When Madame Web was released in cinemas in February 2024, the film became the subject of countless online articles. But cut through some of the publicity and the PR spin, and the majority of these stories were negative pieces or unflattering film reviews, which painted Madame Web in a bad or poor light.
And due to the sheer number of negative articles connected to Madame Web, the conversation surrounding the film was not good. Few people were praising the picture, and a great deal were pulling it down.
The film also began to trend on social media, where it became the source of many jovial posts and countless memes. Even online users who hadn’t watched Madame Web were aware of its status as a bad movie and it took on a certain level of notoriety.
But is Madame Web’s status as a ‘terrible’ movie fair? And more importantly, why is Madame Web considered a bad movie?
Madame Web is considered a bad movie due to various factors, including poor reviews, disappointing box-office returns, bad word of mouth, and an underwhelming publicity campaign. The film is also part of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe – a cinematic universe which has been critically derided and includes films such as Venom (2018) and Morbius (2022).
In terms of poor reviews, when it was released Madame Web had many unflattering write-ups attached to its name. A number of the leading film entertainment news platforms provided critical reviews of Madame Web, including Empire, The Guardian, and The Hollywood Reporter, and these made it clear the film was far from a masterpiece.
Some of the reviewers were harsh, but fair, while others were very critical of the picture. This also extended to YouTubers and online ‘pundits’ who discussed Madame Web at great length and who picked it apart at their leisure.
As is the case with bad reviews, once a few begin to pile up, the algorithm starts to churn them out and spread them everywhere. This in turn resulted in people seeing lots of negativity surrounding the movie, and for a few weeks it became inescapable.
Of course, this doesn’t excuse the fact the movie received bad reviews in the first place, but it does paint a picture of the reaction to the film. To get an understanding of the critical response to Madame Web, you only need to look at the likes of IMDb where it currently has a rating of 3.8/10 or Rotten Tomatoes where it has a critical rating of just 12%.
The reviews were accompanied by bad word of mouth from those who had seen the film (along with those jumping on the band wagon), and this made things even worse. The publicity campaign also didn’t help, as it didn’t make the film seem like ‘must-see’ entertainment.
The preview trailers for Madame Web were filled with clichéd (or simply bad) dialogue, while press interviews were fairly uninspiring, and promotional material including posters and banners were also lacklustre. It’s fair to say that audiences were also left a bit confused about the movie itself.
Was Madame Web an entry in the MCU? Was it a Marvel movie that exists outside of the MCU? Is Spider-Man in it? These were all common questions which audiences had for the five minutes they cared about seeing the film.
And of course, outside of all these issues, there was the movie itself which simply wasn’t great. Madame Web offered up little to excite audiences, the villain was one-note, and the best way to describe it was ‘dull’.
All of the above came together in harmonious union to make it clear to audiences that Madame Web was a bad movie. And due to the number of conversations surrounding the film, it elevated Madame Web to the position of ‘one of the worst films of 2024’ and it struggled to make money at the box-office.
But is Madame Web‘s status as a bad movie fair? Well, yes, it is fair, but the film didn’t deserve all of the hate it received.
To be clear, Madame Web is not a good movie – this isn’t in question – but is it, as some people say, the worst comic book movie of all time? Well, no, there are comic book movies which are worse than Madame Web.
Morbius is worse than Madame Web, as is Steel (1997), Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (1998), Catwoman (2004), Elektra (2005), Man-Thing (2005), The Spirit (2008), Jonah Hex (2010), and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011), amongst others. These are all terrible films and some of them (The Spirit in particular) are far, far worse than Madame Web.
Of course, movies are subjective, and what one person likes the next dislikes, and vice-versa, but go and watch those movies and compare them with Madame Web and you’ll see they are abysmal. While Madame Web is bad, it is marginally better than some of the other dross that has been served up.
But whether you like Madame Web, dislike Madame Web, or fall somewhere in between, in 2024 the film hit a high level of notoriety which some would argue it possibly didn’t quite deserve. Yes, it was a poor film, and there are reasons as to why everyone thinks it is a bad movie, but it’s not the worst – it’s simply not very good.
__
Thank you for stopping by Don’t Tell Harry to read this post about Madame Web. For more posts, be sure to check out the recommended reads below.
Alex is the editor and writer of Don’t Tell Harry – a blog which specialises in all things related to Spider-Man and Marvel Comics. After graduating with a degree in film & television studies, Alex studied journalism, before acquiring NCTJ accreditation. Prior to creating Don’t Tell Harry, Alex was a magazine editor, a senior copywriter, and a freelance writer. He is now, and always has been, a Spider-Man fan!
Don't Tell Harry 
One Response to Why is Madame Web considered a bad movie?
I have yet to watch it personally, and i’m against it. and have been since it was confirmeds to have Andrew Garfield Spider-man. Yet they scrapped that idea. I feel like the movie would have been better with him and it sounds like they didn’t properly do madame webb justice as shes very important in the Spidey-Verse.
LikeLike