Directed by S.J. Clarkson, Madame Web follows Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson), a New York City paramedic who starts to show signs of clairvoyance after a near-death experience. Forced to confront revelations about her past, she must protect three young women from a mysterious adversary who wants them dead.
Sony is back once again with another one of their SSU installments, but instead of focusing on another villain from Spider-Man’s rogues gallery, this film focuses on one of the most notable supporting characters from Spider-Man stories, as well as introduces several popular variants of Spider-Women from the pages of comics to the big screen. The idea of the film initially seemed to have some potential, especially with the talented cast members they had cast for the main characters.
Unfortunately, all of it was completely wasted in what I can best describe as soulless corporate garbage from the same writing team of Morbius and a studio that clearly has no f**king clue about what they are doing with the rich world of Spider-Man that is in their misplaced hands. I really tried to give this film a fair chance and find some sort of good in it, despite the behind-the-scenes problems and the extremely off-putting trailer, but I ended up hating the film after sitting through it.
It is a frustrating mess of a film that got under my skin in so many ways and it is also a film that doesn’t even have the energy to be a so-bad-it’s-hilarious kind of film, which makes it even worse. Let’s get into why this film is an absolute disaster, starting with the cast.
The cast is comprised of mostly talented individuals who are sadly given horrendous direction and writing to work with, resulting in extremely poor portrayals of great characters from the pages of comics. A few cast members like Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Conner, and Adam Scott seemed to be the only ones who were trying to make good performances out of bad material, while the rest of the cast went with what they were given, delivering terrible performances and completely unlikable characters that had zero development whatsoever.
The worst among them is unfortunately our lead character Cassandra Webb played by Dakota Johnson. Dakota Johnson, through no fault of her own, plays one of the most bland and unlikable lead characters I have seen in a comic book film in years. From the beginning when she is introduced as a paramedic, you’d figure that she would be someone who cares about saving lives and being a mostly open-hearted human, but that’s not what she is. She is instead written and acted as a very awkward and abrasive individual who comes off as rude as well as selfish with both her words and her actions.
Now a counterpoint people may say is that multiple heroes started off the same way in their origin stories who become better later, and while that may be true they at least changed after life-altering events. Cassandra Webb barely changes at all through the majority of the film until the last several minutes. There is never a firm reason or valid excuse given for the character to act the way she does around her friends and the ones she is attempting to protect, making her a truly hateful lead that you would never root for, who only gets proper development in the last few minutes when she finally decides to be a hero.
On top of that, the dialogue and delivery that Dakota Johnson was forced to give is downright horrific and bland, which makes you feel so bad for her when you know that she can do so much better, as evidenced by her work in other good films.
The character’s powers are also poorly portrayed in terms of execution as well coming off as horribly edited, Final Destination-inspired clairvoyance when there is so much more to the character’s abilities than that. I only understood most of what was going on with her in terms of powers because of my knowledge of the character in comics, but general audiences will be completely confused by her powers since they are never given a proper explanation, and the attempts to explain her powers will just cause more confusion rather than give answers.
Next, we have the three girls she’s trying to protect who are Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney), Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), and Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Conner) who are destined to become the most powerful Spider-Women in this universe. As talented as all three actresses are they too suffer from the shit writing and direction they are given, which sucks because I could see the potential these three could have had. The three of them have different backgrounds and personalities that could in some ways make them actually connect and even share fun chemistry that we get brief glimpses of in this film, mostly through Sweeney and Celeste O’Conner. Unfortunately, the film never gives them any proper development, making them impossible to connect with and making them poor portrayals of the awesome characters from comics.
I also found the wardrobe they were given for a majority of the film to be uncomfortably sexualized, especially Sydney Sweeney who looked to be almost as sexualized as she was in Euphoria. The filmmakers may claim that this was part of the early 2000s “fashion trend” since the film takes place in that time period, but as someone who grew up during that time and had never seen anything like that, I’m going to call bullshit. This felt like Sony’s scummy attempt to draw in male audiences in a disgusting manner that I couldn’t believe I was actually seeing in a comic book film in 2024.
