‘Madame Web’ Review – What’s One More Spider-Verse Wannabe Stuck In The Past?
JB Augustine
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Madame Web is finally upon us and I know you all have been waiting patiently – don’t worry, I’m just kidding. I know, if anything, you were only waiting on the reviews that are roasting the thing. Since that is all anyone cares about, I don’t think I have to be too concerned with spoilers.
The movie starts in Peru in 1973 where Cassandra Webb’s pregnant mother (Kerry Bishe of Halt and Catch Fire) is researching spiders in a quest to cure diseases – which is so par for the course in this genre, it’s academic. She is accompanied by the ambitious and perspicuously nefarious Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) who betrays her within the span of a few minutes.
Her companions are shot dead and, left to a similar fate, Mama Webb is aided by mysterious strangers with spider powers living in the trees. Unfortunately, they are too late to save her life, but they manage to save her unborn child.
Fast-forward to 2003 for some reason and that child, Cassie (Dakota Johnson), is grown up and working as a paramedic in New York. Her job is eventful but normal all things considered until one day when she discovers she can see the future after nearly drowning. She also has access to the ‘Soul Web’ or ‘web dimension’ which is some kind of Speed Force for Spider-People.
Soon, Cassie’s visions from the “Web” tip her off to Sims’s evil plan to kill three ‘teenaged girls’ (Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O’Connor) before they can become a superteam of Spider-Women that foils his plans and eliminates him permanently in 10 years.
The plot is as convoluted as it sounds – perhaps worse than that depending on your tolerance level. It involves a smattering of characters causals don’t need to be familiar with going in. Safe to say, the movie doesn’t follow the comics at all, not in the least bit.
That is already clear based on the trailer’s giveaway that, instead of a succession of Spider-Women, we’re introduced to these constructs of their inspirations all at once. No character in this movie comes close to their antecedent in the source material, especially not Madame Web herself who is supposed to be elderly.
Ezekiel Sims is the worst case of this maladaptation. For my money, he is the most awful garbage caricature of a villain to come out of a Marvel movie in history, which is saying something when there have been close to 100 by now.
His whole arc is ‘I’m special! I came from nothing. These girls are going to destroy everything I built.’ We don’t see very many indications that Sims is insanely wealthy or why, and his excuse for having powers is practically ‘because of course he does. Why not?’
I honestly didn’t care and neither should you. His archetype or breakdown in the script must read ‘whiny little bitch’ because that’s all he is and he couldn’t die fast enough for my taste. Tahar Rahim might be a good actor but you wouldn’t know it watching him in this.
It’s bad enough he had nothing to work with in his uninteresting wah-wah of a role, but he was sabotaged on top of everything. His dubbing was terrible and you could tell where production was rushed in reshoots and post.
Most of Rahim’s scenes are quick and look sloppy between his stilted, badly dubbed delivery and primitive-looking CGI that is evocative of Doctor Strange in the MCU in a way – except Benedict Cumberbatch had a better team behind him.
Half of Madame Web is dumb popcorn fun; the other half is lazy and careless filmmaking. If you want to see something where you can escape for two hours and not think, maybe you could consider wasting your money.
However, if you are a serious comic fan with a passion for Spider-Man, it will piss you off. This film is such a free and loose adaption of your beloved lore that it’s plain the makers are indifferent to said lore – much like Hollywood was before Iron Man.
I don’t know if it’s Amy Pascal, producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, the film’s writers Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama (who are also the guys behind Morbius), or their corporate bosses at Sony. But whoever has their head stuck 20 years in the past with comic book filmmaking needs an intervention. This is not how you world-build.
NEXT: ‘Night Swim’ Review – Another Horror Film Drowning In Tired Contrivances
Madame Web
PROS
- Dakota Johnson manages to be likable.
- Adam Scott as Uncle Ben, believe it or not, is a highlight.
CONS
- Reshoots and ADR are glaringly obvious.
- Ezekiel Sims is a terrible villain and possibly the worst ever in a Marvel movie.
- Horrible 2000s soundtrack that includes a song that was in Catwoman.
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