Madame Web review: It’s definitely a movie

Madame Web will go down in history as one of the movies of all time… that’s not a typo. The most amazing thing about this Spider-Man spinoff is that someone, somewhere thought it’d be a good idea to unleash this into the world. Here is our review. 

The year is 2008. Your butt is in the theater seat, jumbo popcorn in hand, looking up at the IMAX screen to see masked-men sailing across a makeshift zipline at death-defying heights. There’s no CGI in Christopher Nolan’s world – just stuntmen doing their thing. Criminals on the ground establish the story – they’re running a bank heist, ordered by the elusive Joker. The tension is building, bolstered by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard’s powerful score. 

We are, of course, talking about The Dark Knight. What does Nolan’s DC masterpiece have to do with Madame Web, you ask? Because comparing the two is like comparing a prize-winning stallion with an inebriated blobfish. And it left me wondering: how did we get here? The Dark Knight serves as a shining example of how cinematic brilliance can be achieved in comic book adaptations. Sure, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime movie, but even before it, Tim Burton showed how to have fun with the genre. 

In the 2010s, something shifted. Hollywood’s appetite for superhero films exploded amid the influence of Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe. For a period of time, there was little room for much else in cinemas. But producers got greedy. Quantity took precedence over quality, diluting the once-novel thrill of comic book cinema. Superhero fatigue has dominated conversations over the past couple of years, all of which leads us to today: the release of Madame Web.

What’s the point?

The plot for Madame Web is meant to be a simple character story: Cassandra Web, played by an over-it Dakota Johnson, discovers she has magical powers that allow her to see into the future. When a man who “was in the Amazon with her mom when she was researching spiders, right before she died” (the infamous line that was inexplicably taken out of the final cut) threatens the lives of three young women, Cassandra steps in to help save them while uncovering the truth about her past. 

But even when characters are literally talking to themselves to spoonfeed audiences with essential information (no, seriously), the narrative is a convoluted mess.

About 100 threads are awkwardly plonked together, from the spidery saviors in the Peruvian jungle to Uncle Ben and his pregnant sister Mary Parker’s subplot that kind of, but not really, alludes to Peter Parker’s presence. FYI, don’t expect to actually see him – this is another entry to Sony’s Spider-Man Universe without the appearance of Spider-Man. 

There are just so many unanswered questions. What exactly are Madame Web’s powers? Are the trio she’s protecting already Spider-Women? What are Eleziel Sims’ motivations? Is this just an extended Pepsi commercial? But the film is so inconsequential, perhaps the biggest question of all should be: does any of this really matter?

If Tommy Wiseau made a superhero movie

Madame Web’s script – penned by director SJ Clarkson alongside Claire Parker, Matt Sazama, and Burk Sharpless – is so bad it almost veers into the unintentionally funny. If Tommy Wiseau made a superhero movie, it’d probably look something like this.

Even though the most-memed moment from the trailer didn’t make the final cut, there are still plenty of chuckle-worthy one-liners, including the Spidey riff, “When you take on the responsibility, great power will come,” and, “You know the best thing about the future? It hasn’t happened yet.”

The cast seriously suffer from their half-baked characters. Johnson seems as unhappy to be there as first-act Cassie, while the future Spider-Women Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O’Connor are written as caricatures of New York teenagers – the innocent schoolgirl, the semi-smart kid, and the edgy skater. 

Emma Roberts and Adam Scott as a young Mary and Uncle Ben are rendered side characters – it’s almost as if they were shoehorned purely as a bridge to the Spidey universe *ahem*.

Similarly out of place is Zosia Mamet, whose comedic chops weren’t put to use in any way. While Tahar Rahim as the villain is about as threatening as my grandma on a Sunday, delivering lines so clearly overdubbed you wonder if they were changed last minute. 

This isn’t their fault – there’s only so much they could do with the dialogue, which feels as if it’s been generated by ChatGPT’s first edition.

Even the action sequences seem boring, casualties of messy editing and terrible CGI. All of this would have been fine if Madame Web leaned into its silliness. 

For some baffling reason, between delays, rewrites, and reshoots, Sony repositioned the film as a “suspense thriller” – despite a severe lack of suspense or thrills, all of which culminates with a deeply unsatisfying ending.

At least with Morbius, they ran with the joke. But with the release of Madame Web, it’s starting to feel like Sony is trolling – either us or itself – with each new film added to the SSU. 

Madame Web review score: 1/5

Despite fleeting moments of (unintentional) hilarity and the valiant efforts from much of the cast, Madame Web is yet another nail in the coffin of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe.

It’s not the worst comic movie ever made, but it’s certainly helping to bring superhero fatigue to a climax. On the plus side, it’s an easy act for Venom 3 to follow.