In “Madame Web,” Sony’s ill-conceived venture into the Spider-Verse, the web of intrigue quickly unravels into a tangle of cinematic follies. The 2024 film, which aimed to ensnare audiences with the enigmatic tale of Cassandra Webb, instead traps viewers in a web of disappointment.
Let me get the “Well, duh” comments out of the way…
1) The “great power” line has now become a mangled mess of itself. The fact that it is butchered in this film, and repeated, made me facepalm so hard the guy sat behind me got hit in the face too.
2) Tahar Rahim’s dialogue, was it dubbed? It looked out of sync several times in the movie, sometimes so badly lip-synched it made me look around to see if anyone else had seen the same thing?
3) BUY PEPSI. BUY PEPSI. BUY PEPSI. BUY PEPSI. BUY PEPSI. BUY PEPSI. BUY PEPSI. BUY PEPSI. BUY PEPSI. BUY PEPSI. BUY PEPSI.
4) Yep – they pulled another “Rhino” a la The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The Spider-Women suit up at the end of the film in a flash-forward for all of 30 seconds. They spend the whole film building up to what the people actually want to see and then end it.
So where to begin with this muddled mess? The plot, if one can be generous enough to call it that, is an aimless meander through a series of inexplicably bizarre events that seem to serve no purpose other than to fill time. The dialogue is a trainwreck of cringe-worthy one-liners and heavy-handed exposition that bludgeons the audience with subtlety of a sledgehammer. Every character introduction is a tedious affair, with them announcing their names and purposes with the enthusiasm of a hostage reading a ransom note. This film makes Morbius look like a masterpiece.
Then there’s the humor – or what passes for it in this film. The jokes are so painfully unfunny that one must wonder if they were included as some form of avant-garde anti-comedy.
Directorial decisions only exacerbate the suffering. The numerous desperate references to the wider Spider-Man universe come off as a sibling screaming for attention rather than clever nods. The references are shoehorned in with the grace of a wrecking ball, leaving fans to nurse their second-hand embarrassment.
Performances across the board are astonishingly flat. Dakota Johnson, tasked with bringing Madame Web to life, delivers her lines with all the conviction of someone reciting the phone book. The supporting cast isn’t much better, with each member seemingly in their own disjointed film – a cacophony of conflicting genres and styles that never gel.
Action sequences are so poorly choreographed and edited that one can almost hear the director’s sigh of resignation. Quick cuts and shaky cam attempt to inject excitement but instead induce a sense of motion sickness. The CGI, a critical component for any superhero flick, is an abomination – it would seem the effects budget was slashed in a boardroom and never restored.
The film’s attempts to be dark and edgy are undercut by its own absurdity. It tries to take itself seriously, yet it’s hard to do so when the villain’s master plan seems to have been concocted during a fever dream. There’s a subplot involving the future that is so nonsensical it could be a time-travel paradox in itself.
Editing seems to have been done with a chainsaw, lurching from scene to scene with jarring inconsistency. Scenes of potential emotional weight are butchered in favor of more screen time for bewildering subplots. There’s a Pepsi product placement so blatant it could be a commercial, and a premonition sequence so ludicrous it makes Madame Web’s psychic abilities seem as believable as a horoscope in a candy wrapper.
Musical choices are equally lazy and obnoxious – with the inclusion of Britney Spears’ “Toxic” making the audience eye-roll.
“Madame Web” is a cinematic calamity, a film so woefully executed that it becomes a parody of itself. It’s a movie that not only fails to capture the essence of its source material but also fails to provide the most basic elements of storytelling. This film doesn’t swing from the heights; it trips over its own laces at the starting line. Madame Web’s real precognition would have been to foresee its own critical demise and spare us all by remaining an untold story. The only saving grace is that the film eventually ends, releasing the audience from its bewildering web of woe.