Ever since Sony bought the rights for Spider-Man in 1999 for a reported $7 million, they’ve been hellbent on whoring out their cash cow of a web-slinger and any tangentially-related characters to replicate the MCU. After three reboots, Sony seems to have settled on a Spider-Man that can stay with the series for the foreseeable future, and from that, spin-offs and off-shoots have been extrapolated to add more depth to their fledgling Spider-Man universe.
Remarkably, the same studio able to produce the highly acclaimed Spider-Verse films can simultaneously trot out sloppily constructed movies like Venom (2018) and Morbius (2022) that cheapen the property and devalue the lore of characters. Their partial successes (at least the Venom films were financially successful) have validated Tom Rothman’s insistence on pumping out supporting characters into half-baked attempts of asinine films. (This is the same Rothman that refused to green-light Deadpool (2016) when he ran Fox.) If that sounds callous, then look no further than the latest cinematic eyesore of Madame Web (2024), a film whose sole purpose is to set up a new slate of heroes for Sony to continue its cosmically humorous codependent relationship with the most successful I.P. in their arsenal.
Speaking of Morbius, it’s reassuring that the same screenwriting duo behind the Jared Leto faux-meme—Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless—be tasked with developing not just Dakota Johnson’s Casandra Webb, but a trio of mini-female webslingers. Yet, when you add additional writing duties to Claire Parker and S. J. Clarkson (also marking her directorial debut), Madame Web screams more as a confluence of studio-mandated development to wring out as much money as possible from audiences.
Johnson plays Cassandra Webb, an overworked and emotionally cold EMT, working alongside her co-worker, Ben Parker (Adam Scott in a thankless role meant to nudge the audience that Spider-Man is part of this universe). To illustrate how Cassandra is not a people-person we get treated to a scene of her refusing a drawing from a little girl after saving a family member. She can’t be all bad; she just puts up a tough exterior to hide the hidden pain of not having a family, since she grew up without any parents. The bare-bones screenplay does nothing but reduce Cassandra to a cliche without nuance or depth befitting Johnson’s immense capabilities as an actress.
There’s only so much life Johnson can inject into this hack script that soon leads her to discover she has untapped powers hidden in her brain that allow her to see into the future–only when it’s convenient to the plot. These clairvoyant powers become jarring as her visions interrupt the film with loud sound effects as the images sputter and cut intermittently to unfocused action and fight scenes. Eventually, she encounters three young women: Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney), Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor), and Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), who have no ties to one another, except through contrived plot conveniences, as Cassandra sees their deaths at the hands of Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), a maniacally-evil black-suited spider-man that sees his death by these three women as super-powered Spider-Women. Cassandra finds herself as a defacto babysitter, protecting these girls from danger while uncovering why she has these visions, who she is, and how Sims fits into her web.
The best part of this two-hour run time is the camera’s focus on Johnson’s exasperated look of confusion and frustration. Is it the frustration that she has to learn to like these combative women who won’t listen to her directions? Is it the irritated look of an actress of Johnson’s talent that she has to utter some of the most uninspired lines of dialogue that feel clunky and lifeless? Or perhaps the look is of confusion of a movie so lost in its footing that Johnson is looking for a direction? Any direction. A lifeline to help her make sense of the underdeveloped script that has her traveling to Peru to discover her mother gave birth with the help of a mythic society of spider people that gain their powers from a powerful spider.
Her mother, Constance (Kerry Bishé), traveled to the Amazon jungle with Sims thirty years ago in search of this unique spider. It’s here that Sims shoots Constance and steals the sacred spider for his gain, leaving Constance enough life (with the help of some special venom) to give birth to Cassandra before dying. All of this is showcased in the film’s prologue and punctuated to a cheesy effect as Cassandra has a spiritual reckoning by seeing her mother’s past.
All the while, Johnson looks as if she’s processing this expository backstory while letting it fly over her head. It’s almost criminal how much Johnson is reduced to a mannequin, exuding slightly more charm and personality than the thinly-written villain. Rahim gets the worst treatment, playing a villain where most of his dialogue doesn’t match his mouth movements. Perhaps his original line readings were much worse than the final result? Nonetheless, the ADR becomes so laughable that the stakes feel ineffectual. Rahim has proven himself to be far more talented in The Mauritanian (2021), but his efforts here feel miserable, as his post-production line readings fall flat without any conviction.
As for the trio of spider-women? They’re damsels in distress whenever the plot needs them to be, cloying and trying to break down the cold wall in Cassandra and stand in for their brief teases as superhero crime-fighting figures. (These moments exist as flashforwards for future movies, no doubt). Their dynamics are limited to antagonizing each other due to their one-dimensional characteristics. Julia is a shy, unassuming girl who avoids conflict; Anya is a bookworm; Mattie is the child of rich parents and is careless in behavior and sense of self-preservation. They’re not characters; they’re empty spaces for potential future movies to fill. They are probably being storyboarded as we speak.
When the film is not pummeling the viewer into submission with the blatant Pepsi product placements, the jittery action scenes lack cohesive clarity and poor-quality CGI that is reminiscent of some of the early 2000s horrendous superhero classics like Catwoman (2004) and Daredevil (2003). The action sequences are choppily edited without any visual coherence, and a climax at a factory filled with digital explosions distracts the viewer from how boring the film is.
In retrospect, there’s a nostalgic appeal to those movies that earnestly tried to be good, yet failed gloriously. There can be an appreciation for how much studios didn’t understand comic books. Madame Web does not have that fortune. In a post-MCU and after several Spider-Man iterations, there’s no excuse for Madame Web to be afforded the unlikeliest hope that it’ll age like fine wine twenty years later. Instead, it’ll dry and shrivel up as the public consciousness quickly forgets it existed.
As if that’s not bad enough, the inclusion of Ben Parker would be annoying if the film didn’t constantly tease the audience of how connected Cassandra and Peter Parker are. It reaches a point where the climax involves Ben and her pregnant sister-in-law, Mary (Emma Roberts), driving to the hospital as her water breaks and the trio of women tag along for the ride while Sims chases them down. There’s an undercurrent of cynicism emanating from the film; Sony seems adamant that their universe will be carelessly constructed with contrived references and characters to appeal to and prod the audience like a child with a set of keys dangled in front of them. It’s blatant pandering bordering on being insulting.
Madame Web is a debasement of a property used and wrung out of all meaning and value. Perhaps the look of open-mouthed puzzlement Johnson exhibits throughout is that of detachment. Through all the worst, cringe-inducing, exposition-laden dialogue and feeble attempts at making any emotional connection to the audience, perhaps the only way to get through a crapshoot like Madame Web is to compartmentalize and go through the motions, lest you find your soul slowly disintegrating at being the face of a colossal waste of time.
Review Courtesy of Amritpal Rai
Feature Image Credit to Sony Pictures Releasing via CNN
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