In the 1970’s, two scientists are in the jungles of Peru in search of a specific breed of spider who, rumor has it, has healing properties. Once located, one of the scientists turns on the rest of the team, gunning them down, and steals the spider for his own uses. The pregnant scientist survives long enough to give birth to a baby girl who is then brought to a foster home in the United States somehow. Fast forward to 2003 and that baby girl, Cassie Webb (played by Dakota Johnson) is a paramedic in New York living an awkward, relatively recluse life outside of her job. After she rescues somebody from an overturned car hanging off a bridge, she falls into the water below and her partner Ben (Adam Scott) revives her after three minutes of her being dead. She seemingly recovers just fine but begins to experience a sense of deja vu at random times. After a bird flies into her apartment window, she realizes she’s seeing the future and starts to put that new power to good use, saving three teenage girls being hunted by a mysterious guy in a spider suit. Cassie eventually learns that mysterious guy is Ezekiel (Tahar Rahim), the same scientist who killed her mom and the rest of the team in Peru. Ezekiel has frequent visions that the three high schoolers will kill him in the future so, in order to better control his destiny, he’s on a quest to find and kill them. Cassie sees this happening in the immediate future with her new powers so she saves the girls and then, ultimately, protects them from their hunter.
Sony’s Spider-Man Universe consists of Venom (2018), Venom: Let There be Carnage (2021), Morbius (2022) and Madame Web (with Kraven the Hunter and Venom 3 still to come). While the first Venom was pretty damn fun, everything else has all the signs of a desperate — or maybe even complacent — money grab. Madame Web is just the latest example and, quite frankly, it will only stop when people cease going to the theater to watch these. Unfortunately, Morbius — which was so horrendous it received five Golden Raspberry nominations including Worst Picture, Worst Actor and Worst Supporting Actress — had a budget of approximately $80 million but somehow made over $160 million at the box office, reinforcing the notion that, even if they’re bad, Sony will make a profit off of these projects. Let’s all hope, for the sake of movies, that Madame Web doesn’t further encourage that practice.
She’s relatively monotone throughout but I give Johnson the benefit of the doubt as I could easily see her making that an artistic choice considering the character is a socially awkward loner who’s been conditioned not to get emotionally close to people. Despite that flat portrayal, she clearly tries to prop this film up as best she can. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Rahim who might have given us the worst superhero villain performances ever. Other than the bedroom scene, I’m pretty sure 95% of his lines were ADR as you rarely saw his lips move. And, even when you did, it like watching a bad overdub. Friend of the show, Austin Olivia Kendrick, would have a field day with how noticeable it is.
The writing is never top notch but, in the final 15 minutes, it’s almost as if they turned the script over to a middle schooler who won a contest to help pen a superhero screenplay. The girls for example — who surprisingly hold their own in this movie despite being given nothing to work with — over-explain everything and make absolutely sure the audience has all the “funny” quips spelled out for them. It’s laughably bad and Johnson looks ridiculous in the final scene.
While the writing was elementary, the pacing left a lot to be desired and the pompousness of the studio can be tasted throughout like overcooked fish, Madame Web isn’t a complete loss. The two-hour run time feels like two hours, the female actors are clearly trying, the subway and diner scenes are pretty cool and a lot of the visuals are interesting. Put simply, it’s just poor filmmaking. But hey… at least it was better than Aquaman: The Lost Kingdom.
JKG SCORE: 3.0
Untitled Film Project 