Madame Web Review

“When you take on the responsibility, great power will come.” – Santiago

I think that quote I’ve used above kind of pinpoints my overall gut reaction to this movie, which is at the time of writing, the latest Columbia/Marvel venture. But before we get to that quote, let me fill in some background to get some context in place.

Madame Web is a peripheral character at best in the Marvel Comics Universe. She’s elderly, blind and clairvoyant, and I believe also she’s without the use of her legs, as I’ve always seen her in some sort of floating (I think) wheelchair. She appears and disappears in a puff of smoke somehow. Okay, it’s true that I haven’t read any of the Spider-Man stories where she features, my introduction to her was in the Spider-Man Animated Series of the nineties, where she popped in to prepare Spider-Man for the upcoming Secret Wars and put him through various trials. So, maybe it’s easily understood why I felt a little confused that she was getting her own film under the ongoing deal between Columbia, who have the film rights to Spider-Man and his various cast of characters such as Morbius and the upcoming Kraven the Hunter and Marvel Studios. There are plenty of other, better, characters in that universe. But, okay… not my decision, I just go and see these movies and offer an unasked-for opinion.

My surprise at this choice of character was compounded by the selection of Dakota Johnson in the lead role. The lead actress of the Fifty Shades of Grey movies is NOT an elderly woman. What DIDN’T surprise me was the negativity when the film was released. Superhero films have reached a saturation point with a lot of the target audience, more so with the high and mighty film critics whose stock in trade is sneering at virtually anything that doesn’t reek of an Oscar. Compounding the negativity is of course the keyboard warriors who spread toxicity about anything and everything they come across. Between these two factions are the hapless, whose opinions are given to them by others. So, all in all, this is a movie that I don’t feel will be in cinemas for a long run. Audiences seem to be avoiding it.

My own honest opinion about it is conflicted. Let’s move to the plot.

It all starts in 1973, when an expedition to the Amazon to locate a spider that’s both rare and elusive and whose venom contains some healing powers finds success. A heavily pregnant Constance Webb (Kerry Bishe) finds the spider but loses it when another member of her team shoots her and steals it. She is discovered by a tribe who have spider-like climbing abilities. They have a spider bite her, and although she dies in childbirth, the baby is saved. (I swear by Stan Lee that they’re not helping themselves with B-movie plots like this to kick a movie off.)

Somehow, the baby finds its way out of the Peruvian jungle (that part isn’t explained) and by the time the film is set, 2003, is a feisty paramedic in New York named Cassie (Dakota Johnson) who becomes clairvoyant when she suffers a near death experience, plunged into the Hudson River.

Also in New York is Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) who, back in ’73 shot Cassie’s mom and stole her spider for his own nefarious ends, though I’m unclear exactly what those ends were. He has his own problems, because he is ALSO sort of clairvoyant and has vivid dreams of being killed by three Spider-Women, each wearing offshoots of the Spider-Man costume, in the unspecified future. So, he has a hacker tap into the New York street, subway and traffic cams searching for these women before they kill him – and he finds them all on a subway station. Also there in the same location is Cassie, who’s experiencing visions of a guy in a costume not unlike that of Spider-Man attacking and slaughtering these girls on a subway and she becomes their reluctant protector.

That’s basically it, plot-wise.

It’s pretty standard superhero fare, there are no real surprises, no cameos, and confusingly, no crossover with any other Marvel character. Well, there is and there isn’t.

Cassie’s work partner is a Ben Parker. His sister-in-law is a pregnant Mary Parker, who gives birth to a baby – now it makes sense that the baby would be Peter, the future Spider-Man and Ben would become of course Uncle Ben whose death causes Spider-Man to become the hero that be becomes – but this isn’t actually mentioned on screen and I think the sparse audiences are missing out on the connection. There’s one of the girls who mentions she has an Uncle Jonah – but he doesn’t seem to be the publisher of the Daily Bugle and nemesis of Spider-Man.

The film is at its heart an origin story, set 21 years ago, which would in the present day make Cassie 51 – still not as old as she appears in the comics but it IS established that several of her comic book attributes are in place, and she can be in several places at once due to her connection with “the web of life” whatever the heck that is.

Were the studios to produce a film featuring, say, the Tom Holland Spider-Man – then all of this would have a point. That film would be set in the modern day and she could appear as she did in the animated series, and she would be an older, wizened character with psychic abilities. But no sequel or further exploration of the character is planned, leaving us with a film that has virtually no connection with any part of the SpiderVerse other than some characters seem to have the same fashion aesthetic as Peter Parker will eventually have.

So ultimately, it’s the beginning of a story that we’ll never see come to fruition, which is frustrating. On the other hand, if you have absolutely no idea who Spider-Man is, have never seen the movies, the series, and have somehow avoided all the comic books then I guess there’s nothing to stop you enjoying the movie. Except if you’re THAT person, you’ll be avoiding this movie like you’ve avoided all the rest. Hence my frustration. Like the opening quote which is a twist on the often-quoted line by Stan Lee from Spider-Man’s origin “With power comes great responsibility”, the film takes established ideas and somehow screw them up. It’s like the concept is there, the words are there – but it’s all jumbled up.

I have to say that I didn’t hate the film, I actually enjoyed it to a degree. I was expecting to see a contender for this year’s Fugly on my end of year Good, Bad & Fugly list. A film I could tear to pieces and make fun of, but in all honesty – it isn’t THAT film. I found Dakota Johnson pretty much okay in the role, and some of the sequences were pretty good – but then some of the performances were pretty bad (I’m looking at you, Tahar Rahim, and your one-note villain) and some of the dialogue actually set my teeth on edge (try this…” That man is Ezekiel Sims, he was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.”) But all in all, I had more fun at this screening than I did watching Quantumania or The Marvels, so go figure.

Rob Rating = 6