It’s not news to Marvel fans that the Sony Marvel releases don’t tend to hold up compared to the rest of the MCU releases. And except for any Spider-Man-based film, they are almost regarded as throw-away one-off characters. And Madame Web seems to be falling in line with all of that but somehow seems to be the worst one they’ve released so far. They don’t even bother to give the movie a special Marvel opening credit, no after-credit scenes – it’s really, just another off-brand super-hero movie adventure, done poorly.
Madame Web takes us to the far past of 2003, probably so they could use the current fashions off the rack at Target for their actors without a huge budget (honestly, wondering where the $80 Million went for making this movie). The story focuses on Cassie Web, a paramedic in New York City who after a near-death experience starts having deja vu, and can see glimmers of the future. While on the way to a funeral, she sees three teenage girls being killed on the train and decides to act and step in and protect them. On the run from the police who assume that she’s kidnapped the girls (who all are runaways or abandoned by their parents), she uses her newfound gifts to protect them from the man who’s trying to kill them.
Sure, all of that sounds far-fetched but most superhero movies are. And with the right story and elements – there is a thread of something there that could be used to make a pretty decent movie. Instead, we’re left with a cobbled-together mess that doesn’t know what it wants to be.
Cassie (Dakota Johnson), is raised in the foster care system after her mother died in childbirth with her while doing scientific studies in Peru. That, of course, means that Cassie has no human interaction other than her day-to-day job working as a paramedic. From the very beginning of the movie, we see her awkwardly accept a drawing from a kid, not knowing how to have conversations or act like a human. It’s flat, and painful, and even if she had a social disability – she could have pulled off a better conversation than Johnson does throughout the movie.
After she saves the girls from the interaction on the train, Cassie decides to steal a cab to get away. Of course, in 2003, no one reported the cab missing. She does a stellar job removing the license plates but not the medallion, the cab number, or the multiple other identifying features on the car. This taxi, also, is seemingly indestructible as she crashes it multiple times, including through part of a building and it continues to drive with only exterior damage. Which, of course, again, no one reports seeing a damaged NYC cab in New Jersey anywhere. Contrast this to the ambulance that she later drives out of a building, crashes in Manhattan and still ends up going until it gets an electrical shock – but only once they’re safely away does the Ambulance stop working… the lack of consistency is annoying, the lack of knowledge of how cars work is even worse.
If that was the worst part of the movie, we would have left semi-annoyed but not hating the movie. While superhero movies tend to bend physics – Madame Web seems to not care about things that she cannot change. Sure, Cassie can see the future and change the outcome. But she also can fly to Peru, and travel all over and back within an evening. Not that the eight-hour flight time one way would have been an issue, let alone the multiple other travel ways she needed to do to make it to her destination. All, of course on the income of a paramedic.
The movie also tries so hard to place you into the 2003 time frame – from the clothing to a music selection that is very much of the era. But the music is so loud that it competes with the conversations in different scenes, and in others – never would have been playing on public radio unedited. No one can tell me that Meredith Brooks’s “Bitch” would have been playing unedited in a diner in 2003, let alone now. The music choices are decent songs, but do not seem to match the movie, or the scenes or are used deftly enough to warrant the busting out your iPod Nano on shuffle feeling it seemed to have.
It should be noted too that if the movie is taking place in 2003, Cassie is either blissfully ignorant or ignoring the well-instilled fear from Final Destination (2000) by tailgating a logging truck in a chase scene. All the while an extremely extended version of Britney Spears’s Toxic is playing on the radio. This, again, doesn’t seem to line up with the movie’s story line since Cassie would have had a few extra minutes since she didn’t have a half-mile walk in the woods on her second time through the scenario.
The movie feels sloppy, and we’re not just talking about the CGI. It’s almost like they skipped out on the source material research and some of the research of reality. All while reusing the same scenes and audio over and over again to make it feel like we were seeing visions. The only vision the audience will be seeing is their freedom once they leave the theater.
There’s no doubt why Madame Web was released during the slow season – they hoped it would get audiences in despite how bad the movie is. But here’s the thing, as much of a backlash that The Marvels got (and didn’t deserve), Madame Web deserves every bit of the bashing that will be coming. It’s dry, it’s boring, it’s ridiculous, and has not even a glimmer of believability in the parts that should. We’re not talking about the superhero aspect, we can suspend belief on some elements. But more so just basic physics and things like flight times or even the just the story overall. The writing is sloppy, the CGI is worse, and whoever decided to do the score – with decent music selections applied them so sloppily to the movie it detracts you from the scene it’s used in.
Yes, there are movies that we just don’t like but can see the merit in as we step back and know that we’re not the market for it. But this is just objectively bad – and makes you wonder why Sony Marvel keeps releasing movies like this. The only IP in their collection that they seem to do decently and care about is Spider-Man – so maybe just stick to that. And the fact that Madame Web is set up for a sequel, we’re hoping that doesn’t make its way to the screen or just goes directly to streaming, where this should have gone.
Madame Web is in theaters everywhere now.
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About Madame Web
“Meanwhile, in another universe…”In a switch from the typical genre, MADAME WEB tells the standalone origin story of one of Marvel publishing’s most enigmatic heroines. The suspense-driven thriller stars Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb, a paramedic in Manhattan who may have clairvoyant abilities. Forced to confront revelations about her past, she forges a relationship with three young women destined for powerful futures…if they can all survive a deadly present.