Madame Web Review

Madame Web is the fourth film in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. This film acts as an origins story for the psychic character.

Cassandra “Cassie” Webb (Dakota Johnson) is an orphan and paramedic in New York. She develops clairvoyant powers after a near-death experience. Her destiny gets tied with three teenagers, Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor), Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney), and Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced) who are hunted by Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), a villain with spider powers and obsessed with preventing his death.

Sony’s Spider-Man Universe did start on a strong financial footing because the first Venom movie made over $856 million, but the cinematic universe has been suffering from diminishing returns. Venom: Let There Be Carnage made less money even though it had the best critical reception with a whopping 57% on Rotten Tomatoes. Morbius was both a critical and commercial failure and the humiliation was compounded by Sony being tricked into re-releasing the film because of an internet campaign. Madame Web has received a similar critical drubbing.

Madame Web was a hard sell. The character is obscure and doesn’t have the cult reputation that Venom and Morbius have. Sony doesn’t have the wealth of characters like Marvel Studios and Warner Brothers with their DC properties and even those companies had a tough 2023. Yet, Sony is desperate to make their Spider-Man Universe work since Spider-Man is one of their most popular properties: they are set to release a Kraven the Hunter film, and Venom 3 is currently being filmed.

Madame Web made overt references to the Spider-man property. The film had two characters that are connected to Peter Parker, one character referred to their Uncle Jonah, and there was a cringy attempt to rephrase Ben Parker/Peter Parker’s famous proverb. Madame Web aimed to have a more grounded and grittier look of the first Amazing Spider-Man film and the themes of destiny and interconnectivity meant Madame Web shared ideas with The Amazing Spider-Man films. One of the worst aspects of The Amazing Spider-Man films was the idea that Peter Parker was destined to be Spider-Man, instead of being a quirk of fate.

While Madame Web referenced the larger Spider-Man mythos, it was attempting to be a Spider-Man film with Spider-Man. It was the same issue with the Venom films since Venom’s origins were intertwined with Spider-Man. Madame Web’s job was more about setting up future SSU films, especially the final scene which was so cheesy. The villain of the piece dressed up in a black Spider-Man suit and the film did attempt to tense the audience by showing the teenage characters in spider-themed outfits. It’s odd to have characters gain spider powers before Peter Parker.

Madame Web had a lower budget than other superheroes. It reportedly cost $80 million, much less than films like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Flash. This meant there was less green screen and visual effects than in Madame Web’s bigger budgeted counterparts. There was physicality since there was location shooting in New York and Boston. This physicality made the world feel lived in and there was a frantic nature when Cassie drives around Queens, trying to save people and a sequence when Cassie was driving in the countryside, racing to get to the girls whilst Britney Spears’ “Toxic” played was fairly entertaining. However, the lower budget meant the action was limited in scale and it made Madame Web look more like a TV episode, not helped by the fact the film was directed by S. J. Clarkson, a TV director making her feature film debut. The film’s direction was functional rather than disastrous.

Madame Web has been mauled by critics, earning a 14% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Some of the reviews have been savage, Rolling Stone called it the “Cats of Superhero Movies” and other outlets gave it 1 out of 5 reviews, like The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and Little White Lies. Madame Web suffered the same fate as Aquaman: The Lost Kingdom, critics had their knives out for the film. Madame Web was crushingly mediocre rather than outright disastrous like Batman and Robin, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, or Catwoman. Madame Web was a film that took itself way too seriously, it didn’t have any sense of fun like The Marvels, had the weight of The Dark Knight Trilogy, or even had a so-bad-its-good quality. I did have fun spotting the blatant Pepsi product placement which made the film look more like an advert.

Madame Web was sadly a dull, lifeless film, like a spider going down a plughole. It will be forgotten quickly and continues the narrative that Sony doesn’t know what to do with the Spider-Man property.