MADAME WEB: An Itsy Bitsy Dud

It is fitting that the story of Madame Web takes place in the mid-2000s. There was a time when superhero films were still finding their place among blockbusters. Some rose with grit (Batman Begins), some stumbled to continue (X-Men: The Last Stand), and some found a good balance of seriousness and camp (Spider-Man 2). But then there were films like Elektra and Fantastic Four that struggled to fit the comic books for the big screen.

Now, we have arrived at Madame Web, the latest entry in Sony’s Spider-Man universe without a Spider-Man. It has all the stumbling nature of a mid-2000s superhero movie with all the same scattershot problems as Sony’s recent Morbius. It’s a perfect storm of a film that is too incoherent to be watchable and too bland to be campily entertaining. It’s not a good sign that I find myself more fascinated with the hair and fashion of the characters than anything they did in this film.

A Spoiled Origin

A critical error in this type of film is that it spills all the beans early. We don’t get used to the character of Web (Dakota Johnson) in her role as a mid-2000s paramedic. No, it’s off to the jungle many years ago to reveal her mother’s expedition for some elusive spider people with mystical powers. We witness Web’s birth and the murder of her mother at the hands of the evil Ezekiel (Tahar Rahim). With this knowledge, we know most of the truth about Web’s mother dying during childbirth and have to wait for her to play catch-up as she comes to learn her clairvoyant superpowers.

It also doesn’t help that the audience is let in early on the full future vision. Ezekiel has the same powers and is searching for three teenage girls who will become superheroes and ultimately kill Ezekiel. We haven’t even met these characters and already know who they’ll become, but not in this movie. So while these three young pre-superheroes of Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney), Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), and Isabela Merced (Celeste O’Connor) are the most interesting underdogs, they feel more like passengers in this story, constantly being led around by Web.

A Disconnected Web

There’s rarely an organic moment of this superhero origin story that doesn’t feel like everything is being shoved through a rusty template. Standard scenes of Web learning her powers and discovering more about her past arrive awkwardly. Amid Web’s attempt to save the three teenagers from the murderous Ezekiel, she abandons them in the woods so that she can’t look through more of her mother’s old research back at her apartment. Weirdly, she doesn’t bring the girls with her. Then again, it is laughable that she tells the girls not to do anything dumb before leaving them alone in the woods with no supplies for several hours.

With Johnson giving such a dry performance, it’s hard not to notice the distracting lack of forethought. While escaping from Ezekial, she stills a taxi and drives around in it for most of the film without the cops finding it, despite law enforcement looking for her. When Web needs to discover the truth of what happened to her mother in the jungle, she’s able to easily get a flight to and from New York City (while the cops are still looking for her). A better film might’ve been able to distract the audience from questioning these distractions, but what else is there in a film with inconsistent editing, uninteresting dialogue, and ho-hum fights?

Who is Afraid of Spider-Woman?

Interestingly, this universe of films seems almost disinterested in embracing superheroes being torn from the pages. Consider that this is a film where three Spider-Women are teased in the posters and featured in their costumes. They occupy roughly a minute of screenplay and are portrayed as being saved for another movie. But since Madame Web is set in 2005, does that mean that it will take at least twenty years for the characters to age up properly for a Spider-Woman film?

Even though this is a Madame Web and not a Spider-Woman movie, it’s hard not to pine for what this film taunts its audience with. The powers of Madame Web are boring, considering how casually she accepts this ability to see the future. To Johnson’s credit, she’s not as dreary as Morbius and puts some effort in here and there. But one would think there’s far more to explore with this power than paving the way for future superheroes or coming to terms with a mother she never knew. Once more, this concept is crammed through the superhero template, where Web must fight Ezekial by the finale, complete with explosions.

A Tacky Track

Adding to the dated nature of the film are some errors in presentation that become glaringly appalling. There are several scenes where ADR is added to explain some key moments better. Although these ADR lines feel like notes from executives who have little faith in audiences being able to keep up with this story, the dialogue is delivered in the most unconvincing manner for the delivery and audio quality. Last-minute duct-taped audio like that screams of a film that was a mess.

Finally, there’s the product placement. I was taken back to the age of Leonard Part 6, where Bill Cosby prominently holds up a Coke to the screen for all to see. Web does the same thing in this film, where she prominently holds a Pepsi can unnaturally so that the audience can clearly see the entire logo. As if that weren’t enough, the finale involves the villain literally being killed by a Pepsi sign. So many corporate strings pulled for this production are shamelessly greased up for all to see, where there is more product than art on display.

Conclusion: Madame Web

Madame Web is trapped in the past for feeling like a mid-2000s comic book movie too ashamed to evoke its source material. Despite how much the film tries and fails to land laughs and awe, there’s no spark of excitement, charm, or cleverness. While Sony’s Spider-Verse animated movies are brimming with enthusiasm and creativity, this Spider-Man-free universe is a limp display of superhero films at their worst. There’s no spinning a web of goofy Morbius memes to save this film; Madame Web is a dull superhero spinoff. The best I can say about it is that there’s no blatant crossover with other Sony Marvel movies, as I can’t imagine how lifeless the conversation would be between Morbius and Web in a battle of the bland.

Madame Web is currently playing in theaters.