Marvel have not been on a hot streak as of late, and apart from the animated Spiderman films, nor has Sony when it comes to their portion of the Marvel property. We have previously had the joys of Morbius and Venom in this series of spinoffs, now joined by the superhero teamup film in Madame Web. SJ Clarkson turns her prestigious TV directing career to film with this action drama starring Dakota Johnson and a pretty good supporting cast of Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’ Connor, Isabella Merced, Emma Roberts and Adam Scott. The star power of the cast is pretty much where the positives end with this film, serving up a forgettable story, cheesy dialogue and an unforgivable villain. It painfully teases a sequel, knowing that the chances anyone is going to put more money into this venture are almost impossible.
Cassie (Dakota Johnson) is a paramedic alongside her partner, Ben (Adam Scott). During one of her rescues, she suffers an accident and briefly dies, before being revived by Ben. This trip to the other side awakens powers that were previously dormant within Cassie. She starts to see the future in recurring snippets of time, little moments playing ahead and then jumping back. While she is initially confused, she soon begins to realise that they can be used for good and saves three teenagers from death as Ezekiel (Tahar Rahim) hunts them down. Ezekiel is having visions of these teenagers coming into his home, all dressed in spiderman adjacent attire and killing him. So he of course hacks into the national security agency with a computer woman to track their faces down and kill them before they can kill him.
In the opening scene of the film, we are introduced to “Las Arañas”. A group of mutant folk who monkey about in the jungles with spider like powers and suits that look like jungle Spiderman. Ezekiel appears to be a part of this crew as he jumps around and crawls on the ceiling. As Cassie only has her gaze into the future powers, and the teens have none, the film is a chase from Ezekiel until they can run no more, facing him in a Pepsi product placement conclusion.
The story is fine, the cast are fine, the film is fine. Nothing about the film is spectacular but I do think those who have shared opinions as it being “the worst comic book movie” are grossly overlooking how bad Morbius or some of the early 2000s films were, like “Elektra”. This film has a similar vibe to Elektra in the way that is painfully stuck in its time period, Elektra in the styling and Madame Web in the design. The film is set in the 2000s and how dare you forget it. It's got hit pop songs from the time every five minutes, wink wink nudge nudge flip phones, blatant product placement and a photoshopped in Beyonce album cover spanning across an entire building.
Apparently the time period was amended in reshoots and the original film was supposed to take place earlier, so they decided to overcompensate and shove every 2000s reference possible, directly into your face. Madame Web also shares its cheesiness with early comic book films, having the most on the nose dialogue and clinically bad villains.
Ezekiel is so bad, Sharon Stone in Catwoman bad. I think every line of dialogue he has is ADR, badly plonked into the film with the weirdest accent to go along with it. His motivations are just to kill some teens so that he doesn’t have to die. We don’t know why they want to kill him, what bad he is doing or how he is in the position he is.
The teen girls all have one personality trait each and barely deviate from it. The only time they’re not talking about their specific thing is when they’re asking Cassie how they’re going to stop Ezekiel.
Cassie is okay, she has some funny moments and has a little bit more depth to her. I get the idea that they were going for with her but my main issue is her relationship with the girls which goes from a pseudo kidnapping, straight to adopted family that she feels responsible for.
Even though the character writing leaves a lot to be desired, I do think everyone (apart from you Tahar Rahim, you had no chance) does a good job with what they were given. I have a bias towards Dakota Johnson, I think she is infinitely likeable in almost everything I have seen her in. Even with that, I think she put in a good, if a little phoned in performance as Cassie. From her press tour, she is clearly not a fan of this film and its quality. I highly doubt she will be making her return to the screen unless the cheque is beyond generous.
The teens have nothing to work with at all and yet do salvage a little bit in their connection to one another, they seem like fast friends and its easy to assume they would have enjoyed working together. I think this comes through in their performances which, again, have absolutely nothing in them.
Quick side point to review the marketing of this film, which feels borderline misleading. It promises an action filled web slinging adventure to sell the appeal to Spiderman fans across the globe. Instead we get a Lucy (2014) spinoff that has mention of spiders and hints of that universe. There has been a trend of not quite honest trailers as of late and I think it does such a disservice to the film, even if its not a quality one. Nothing screams desperation more than a trailer that promotes the least important elements of a film because it has no confidence in the main product.
The look of the film also kind of harkens back to the early 2000s with a harsh colour grade and stylised editing. At times, I think this was a welcome style to the film and then other times, it was coupled with baffling shot choices that had a handheld, almost documentary style to it. The camera would quite often take a moment to reframe slightly, zooming in or out. This style is far from consistent, along with the editing. The film picks and chooses its moments to be a bit more dynamic with its presentation, meaning that every time you do get something different, you are surprised by it and not in a fun way.
Madame Web had promise, with a good cast and a director who is highly regarded, however the four person writing team and multiple reshoots seem to have crushed this film into a release that felt like they did just because they started it and didn’t want to give up. It transports us back to a time when we would get random superhero films with characters nobody really knew just so they could do whatever they wanted. With this freedom, Madame Web drops the ball and delivers a final product that is boring and forgettable, with mid level CGI and one dimensional characters. At least make it a bit camp or sillier if you’re going to go halfway down this style. Catwoman is not a good film but is so much fun to watch because of its blatant dive into the ridiculous. Madame Web keeps itself too grounded and suffers at the cost of it.
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