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Director:S.J. Clarkson
Writers:Matt SazamaBurk SharplessClaire Parker
Stars:Dakota JohnsonSydney SweeneyIsabela Merced
Madame Web Full Movie Review
Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, a web-slinging franchise already tainted by misfires, has (hopefully) hit rock bottom with its time-jumping thriller Madame Web. You can see the yucky studio fingerprints all over this overproduced origin story, from choppy-as-hell pacing to the insistence on hitting certain formulaic MCU-type beats. Initial trailers tease eerie premonition horrors à la Final Destination that are barely in the final product, which has more in common with the first Dr. Strange (not even the spooky Multiverse of Madness sequel). If Madame Web were Final Destination: Superhero Edition, this would probably be a much more enthusiastic review — but it’s not. Madame Web is instead a flat-as-hell found family remix and awful bad superhero introduction that’ll test your SSU patience in record time.
Dakota Johnson projects ambivalence and boredom as Cassandra “Cassie” Webb, who we meet as an emotionless thirty-something loner working as a paramedic in New York City. We already know she’s the daughter of deceased researcher Constance Webb (Kerry Bishé), betrayed by her expedition partner in Peru’s Amazonian rainforest while researching spiders. Cassie isn’t aware of the powers bestowed upon her during birth by a lifesaving arachnid bite, nor that Bruce Wayne wannabe Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) left her mother with a fatal gunshot wound. Cassie just wants to avoid death and watch American Idol like the average American during the early 2000s, not visualize the brutal killing of innocent girls who she then has to babysit thanks to the emergence of “time web” abilities that have her mind in a paradoxical blender.
At its core, Madame Web is a comic book adaptation that fights against being a superhero movie. It’s written into Cassie’s personality — she doesn’t ask for the burden of playing foster parent to her eventual minions. Cassie is a complicated protagonist written to conceal any excitement or ownership of her superpowers, which lands like a thud throughout Johnson’s performance. She's as cardboard-flavored as the refrigerator drawing Cassie heartlessly declines from a grateful child. It’s hard to blame an actress when the material is so humdrum and uninspired, but still, what Johnson translates to the screen is like administered anesthesia. Cassie Webb is forgettably played in monotone, whether fighting Evil Spider-Man, learning Las Arañas lore, or floating through time-web-space like Johnson is trying to locate a reality before she signed on to Madame Web.
Enter Cassie’s someday Spider-Women trio — who we only see as Spider-Women for, like, a collective two minutes (if even). Sydney Sweeney as good-girl-in-glasses Julia Cornwall, Isabela Merced as the fiery independent Anya Corazon, and Celeste O'Connor as rich-kid rebel Mattie Franklin. They are your prototype “found family” who dance on New Jersey diner tables to impress boys and make ill-advised choices because, if not, Ezekiel can’t locate his future murderers. It’s a numbing cycle of Cassie giving clear instructions for survival, Mattie disregarding the rules, and Ezekiel finding their location that falls into the same recycled staleness cemented by Cassie’s anchoring presence (or lack thereof). At least Johnson’s young castmates are allowed a tad more personality (which the film desperately needs). O'Connor’s brattiness as a skateboarding Spider-Punk in training or Merced’s stern insistence to obey orders allows for real character development — Sweeny less so, more of an American Girl doll for O’Connor’s troublemaker to corrupt.
The film’s avalanche of problems ripples from here. Heralded Morbius writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless claimed scripting duties after Kerem Sanga took a crack. Claire Parker also notches a screenplay credit, as does director S. J. Clarkson, so we can assume revision rounds took place — to highlight how many hands were in the cookie jar. Four talents trying to homogenize their styles into one voice. You’re right to assume the blending process is a failure.
