Madame Web Review – Sony’s Spider-Man Universe Has No Future

Madame Web has a lot in common with its Sony Spider-Man Universe stablemate, Morbius. It has one overwhelming difference. Morbius starred method actor Jared Leto, at his least likable. Madame Web features Dakota Johnson swaggering confidently in a movie she’s no happier to star in than you are to watch. That fundamental alteration lets the latest entry stand a mile above its immediate predecessor. Everything else drags it down.

Madame Web is director S. J. Clarkson’s feature debut. She cut her teeth in British dramas before moving on to worldwide hits like Dexter and Ugly Betty. Sony brought her onto the project in 2020, roughly seven months after hiring the writing team destined to ruin the film. Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless wrote Morbius. I don’t know what you have to do to get fired from a job in Sony’s Spider-Man universe, but their best efforts were insufficient. Before Morbius, they contributed scripts for three of my all-time favorite terrible action films. Dracula Untold, The Last Witch Hunter, and Gods of Egypt are bona fide “so bad it’s good” hits. Never change, gentlemen. Hollywood wouldn’t be the same without you.

We Can See the Future Too

We all saw the trailers. It doesn’t take a trained eye to notice the terrible production, awful dialogue, half-cocked premise, and bored performances. We all knew Madame Web would be the comedy event of mid-February. Everyone was predictably correct. The film stars Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb, a solitary, misanthropic paramedic. She risks her life to save others while ardently avoiding their company. Her only friend is Adam Scott as Ben Parker, an “Easter Egg” character who feels pulled from a parody. A near-death experience leaves her with regular bouts of deja vu, eventually convincing her she can see the future. She stumbles onto three teens she’s arbitrarily met earlier in the plot and watches a creep in a budget Spider-Man costume murder them. She rearranges their future with a quick escape and guides them through half of a superhero movie.

I appreciate Madame Web’s attempts to do something meaningfully different. Most of the cinematic tropes of the genre are absent here. There are no training montages, double lives, or global stakes. The motivations are personal, though never motivated by anything as compelling as a personality trait. The Spider-Stalker is Ezekiel Sims, the monster who murdered Cassie’s mom to earn superpowers. There are germs of several engaging ideas here. Some of the awful action scenes suggest presenting Spidey’s antics from the victim’s perspective for horror. Cassie’s reluctant, above-it-all, thirty-something superhero routine works when she isn’t stringing together stunts and literal firework displays. Her power leaves her capable yet vulnerable. As pitiful as it is to see Sony struggle to adapt minor characters into stars, Madame Web had potential. Every enjoyable aspect falls flat in execution.

Dakota Johnson Tries to Be a Hero

Dakota Johson’s performance is the only unmixed positive in Madame Web. It’s hilarious at times and sincere at others. She has the energy of a sketch comedian, impressing the audience by delivering her lines without laughing. I hear some lines of dialogue dance off the page in her ice-cold monotone. The script is like a lead weight around her neck. I assume she did some ad-libbing because every worthwhile gag or sharp observation sticks out as if it were delivered in a different language.

That screenplay is no kinder to the rest of the cast. Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, and Isabela Merced do their best with the material, but no one could save these stilted exchanges. I would compare their characterization most readily to the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. They each get one Breakfast Club trait, learn nothing, and couldn’t be more transparently twenty-somethings playing high-schoolers.

The Future Looks Rough

Madame Web sets up no less than four potential new Spider-People to carry this franchise. Someone at Sony heard fans complain that their Spider-Man universe needed a center, so they tossed out a few options. The three Spider-Ladies spend about 45 seconds in suits. This film leaves little hope that they may one day return. Zack Snyder’s DCEU launched its second outing with a montage of teasers. This feels like a similar move, though it will almost certainly fall short of every stated goal. These embarrassing, cloying disasters would gain so much goodwill for releasing a single feature that didn’t feel like an empty platform from which to launch a new universe.

Madame Web could have been a lot of things. It’d be a sharp superhero satire if they’d leaned into Johnson’s strengths as a performer. They could have played up the horror elements to create a better Brightburn. The thriller angle would work if Sazama and Sharpless could write a mystery. It could’ve been a moderately impressive superhero movie with roughly two years and several million dollars to start over. It’s all these things in concept, each for a few minutes. Unfortunately, it’s all executed by the deft hands who brought us Morbius. Morbius, with a likable lead, is all the context you need. I can’t see the future, but Madame Web gives me visions of a world without Sony’s Spider-Man Universe.