The Madame and the Tangled Web She Weaves: Madame Web Review
I’m sure some of you clicked on this review to see the breakdown of the meme and how it plays in context. First off, I don’t remember the line even being in the movie. Second, I don’t necessarily understand the meme of it all when it comes to that one line in the trailer for Madame Web, so this is just going to be a pretty straightforward review of the film.
Madame Web follows Cassie Webb (Dakota Johnson), a paramedic who for some unknown reason has been gifted with the ability to see glimpses of the future, sometimes giving her a second chance at saving a life or at least buying that person some time. When the mysterious Ezekiel Sims (Tahir Rahim) plots to murder three Spider-Women superheroes that he thinks will kill him in the future, Cassie takes it upon herself to protect the three teenagers from their potential demise.
The movie is at its best when it begs the question: what would happen if our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man was instead a blood-thirsty serial killer? The moments of psychological thrills are the film’s highlights, but also lend to its downfall. After an initial 40 minutes of nothing happening besides Cassie wondering why she’s having visions, a chaotic New York subway chase sequence is such a breath of fresh air that it almost feels like they slapped a different movie in there just for fun. Action-packed sequences are sandwiched between boring writing throughout the movie, with too many winks and nods to the audience to say “remember, this is a Spider-Man movie.”
The acting in the movie is borderline horrendous, with the three Spider-Women (played by Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, and Isabela Merced) taking the cake for the worst of the bunch. The scenes where they have to offer some sort of emotional reason for us to care about them are bogged down by eye-rolling deliveries that made me question if they even wanted to be there or if Madame Web was just something to do during the off-season. That’s not to say that Dakota Johnson comes off any better in this. With her there really is no question of if she wanted to be there: the answer is a clear no. Every scene where she almost gets into the silliness is immediately undercut by a line delivery that tells the viewers exactly how bored she is.
S. J. Clarkson’s direction doesn’t help either, with some downright questionable things taking place on screen. We end up with strange camera movements, wooden performances, a plot that gets tangled in its own web (sorry), and an ending that seems like it’s rushing into a brick wall with the enthusiasm of the Kool-Aid Man but the strength of a newborn.
Nonetheless, all these little idiosyncrasies in a big-budget superhero movie make it an entertaining watch. The janky directing and off-paced plot leaves Madame Web feeling like it was plucked out of the early- to mid-2000s, when studios were still trying to crack the nut of how to make a superhero movie. The main villain is such an archaic archetype of a bad guy that he’s interesting to watch just be evil. There’s no complexity behind his motivation—his sole purpose is to prevent his vision of these three teens killing him in the future. The movie also digs into where this magic spider came from, offering some compelling lore about the spider and the Peruvian spider-people, “Las Arañas,” who protect the villages of Peru. And Adam Scott is here as Ben Parker, Peter Parker’s uncle. He does the best with what he’s given, even though it’s not a lot, but it’s always nice seeing Adam Scott pop up here and there. Ultimately, even Dakota Johnson’s wooden acting ends up making her fun to watch by the time the movie gets to its big twist.
So should you watch Madame Web? Maybe don’t rush out to see it in a theater, but it’s a somewhat entertaining movie once you put all your biases to the side. You end up on a roller coaster ride with some really absorbing highs and some really head-scratching lows. The movie also expands on the Spider-Man cinematic lore just enough, answering some questions the franchise hadn’t touched on before. In a time where fatigue has set in and every superhero movie is cut, copy, paste, it’s refreshing to have something so chaotic in so many ways, for better or for worse.
Blake Williams has a B.A. in Film and Television Production from Ball State University. He aspires to one day be a director, but until that day comes you can find him at a showing of whatever's playing that day or at home alphabetizing a shelf of movies and games and muttering about how he should "slow down on spending."