Then we have Ezekiel Sims, played by Tahar Rahim, who is made to be the villain of this film despite not being a villain at all in comics. Director S.J. Clarkson once claimed in an interview prior to the release of this film that her portrayal of this character would be intense and would have a “level of ambiguity” with multiple layers. Well, that was a complete lie because the portrayal we actually get is the total opposite of anything she claimed the character would be. Ezekiel Sims comes off as pathetic rather than intense and there are no such layers to be found with him as a villain. Instead, we get cliche motives, speech, and actions that have no ambiguity or anything investing whatsoever. A truly forgettable murder happy and power-obsessed villain that is given a poor performance by well-known French actor Tahar Rahim, whose dialogue is mostly replaced by ADR in the film.
For those who may not know, ADR stands for Automated Dialogue Replacement, which is the process of recording dialogue in a studio after filming to replace the initially recorded lines on set. This is usually due to bad sound quality or poor delivery from the cast member recorded in the take. Now I’ve seen bad ADR in films and shows before but usually it gets hidden whenever it happens by having the camera not facing the actor’s face directly, but here you actually see him front and center with his ADR not even remotely matching the lip movements, expressions, or words, like a terrible English dub of a foreign film. It is atrociously embarrassing to witness on screen and I feel so bad for Tahar Rahim for having to deal with this Samurai Cop level of ADR bullshit.
The supporting cast is not worth even mentioning since they barely impact the story despite their importance to Spider-Man lore. Adam Scott is sadly forced into being this universe’s version of Ben Parker who gets treated as a joke, and for some reason we also get Emma Roberts (who shouldn’t have even been hired for this film) as Mary Parker who is also treated as a joke. That’s the only connection we ever get to Peter Parker’s Spider-Man in this film, which thankfully has no firm connection to any of the more beloved portrayals of Spider-Man we have had over the years.
The film’s narrative feels passionless and uninspired, with so many plot threads and ideas from other films all thrown in without any attempt to seamlessly weave them together into a consistent or even entertaining story. There are so many things this film throws up all at once on screen in the writing and never once takes any time to explain or explore what is happening, leaving audiences confused as the film goes at a breakneck pace with nothing worth remembering.
Any attempt to inject heart or emotion into the film feels soulless and unearned due to no major development for any of the characters I barely cared about. It almost feels like Sony and the filmmakers were banking on the cast they chose to be the reason people would care about the characters and get asses in the seats, but completely ignored the fact that good writing and direction is what actually gets people to care. Also, its feeble attempts to appeal to comic book fans with attempted comic-accurate costumes and powers are downright pathetic, making for easily the worst unearned fan service attempts I have seen in years.
If you think the technical elements of this film will perhaps save it or make it entertaining you’d be dead wrong. This film fully embraces the worst elements of early 2000’s films with horrific editing, ugly visuals, inexperienced action, and cinematography. Its attempts to provide thrills with the action are predictable and pitiful despite its attempts to look stylish. Everything from the way it looks to the way it moves makes it feel like a student film rather than a larger-than-life blockbuster that Sony has been peddling.
Barely any of the film looked visually appealing or memorable, especially from an effects standpoint, both practical and CGI. All of it looked extremely cheap and lazy, a bit like Spider-Man Lotus, and when you are reminding the audience of Spider-Man Lotus that’s when you know you screwed up. Also, the music for this film is as expected mostly full of tracks from the early 2000’s and a very forgettable score that barely elevates anything in this film.
Unlike Venom, Morbius, or the animated Spiderverse films this film thankfully has no firm narrative ties to the MCU, acting as a standalone. But that won’t stop the fact that this film will probably be used to attack all Marvel films in general, due to Sony’s continuous false assertions that this film is somehow connected to everything Marvel, despite the shit quality they were completely fine with showing in theaters. This film will also unfortunately be used to bash female-led superhero projects (even good ones), which some journalists, online critics, and repulsive YouTubers are already starting to do, making things even worse for an already increasingly toxic fan base.
Say what you want about Marvel Studios and their recent projects, but at least they actually care about their fans and the quality of their products. They take valid criticisms to heart and try to deliver the best possible product, as evidenced by their recent efforts to take time on certain projects by pushing them back, and making sure the right people are helming them. Sony, however, doesn’t seem to care about making good films or even listening to the criticisms they have been facing en mass, as long as they make money at the box office. They truly just do not realize how much damage they are making with films like this and it honestly makes me worried about how much more damage they will cause going forward if upcomng projects are made with the same soulless effort as Madame Web.
This film wasn’t made for comic book fans, nor did it feel like it was made for anyone in general. It is a hollow and pointless piece of shit that has no real reason for existing, wasting so much talent and ideas that were better off under more capable hands. I’m giving Madame Web an F = 0.
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