Madame Web Spins A Lackluster Web
While Madame Web immediately became a meme after its first trailer dropped, I have to admit I was quite intrigued by the premise. A team of Spider-Women comprised of Hollywood’s biggest leading ladies all woven together by a psychic web? Sign me up! Unfortunately, what we get with Madame Web is a lackluster origin story devoid of much action, powers, or sense.
Dakota Johnson stars as Cassandra Web, a loner of a New York City paramedic who finds that “when you take on the responsibility, great power will come,” in a new play on the iconic Spider-Man line. The responsibility? Protecting three young women from a mysterious rival who wants them dead with her newfound clairvoyance. There’s Sydney Sweeney as the meek Julia Cornwall, Isabela Merced as the independent Anya Corazon, and Celeste O’Connor as the rebellious Mattie Franklin. All four of them share the same experience as abandoned women who don’t have real family to rely on. It makes sense that this leads them to become a found family of sorts, but the story lacks the emotional depth needed to be believable. While this quartet seems like a match made in leading lady heaven, the girls are sidelined for most of the film. Cassie is often having them hold tight for three hours in the woods while she runs around trying to figure out what’s going on or disappearing mid film for an impromptu trip to Peru that explains her past. These types of transitions feel lazy and reductive.
Tahar Rahim plays our generic bad guy Ezekiel Sims who strangely sounds as if he’s been dubbed over in every scene. He has no real motivation as a villain other than a vision that the future Spider-Women are going to kill him. We don’t know when or why and it all comes together rather dully. It’s particularly disappointing because the most thrilling moments are when we get to see the girls with their Spider-Women powers, which are only seen in his vision. We never see them use powers in this film, let alone see how they get them.
The film does do a nice job of creatively tapping into Cassie’s visual web of powers, as well as the trendy 2000s. In one scene, she rewrites history by crashing a stolen taxi into a diner in a sequence soundtracked by Britney Spears’ “Toxic.” The most interesting aspect of the film is the minor storyline focused on the Spider-Man universe we all know and love. We meet Uncle Ben (Adam Scott) and his very pregnant sister-in-law Mary (Emma Roberts). There’s hints of Ben dating someone new — future Aunt May anyone? — and Mary goes into labor delivering a healthy baby boy. They don’t come out and say it, but we all know it’s a baby Peter Parker!
The end of the Sony film is a mad dash to connect the film to the character in the Marvel Comics that finds Cassie suddenly blind and paralyzed, giving off a Professor X energy as she welcomes the girls as her metaphorical daughters. It’s so on the nose that it becomes cheesy. That cheap quality is a running thread with most of the film as it is full of moments that are laughably bad or awkward due to the set ups and dialogue.
All in all, Madame Web wastes a strong cast with a half-baked story, weak dialogue, a pointless villain, and no real development of a majority of the characters or their powers. While I would love to see this cast of Spider-Women actually get a chance to shine, this film may be too bland to start a franchise.
Madame Web is playing in movie theaters now.
