'Madame Web' Review: Dakota Johnson Can't Save Sony's Latest Pathetic Spider-Man Spin-off
Goddamn it, Sony!
Why couldn't you let your Spider-Verse flicks corner your Spider-Man market without worrying about Disney's interference? No, you're operating on maximum Gretchen Wieners trying to make the fetch happen with your "throw D-tier Spidey shit to the wall" cinematic universe. The latest case in point, Madame Web – following Morbius and Venom – is another “2003 superhero-ass movie." However, this film is *literally* set in 2003. Not that it matters because it's still peak Sony Spidey-shit that makes one want to, say, leave their entire agency over.
PG13: Violence/action and language.
Runtime: 1 Hour and 54 Minutes
Production Companies: Columbia Pictures, Marvel Entertainment, Di Bonaventura Pictures
Distributor: Sony Pictures
Director: S. J. Clarkson
Writers: Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, Claire Parker, S. J. Clarkson
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O'Connor, Isabela Merced, Tahar Rahim, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, Adam Scott
Release Date: February 14, 2024
Exclusively in Theaters
In 2003, an awkward paramedic, Cassie Web (Dakota Johnson), works alongside Ben Parker (Adam Scott), saving lives across NYC. After a near-death experience while on the job, Cassie starts to foresee the future. But those newfound clairvoyant abilities reluctantly propel her to protect three teen girls – timid Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney), rebellious Mattie Franklin (Celeste O'Connor), and straightlaced Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced) – from getting slain by Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), a millionaire with arachnid abilities. Sims also links to Cassie's past, for he killed her mom, Constance (Kerry Bishé), in 1973 while researching spiders in the Peruvian Amazon, where she was born.
Unlike Morbius's sullen lead, Jared Leto, Madame Web's Dakota Johnson attempts to salvage the flat material by bringing her familiar charm to Cassie Web. Web's character is essentially Johnson herself, as they share awkward, sardonic humor and dry wit. Johnson channels her loveable charisma when delivering embarrassing dialogue, looking as lost as the audience experiencing the nonsensical plot. As pathetic as the dialogue is, her rapport with her costars Merced, Sweeney, and O'Connor is slightly entertaining as Web's short-fused patience gets tested. She’s essentially a den mother to these lost girls – ala Gru and his Gorls. Thanks to the writing and unfocused storytelling, they don't have any chemistry, but their screen presence is decent.
At least Madame Web didn't cause me to have an existential crisis like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
Madame Web’s infamously meme-ed line from the trailers, "He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died," is not in the movie. That's not to say Madame Web isn't chock full of laughably bad and embarrassing moments that make you mistrust Sony's film division's current leadership.
But this is no laughing matter because Madame Web makes you question its existence and your own for even watching it. I had numerous questions, starting with why the studio hired the same tacky writers of Morbius – Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless – for this! If you see their names attached to anything, run in the opposite direction. They are only two of four writers, including Claire Parker and director S. J. Clarkson. Altogether, they formulate a dull, incoherent narrative stripped from Heroes and Terminator in a severely worse fashion. Four writers, yet the dialogue arrives like a middle-schooler's first stab at penning a script. The characters (especially Sims) speak like robots engaging in forced back-and-forths that never come across as natural conversations. Still, somebody at Sony said, "Fuck revisions. We have a deadline. Let's put this out."
From the moment Cassie obtains her psychic powers, the writers and S.J. Clarkson actively refrain from mining any stimulating features in Web's ability. Cassie's greatest strength is operating on four-star Grand Theft Auto mode by hijacking cars and hitting Ezekiel Sims with them. Yes, it's as stupid as it sounds; the movie is chock full of superhero trope decisions done mindlessly. Part of that stupidity comes with its 2003 setting, which the writers are hellbent on referencing in a way an alien who doesn't know about human culture does. This includes terrible ADR-led lines referencing American Idol or an odd Britney Spears “Toxic” needle drop where a radio host remarks, "This song is going to be huge!" Besides using its setting as its sole personality, the writers try to make it seem like Google exists and have the characters go to absurd lengths that heighten the plot's foolishness.
For starters, Sims, who has never used the Spider-abilities he has had since 1973, decides he must obtain surveillance on the trio he's hunting down. So he goes to an opera performance where he seduces a random woman. After coitus and night terrors of exposition with his foreseen future, where he sees his demise done by the trio, he references her line of work, that being the NSA. Right as she reaches for her gun in her handbag next to her badge (things you'd carry to an Opera with you in a post 9/11 world) Sims uses his venom hand powers on her, forcing her to give him the code to the NSA's security system so his personal technician person (Zosia Mamet) can access it from the comfort of his house.
Silly as it may be, it's not as hilariously dumb as Web traveling to Peru on a whim. Please don't ask how she can afford an impromptu Peruvian trip on an EMT salary; the movie doesn't explain that or any of the dumb decisions the characters make.
Madame Web’s greatest sin is – surprise surprise! – its forced connection with Spider-Man. Hey, Peter Parker is in this movie. Spoiler! But not really because he’s just a fetus in May Parker (Emma Roberts), whom Web and the trio befriend via Ben. And I shit you not, a team of execs approved of having the birth of Peter Parker be essential to the plot.
In typical Sony fashion, Madame Web is another tangled mess of a "throw D-tier Spidey shit to the wall" spin-off so blatantly pathetic, it makes someone want to go back in time and give the execs who keep commissioning these damn movies arachnophobia.
Can’t wait to do this again with Kraven the Hunter soon. Fuck me.
Rating: 1.5/5 | 32%
