MADAME WEB [review] [mild spoilers]

 

When Marvel sold the rights to Spider-Man to Sony, the deal also included around 900(!) related characters. With Spider-Man currently on loan to Marvel, Sony have been diligently churning out movies based on those related characters. The latest foolhardy venture is MADAME WEB (2024), and it is a BAD movie, and yet still enjoyable. Why? Stay tuned for my full review, True Believers!

To be clear, this is NOT a "so bad it's good" movie. That honour typically belongs to movies that are made with a deep sincerity and woefully misplaced confidence in the actual quality of the material (eg. TROLL 2). 

MADAME WEB is very clearly a tentpole superhero movie, filled with references to the source material, in what uncharitably might be called a cheap cash-grab, not an expression of weird artistic ideas. That's not to say it doesn't have those, however.

The story is pleasingly simple yet delightfully nuts: Constance Webb is on an expedition in Peru to find an elusive spider, the venom of which supposedly holds healing powers because that's how poison works...and also the ability to grant people actual superpowers. 

She's accompanied by Ezekiel Sims (that dude in the picture above), who promptly murders her when she finds the spider, so he can claim it for himself. This is all in the first five minutes, which is set in 1973 and features far too many snap-zooms that regularly remind you that you're watching a movie.

Some local spider-people(!) try to help Constance, who's also heavily pregnant, but sadly she dies. They do help her give birth first, though, to Cassie. Cut to 2003, and Cassie is working as a paramedic with decent driving skills. 

After an accident, she wakes up with vague precognition powers. She does not learn to harness these over the course of the film, but rather in one specific scene, which is just one of myriad ways narrative logic and effort take a holiday. 

Sims pops back up in 2003 where he goes after three teenage girls, to kill them before they kill him (he's been dreaming about this happening, apparently for a considerable amount of time). Cassie has a premonition of their murders, saves them, then spends the rest of the movie trying to figure out why Sims is after them and how to stop him. 

Let's talk about Sims. If I were to run a scriptwriting class, I would hold him up as an example of a 100% one-dimensional villain. All he wants to do is kill the girls. Not as an "unstoppable force of evil" a la Jason Vorhees (who had actual reasons to do what he did, that weren't "I had a bad dream."), it should be noted.

Where has Sims been and what has he been doing for the last thirty years? We have no idea. We know he has money, doesn't wear shoes (presumably so he can stick to walls) and a cool 'Evil Spider-Man' suit (that has boots, so I don't know how he can still stick to walls). 

Why does he have that suit? Has he never used it before 2003? Where has his money come from? 

If the suit is so he can do villain stuff and remain anonymous, this is unlikely, since we're shown that he intends to march onto a subway train in his normal clothes to murder the girls. Then changes into the suit to hunt them down. Why? No one knows, least of all the writers. 

Cassie rescues the girls then takes them to some woods to hide, as the police mistakenly think she kidnapped them - despite Evil Spider-Man killing a whole bunch of cops. Cassie leaves to check some stuff out and the girls go to a nearby diner. Oh yes, and she somehow manages to get a flight to Peru, even though she's supposedly a person of interest.

Even better, the newspaper already has this story as the front page news after what can only be an hour or so AND has been circulated everywhere, as there's a copy in the diner. The newspaper is The Daily Bugle, and one of the girls (before this) mentions her "Uncle Jonah", just in case you're desperate for unnecessary Easter eggs.

MADAME WEB is the most blatant in this regard, especially in terms of "Hey, these people are related to Spider-Man!", due to having Ben Parker, his sister Mary (Peter's mum) and references to Peter's dad Richard. Peter Parker is even born in this one, although the movie hilariously avoids naming him in a way that is one of the few instances of genuine comedy. 

*balloon pop*

Emma Roberts is woefully underserved, as all she gets to do is be a confused mum-to-be, but poor old Tahar Rahim, who plays Sims, really drew the short straw here.

He's dubbed, and obviously so, which for a big budget movie is super unusual. Were his line readings so terrible they had to abandon half his performance? Who knows! 

However, even this weirdness is somewhat saved by fantastically awful dialogue, that does not sound like something a normal person would ever say, including a wonderfully clunky conversation with a one night stand that includes lines like:

Sims is a character who always clearly states his intent, which I appreciate because it gives us 'direlogue' for days. It's all "tell" with this guy, and I'm all for it. Who needs subtext or even a decent backstory? Not Ezekiel Sims!

Luckily, the other actors fare a lot better and they're really the main reason MADAME WEB remains watchable. Dakota Johnson, as Cassie, has a slightly oddball line delivery that gives the air that she is sick to death of all this shit even before she makes it clear she is sick death of all this shit. Adam Scott fares better than expected as a more laconic Uncle Ben than we're used to seeing, and his friendship with Cassie is genuinely convincing. 

The three teenage girls have very distinct personalities (shy, brash, nerd) and the actresses make the most of the material. Sims has a hacker sidekick who gets to sit in a chair, stare at screens, and express mild concern that her boss wants to kill young girls.

I'm not even going to touch the Peruvian spider-people thing, so have this screenshot instead:

MADAME WEB is badly-written, with more plot holes than Swiss cheese, and some rough camerawork (the intro, the dream/visions). There is blatant, awful product placement that also functions as Chekov's Gun in a mad way. Yet, I can't hate it. 

It thinks you want a bunch of comic book things and gives them to you. Not always in the way you expect (eg. Sims is nothing like his comic counterpart) but it tries. It tries really hard. And I don't know about you, but I admire that kind of plucky attitude. Like, I want to sit the film down and tell it "If you just focus on doing what you are good at, don't worry about trying to impress everyone by being something you're not."

Which is a good superhero film, just so we're clear. But it is occasionally an entertaining one.

"Wheeeeeeeeeee!"