's direction in the movie is showing that she tried to make this work. She uses interesting shots, cool camera moves and overall does some rather cool stuff. Her action sensitives are not there yet, she isn't too good at this yet, but I can see how she can grow from this into a descent action film-maker.

The main issue ( beside the fact that the movie is forced in a very awkward way into the Spiderman universe ) is the script. It has interesting moments in it. It has some intriguing things. It has one excellent moment of tension, that Clarkson actually made into a nice scene that made me invested for once. But other than that, in a lot of it, the script is the worst part of the film.

For example, the end of the film's climax is sort of kind of maybe possibly fun, instead of being actually clever and interesting. Spielberg did a conceptually similar scene in Minority Report, but there we as the audience shared the surprises of Tom Cruise. In both scenes there is a character that can see the future ( here it is Madame Web herself played by Dakota Johnson ) that uses her ability to her advantage in a tense situation. In Minority Report that is what that is. She knows the future but we and Cruise's character don't. So when she says to do something that seems to be random, but turns out to be essential, it is rewarding. In Madame Web the entire plan is spoiled to us in the very beginning of the scene by her vision sequence. Therefor diminishing any of the effects from the whole scene.

The dialogue is good only in one scene where Madame Web talks to Uncle Ben ( yes that Uncle Ben ) played by Adam Scott in the very beginning as they eat meals. Everything else is written like shit. Sometimes it is close to working, but other times you just cringe and ask yourself why they just didn't cut the line. Because the line is even unnecessary to begin with.

And it seems like there was a lot in that movie that was fixed ( badly ) in post. A lot of the lines of the bad guy ( Tahar Rahim ) were dubbed over in post ( probably because the comity was fiddling with the plot deep into post-production ). Some of it is edited badly to hide his face while he is talking. Some of it was dubbed over a shot of him talking. Some even has both takes ( the real audio and the over-dubbed audio ) used in the same shot.

It feels like the movie is trying to be a lot better in the beginning. But then Madame Web meets the 3 teenage girls, Merced, Sweeney and Celeste O'Connor and the stupidity of everything made up in the script is so gargantuan that S. J. Clarkson just gives up on the film, and simply wants to finish the scene as fast as possible. It is even more evident in that scene where our protagonist dumps those 3 girls in the woods ( which you probably knew about from the memes ). The staging is so stiff in that scene that for a second it seems like it was directed by somebody else. Somebody who doesn't care. Clarkson's staging in the beginning of the film is way more interesting. You don't feel like you can see the marks on the ground, where the actors should stand. But in that woods scene you can definitely feel those marks.

Yet then the movie goes into the diner scene, which has some compelling suspense and Clarkson for a moment starts to believe in the project again. Until of course the scene ends, and then it becomes a job she hates again.

I do believe if all this Spiderman bullshit was removed, there is a draft of this script that could be written, to make this movie into something good. It has nice things in it. The surveillance stuff. Good points. Too bad those points were done in this movie. There are ways you can play with it to make it actually work. For example you could make this movie be from a perspective of one of the girls. That would make it so you don't really understand what is going on. And therefor it would feel interesting. Especially in the scenes where Madame Web sees the future. Stuff like that.

The direction of the film was interesting ( in those scene where Clarkson felt that it might work ). The story was somewhat promising. There is a good movie somewhere in this mess. It feel like at one point it had potential. But that potential was not realized.

Happy Hacking!!!

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