I almost feel bad writing this review. This is a film that was probably doomed to failure from the start due to the corporate attitude we’ve been seeing from Sony with their Spider-Man films. Aside from the Spider-Verse films, which feel more like flukes as more of the live action films come out, all of Sony’s efforts have been mired in corporate box ticking, wanting to create a shared universe to rival the MCU, without putting the care into the characters that the MCU did. Say what you will about the MCU post-Endgame, even with the bad projects like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Secret Invasion, none of them have been as bad to me as works like Morbius and Venom. But even Morbius and Venom have some elements of entertainment to them (Morbius had Matt Smith and Venom had Tom Hardy, with Venom: Let There Be Carnage leaning into the more comedic aspects of Hardy’s performance making it the closest we’ve got to a good film from these Sony projects). Madame Web though does not have any of that. This represents the nadir of superhero filmmaking and represents everything that is wrong in the modern Hollywood studio system.
The film focuses on Cassandra Webb, an EMT in New York who was orphaned when her mum was killed whilst pregnant with Webb by Ezekiel Sims in Peru, when her mum was researching the healing properties of spiders (it is never made clear how Webb was sent to America). After a near death experience, Webb starts to get visions of the future and soon discovers that Sims is hunting three teenagers, who are set to become superheroes and who he has seen in dreams will kill him in several years, wanting to kill them before they kill him. Webb saves the girls and works to keep them safe from Sims, whilst also gaining an understanding of her powers. Now on paper I can see an interesting idea at play here, a riff on The Terminator with a bit more of a grey tinged sense of morality over who the girls will be in the future. It feels like it was this idea that attracted the cast and this could have made for an interesting film. Unfortunately, this is not the film we got. Instead, we got a film where no aspect of it is developed in the ways it needed to be. As I stated, right from the start there are plot issues as it’s not made clear how Webb was sent to New York and what her backstory is, getting ideas of her being troubled by the foster care system, but it feels like it was originally written that Webb’s mum was killed after she was born, which would have made more sense. With Sims, we don’t get an understanding of who he is, why he killed Webb’s mum and what he has done in the intervening years. We see that he’s rich, but nothing about his actions at the start of the film even hint that this is what will happen to him. The film also has the characters of Ben and Mary Parker, and this feels like a holdover from an earlier script where Sims would have been trying to prevent the birth of Peter Parker and that’s how Web and the Spider-Women get involved. That would have been a more interesting film than what we got here.
One aspect of the film that has been heavily criticised is that it feels more like a set up to a future Spider-Women film, rather than a film in its own right, with this being how the future Spider-Women as presented. All of the scenes in the trailer with them in costume are from dream sequences or flash forwards and total, if I’m being generous, about 2 minutes of screen time. Aside from that, we never get an understanding that they will become heroes, they never even get their powers, or any hint of how they will get their powers, in the film. This makes the whole film feel like a cynical marketing exercise from Sony, wanting to make this film not for artistic reasons, but so they can put on a spreadsheet that they have three other films in their universe they can make. It’s a shame as there is an interesting angle that could have been explored in terms of morality. The dream we see from Sims makes them more of a malevolent presence, seeming to straight up murder Sims for no reason, which could have been used to explore whether they will be good or evil when they get their powers and make for a more compelling dynamic with Webb’s powers, them being used to guide the girls into being heroes. However, it feels like this morality dynamic was created accidentally, especially since this is not brought up in any way during the film.
The corporate nature of the film is most blatant at the end of the film, which involves a giant sign for Pepsi. This is the perfect encapsulation of the studio mandate for the film with even the final action scene needing to be a massive bit of product placement. It all felt like the ending started with the product placement and worked backwards from there. It is a prime example of the cynicism we see in Hollywood today and everything wrong with modern cinema.
The performances in the film also help to kill the film. I’m not sure where I stand on Dakota Johnson as a performer. She was good in A Bigger Splash and Bad Times at the El Royale and tried her best to make Fifty Shades of Grey somewhat tolerable, but her work in films like Persuasion and Wounds has not been good and took me out of those films. Here, we’ve probably got the worst performance in Johnson’s career. I know she is meant to be this awkward figure that is uncomfortable around other people, but Johnson goes so far with it that it was genuinely embarrassing to watch her and it felt like she had never interacted with any people before. Nothing Johnson does sells the idea of Webb becoming a paternal figure and I didn’t buy that she would be seen in any positive way by the future Spider-Women. Speaking of which, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced and Celeste O’Connor try their best with the material, but they are left with really bad dialogue and underwritten characters that prevent any of them from having any real personality that makes them memorable and I don’t see that they will become heroes in the future. Adam Scott is somewhat decent as Ben Parker, but isn’t really given anything to do and his role feels like a holdover from an earlier script where he was more of a central character, the same also being true for Emma Roberts as May Parker. Kerry Bishe and Zosia Mamet are not given anything interesting to do and deliver some pretty poor performances, but the worst performance in the film comes from Tahar Rahim, at least to some extent. As has been widely reported, there has been extensive ADR which has resulted in all of Rahim’s dialogue being dubbed in a really bad way, with it being obviously recorded later with lip movements and body language not matching the dialogue at all. I say that Rahim gives the worst performance but it would not surprise me if Sony used a different actor in the ADR sessions, it is that bad an ADR job. Even with body language, Rahim doesn’t make anything about Simms interesting. He has no personality and I knew nothing about the character other than he doesn’t want to die. At no point did any of the performances make me think that the performers actually wanted to be there, which is a damning sign for a film.
The technical side of the film isn’t much better. I do appreciate that physical superhero costumes were made for the film, even if we only see them collectively for about a minute, if that, but aside from this, there’s nothing really special. I can see what was being aimed for with the way the action scenes were filmed, but it ended up being disorienting and didn’t give a good enough sense of scene geography to help me understand where each of the characters were at any given point. There is some interesting work that could have been done with the future visions in how the action is presented, but aside from one scene, nothing interesting is done with this, even thought the marketing was selling this aspect of the film. This has some of the worst editing I’ve seen in a long time. I’ve already mentioned the awful ADR work, but most scenes have some dodgy bits of editing, feeling like the film was hacked to the bone to try and salvage the film. Bad editing in and of itself is not a death knell, I know The Marvels had poor editing but most other aspects of the film made it an enjoyable experience for me. Here, there’s nothing that’s done well and it adds to the feeling that this is corporate rather than artistic exercise.
Overall, Madame Web is quite possibly the worst film I’ve seen in the cinema in a long time. Even the other Sony Spider-Man adjacent films didn’t feel as corporate and cynical as this one did. At no point did I feel any sense of excitement or engagement with the plot. None of the characters connected with me and I felt embarrassed for everyone involved making this. I’m sure that they can do better work and I know they have. The cast have done strong performances in other films and S.J. Clarkson has done excellent work on TV with Succession and Jessica Jones. Everything feels like this was a film made by a studio wanting to pad out their account book, rather than making something for artistic worth and this represents the nadir of superhero filmmaking.
My Rating: 0.5/5
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