A One Mann’s Movies review of “Madame Web” (2024).
The latest Marvel – well, it’s from the rather dodgy Sony Marvel strand that includes the likes of “Venom” and “Morbius” – comes “Madame Web”. Now, I know a lot of Marvel fans tend to dump on the female-led movies (“Captain Marvel“, “WW:1984” and “The Marvels” are examples… surely there can’t be mysogeny amongst the Marvel fan-boy base?) But, to be honest, if these guys dumped on “this film”Madame Web”, they would have every right to. Because really… it’s not very good.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
Plot Summary:
Years ago, in the Peruvian jungle a heavily pregnant Constance Webb (Kerry Bishé) is bitten my Paddington…. no, sorry, my mistake… is bitten by a magical spider that bestows superpowers on the recipient of the venom. But betrayed by her guide Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), also after the spider’s powers, Constance is shot and dies. But this is not before she gives birth to Cassandra. Spin forwards 30 years and Constance (Dakota Johnson) is a paramedic who is unaware of her capabilities through bloodline until a near-death experience triggers them.
Certification:
UK: 12; US: PG-13. (From the BBFC web site: “Moderate violence, threat, language, brief bloody images”).
Talent:
Starring: Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O’Connor, Tahar Rahim, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, Adam Scott, Kerry Bishé.
Directed by: S.J. Clarkson.
Written by: Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, Claire Parker & S.J. Clarkson. (From a story by Kerem Sanga, Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless).
Twitter Handle: #MadameWeb.
Running Time: 1h 56m.
From L to R, Isabela Merced, Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney and Celeste O’Connor. (Source: Sony).
“Madame Web” Review:
Positives:
- I mean, to be fair, I quite liked the superpower that Cassandra had. The ‘spidey-sense’ sort of attribute of Spider-Man, but without any of the additional powers. That had potential.
- I am all for female-centric action movies and the four-some of Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced (“Dora and the Lost City of Gold“, “Instant Family“) and Celeste O’Connor (“Freaky“, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife“, “A Good Person“) make for a potentially fun team. But they needed WAAAAAY better material to work with. (Sydney Sweeney is having a prominent year: she very nearly had two films concurrently in the UK Top 10, “Anyone But You” just dropping out this week);
Negatives:
- There is so much wrong with this film:
- I mean, the fact that her surname is “Webb” and the film title is “Web” and the film is all, coincidentally, about spiders is the very least of it.
- There is some half-arsed attempt to link this movie to the Spider-Man universe by making Cassandra’s work-mate Ben Parker (i.e. “Uncle Ben”). Emma Roberts (in a nothing sort of a cameo) plays the pregnant Mary Parker who’s giving birth to a baby… cue a “what shall we call it” scene that is painfully trite. (Er… “Peter”?). This is totally ignoring the fact that Peter Parker is accidently bitten by a radioactive spider… I mean, WHAT ARE THE ODDS??
- The whole premise of the story is bat-shit crazy. Ezekial foresees that these three teens are going to murder him at some point in the future. How do the teen’s get any super-powers anyway? They are just normal teens and suddenly they are (in the future) portrayed wearing spandex and “Kick Ass” style masks! I mean, it’s all very cute and sexy and all, but – in the words of the Rev. Andy Godfrey on “Flickering Dreams” – “WHAT???????“
- They all happen to cross paths with Cassandra who has the same foresight power; then (spoiler) they end up killing Ezekial in a completely different way! Cassandra foresees going to a meeting with Ezekial and learning the plot, but then never goes to the meeting so that never happened….??? It just doesn’t make any coherent sense. It smacks of the (big) writing team throwing stuff at the wall and scraping off the shit bits to stick in the story with a “they’ll never notice” shrug. It actually feels like it was written by an AI instructed to “write me a superhero film with sexy girls for a teen-fan-boy fever dream”. It’s totally insulting to the viewers intelligence.
- It’s never a good sign when the director’s name is tacked onto the end of the writing credits: “Well, this is completely unfilmable shit, so let’s rewrite the pages” before each day’s shoot!
- Some of the dialogue is excreble. You feel Dakota Johnson’s shame in trying to say some of the lines. You don’t feel that this is film that will be well-highlighted on her CV: Johnson has held a number of less-than enthusiastic promo interviews where she has refreshingly dissed her own movie! (See here).
- The special effects feel like they came out of the studio after a short day’s work on a Friday.
How does Ezekial (Tahar Rahim) get to see years and years into the future? … same spider… same venom…. so many questions! (Source: Sony).
Summary Thoughts on “Madame Web”
This is pretty poor. Best avoided imho unless you are a Marvel completist.
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Trailer for “Madame Web”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_76M4c4LTo.
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