“Madame Web”: The Agony of the Superhero Movies
The film starring Dakota Johnson has been one more nail in Sony/Marvel ‘s coffin.
Summary
Cassandra Web works as a paramedic in Manhattan, leading a pretty standard life.
A work accident triggers a peculiar ability in her: she starts to see glimpses of the future, things that are bound to happen, and only she seems to be able to stop.
This new-found power will put her in charge of a group of teenage girls, all of them with superhero potential, who are being hunted by a mysterious man.
Inconsistent And Dumb
There are so many things wrong with Madame Web that I don’t know where to start.
Maybe at the beginning, with the scenes in the Peruvian forest. If I had to describe those first minutes in one word, it would be cheap. Everything looks cheap, like a very low-budget movie: the dialogues are bad, the acting is worse, the drama is not believable, and the “special effects” are questionable at best.
The rest of the movie is more of the same, in part thanks to a nonsensical script. The acting doesn’t improve moving forward, not that the actors could have done much better with the story and dialogues they were given.
No Superhero Potential
The villain makes you laugh, and the three future spider-women are too annoying to be likeable. I understand they are teenagers, and they’re supposed to be difficult to deal with, but it’s ridiculous. The three of them are rude and dumb, and I can’t see how they would become good superheroes, even in a remote future. We’re supposed to feel drawn to them because they have difficult family situations, which are explained in one scene and never revisited.
I’m sorry for Dakota, though. I’ve never been a fan of her work, but she was the only one I didn’t dislike. She seems funny. Maybe if she picked her projects better… I imagine a comedy would suit her quite well.
I should also point out that the story unfolds in 2003, but we see nothing that relates us to that period. Not the city life, not the fashion; the movie shows no commitment to achieve a 2000s look. The only glimpse of that time I noticed was the phone in Cassie’s apartment.
All You Need Is a Pepsi
The product placement is simply shameless. It is so shameless that Pepsi becomes the real hero of the film, by getting rid of the no-spider-man in a very non-epic action scene. You can also notice Dakota holding a can of Pepsi for a long time during a baby shower. Someone should explain to the production team what the word “subtle” means. I hope at least they got a lot of money out of this poorly done publicity stunt.
Make It Make Sense
There are times when you can forgive a movie for some inconsistencies or plot points that don’t make a lot of sense when you think about them in detail. That tends to be noticeable after you’ve watched the film a couple of times, not immediately. But when the nonsense is so in your face, it becomes difficult to ignore.
I watched Madame Web just once and caught a lot of things that made no sense.
The most evident: If Cassandra was born in Peru and her mother died, how did she get back to America? How did she know so much about her mother and even have her possessions, but have no clue she was murdered? How did the accident at the beginning “activate” her powers, if they were transmitted at birth?
And how do those powers work? For most of the film, our protagonist can only see a few moments in the future, but sometimes (casually, when the story requires it), she can see many things playing in her mind, with plenty of time to interfere. For example, when she saves the girls on the train.
How could Cassandra steal a taxi and drive it for the rest of the film without being caught? I was still young in 2003, but I believe police officers investigated this kind of thing back then. Also, she leaves the girls with her friend Ben; he takes them home, and no one can find them for weeks. But as soon as they step out, the villain discovers where they are? If he is surveying every spot in the city, why didn’t he get to them while Ben was driving them to his house?
How very convenient!
Spider-Man, But Without Spider-Man
Apparently, Madame Web has some connection to Spider-Man, but it’s set in a different universe. So it has nothing to do with the other Spider-Man movies, not even the ones that were made by Sony, it works in a completely independent way.
And I don’t know about you, but to me, it smells like something invented to cover their backs, given the poor reception the movie has had from critics and audiences alike.
Of course, Sony is not the first (and won’t be the last) to look for “creative” ways to keep milking the IPs they have at the lowest possible cost. It wouldn’t be bad if they created a decent project that served to introduce new, interesting, and compelling characters. Unfortunately, this is not what’s happening here.
So instead, we’re given a guy that looks like Spider-Man, but it’s not Spider-Man. A team of girls that will be spider-women at some point, but not right now.
The protagonist also has a friend named Ben, who is starting a serious relationship with “someone” we are not introduced to. Maybe a woman called May? Like Uncle Ben and Aunt May?
This gives me a clue that the project was not supposed to be an isolated thing. Sony just has no other way to justify the mess they’ve created. And rumor has it that the actresses were deceived and made to believe they were signing to be part of the MCU.
Where Are The Superheroes?
Good question.
I’ve heard an excuse for this: It’s an origin story; therefore, they wanted to tell what happened before the characters were superheroes. That could work if they were making a TV show and dedicated just one or two episodes to the origin story, then moved on to all the action. We weren’t even told how the girls got (or will get) their powers. We just have to believe they will and ask no questions.
And then the super suits… The person who green lit this should be fired. Even though we see the cast in those costumes for less than two minutes of the running time, those few moments are the lowest of the movie. It’s like they’re headed to a Halloween party rather than participating in an $80 million budget film. The spider-women look bad, but the protagonist gets the worst out of it, achieving the most awful look in a superhero movie that I’ve ever seen. The no-spider-man is not much better.
I Guess It Could Have Been Worse
I’ve spent the past few weeks hearing the dismal reviews, so I went to the theater with no expectations, simply out of curiosity, hoping to have, at least, a good laugh over how terrible it was.
The bar has never been lower for superhero films than right now, and that probably influences what I’m going to say: I didn’t hate it that much.
It’s a bad movie? Yes, very. Is it worth paying a ticket to see it on a big screen? No.
But at the same time, it’s a bit more entertaining than some of the last superhero movies that I’ve come across. For example, I watched Aquaman and the Last Kingdom in the theater last December, and it was one of the most boring experiences of my life, even though the quality overall was better than Madame Web’s.
On the other hand, this is a bad look for Sony, and it’s Spider-Man’s universe, that’s for sure. I’m not a huge Marvel fan (or Sony‘s Spider-Man, for that matter), so I had no particular interest in the film, but I understand how, for die-hard fans, it’s a real slap in the face. I mean, if they still had any expectations at all. The decline in quality over the past years is bad enough, but with Madame Web it has reached a new low.
How do you get back from this? I don’t think you can.
