After the incomparable success of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse on every conceivable level, Sony Pictures decided to dig deeper into the Spider-Verse, this time pulling out a character that most mainstream moviegoers know little about and make her the focus of their next big motion picture. So, instead of a movie about Hobie Brown, Spider-Byte, or even Spider-Rex, we got Madame Web.
Set in 2003, the pic stars Dakota Johnson as Cassandra “Cassie” Webb, a paramedic who due to an in-utero spider bite, develops precognition abilities, along with deadpan delivery and extreme sarcasm, the dominant trait of most Spider-folks. Back in 1973, Cassie’s mother was double-crossed by security guard Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) who fatally wounded the pregnant scientist in Peru to steal her spider specimen. In an attempt to save her, a native Spider-Clan allowed their magic arachnids to bite the pregnant woman, but only the child survived. Thirty years later, Cassie’s dormant powers bubble up to the surface, just when Sims decides it’s time to kill a trio of teens (Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O’Connor) who will eventually become a Spider-Woman and stop him from miscellaneous bad acts. Cassie becomes a reluctant hero and she uses her new abilities to save the girls.
In case you missed it the first time: we could have gotten a movie about Spider-Rex, the dinosaur version of Spider-Man, but instead we got this.
Directed by S.J. Clarkson and written by a group of people who are probably very nice at parties, Madame Web feels like an off-brand Spider-Man story, like the knock-off movies marketed next to blockbusters to confuse heavily stoned consumers who can’t tell the difference between Transformers and Transmorphers. The narrative is an unexpected challenge due to the strange, stunted dialogue and the jumble of disjointed storylines that make little sense. Little logical thought went into the thought process of any of the characters or their story. Wanted for kidnapping but still need to travel abroad? Just after 9/11? No problem. A patient tells a doctor she is having strange visions? The solution: watch old movies. It also doesn’t help that the people who populate this planet don’t act or speak in any realistic manner. The entire movie plays out like the background of a well-made, open-world video game.
As for the characters, only Cassie and her buddy Ben (Adam Scott) are somewhat fleshed out, while no one else receives any type of character development beyond what the film requires for a specific scene or moment. Everyone either needs to be saved, or they are the villain. Or they are Ben. Other than that, they are filler.
Johnson and her Spider-Stans do a decent enough job and are committed to the material, but Rahim as Sims is one of the worst screen villains in the last few years, which is saying quite a bit considering we were just subjected to MODOK in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Dar-Benn in The Marvels, and Atticus Noble in Rebel Moon. Sims is a third-rate Saturday morning bad guy straight from The Wacky Races who literally screams “Where are my spiders?” while waking up in a cold sweat.
Madame Web is a tangled web of incoherent and abandoned storylines written with little regard towards the characters, the plot, or the final product. For some reason, Sony seems determined to destroy one of the last-standing Marvel franchises that people seem to be enjoying at this point. While Dakota Johnson is fine in the role, both she and the character deserve better than what was served, which was a mish-mash of half-baked ideas that were barely fit for consumption.
Oh, and also: “Toxic” came out in January 2004. Not 2003.
The post Review: ‘Madame Web’ – Web Of Sighs appeared first on The Village Voice.
R.C. Baker
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