Madame Web review: Dakota Johnson can’t spin much out of this Spidey-adjacent project
With flashbacks to Peru and flashfowards to crime fighting, Sony’s latest foray into the Spiderverse is a mess
Film Reviews Madame Web
Madame Web is a laughable affair. Intentionally so, at times. But for much of its two-hour runtime, the laughs come at the expense of the arguably capable work being put in by its charming lead, and the ridiculous dialogue she’s reduced to uttering with the best semblance of a straight face. To Dakota Johnson’s credit, she emerges if not unscathed, at least having had a fun enough time playing the film’s titular character. Alas, that’s not enough to save Sony’s ill-conceived attempt at broadening its Spidey-verse.
Johnson stars as Cassandra “Cassie” Webb (yes, really; this movie is nothing if not thick with its cues), a most aloof young woman who sounds and behaves like a Californian and not, of course, a New York City EMT working the streets in 2003 after making her way out of the foster system. Cassie doesn’t know (though we do, thanks to a listless opening prologue) that she’s the daughter of a dogged scientist. One who’d decided to travel all the way to Peru while eight months pregnant in search of a mythic spider whose venom could potentially heal all sorts of ailments. She’s killed, though, and her untimely demise (are there any other kind in these stories?) comes because she’s double-crossed by a man named Ezekiel, who shoots her after securing said spider for himself (why remains a mystery the film seems uninterested in exploring).
And so, Cassie is born with the help of Las Arañas, a group of super-powered beings who can climb treetops and have a sixth sense about them (you might call them spider-men) along with a bite from one of the famed spiders her mother had long been searching for. And then, presumably, she’s shipped back as an infant to New York City, though not before an elder Spider-folk says she’ll eventually come back and he’ll be there to help her. Odd to thing to say to a baby, but that’s the least odd part of this entire screenplay.
That preamble, clunky and ripped straight out of a vintage pulpy B-level (maybe C-level) comic book character’s origin story feels especially extraneous when, set in 2003, the entirety of Madame Web feels like mere prologue. Ezekiel (Tahar Rahim, who may well have had every single utterances dubbed with the worst ADR you’ve seen on a big-budget blockbuster) is awakened every day since he superpowered himself with his stolen spider by one constant dream. In this dream, three young women in different-looking Spidey suits that look straight out of the Schumacher Batman era of comic book costuming, attack him at his lavish apartment and kill him. He’s been having this dream daily: he knows when and how he’ll die. And he’d rather not, obviously. So why not hijack the then novel technology used by the TSA to track these would be supes?
Which he does, though none of the girls have yet been bitten by spiders (radioactive or otherwise). In 2003, they’re just one-dimensional teenagers. One is shy and awkward but also knows Taekwondo (Sydney Sweeney’s Julia). One is a bit of a science geek and a math whiz and rightfully wary of the cops (Isabela Merced’s Anya). And one is spoiled and impulsive but good on her skateboard (Celeste O’Connor’s Mattie). If only Ezekiel can get to them before they grow into the heroes he sees in his vision he may … live a long and fruitful life devoted to …? Well, it’s unclear. He’s truly a villain just because. There’s very little motivation here for anything. Every scene and character is a cog in the machine that we call plot, with little rhyme or reason, let alone character consistency.
That applies to Cassie, as well, who finds her powers awakened after she falls into the river. When Cassie begins experiencing a time-looped world where some events repeat themselves, letting her possibly alter what’s to come, she realizes her mother’s adventures in the Amazon (looking decidedly un-Amazon on screen) may not have been as farfetched as she’d long believed. Hers are premonitions, she soon discovers. Or, as she eloquently puts it in one of the many pieces of dialogue that Johnson miraculously makes believable, even if that somehow makes the whole enterprise feel rather weightless: “I can see the future, kinda.”
It’s those visions that bring Cassie into the orbit of Ezekiel’s three targets and, despite hating pretty much all other people (save, perhaps, her co-worker Ben, played by Adam Scott in a much too thankless a role), Cassie is thrown into being a reluctant parental figure to these variously orphaned and endangered girls.
Wanting to be many things at once (a Madame Web origin story; a franchise starter for a trio of Spidey women; a Millennial/Gen Z odd couple/buddy comedy flick; a chance to witness Johnson’s knack for being above the material she’s in and somehow rising above it while clearly making it obvious we may find it risible), this S.J. Clarkson-directed dreck of a movie is not even bad enough to be enjoyable.
At the press screening I attended in New York City, there weren’t just audible groans of despair and sighs of discontent. There was outright cackling and many a “you’ve GOT to be kidding me!” yells peppered throughout a collective two-hour exercise in disdainful shock that this all made it onto the screen. Much of this was prompted by the dialogue, but also by the shaky and self-consciously deployed music video-like cinematography and the schlocky visual effects which make Madame Web look not too far from a CW show without, sadly, the winking sense of humor to pull off such a camp-adjacent sensibility (this is textbook failed self-seriousness).
If or when you find yourself seated for Madame Web (by choice I hope; though perhaps I may dissuade you from such a choice), you will be compelled to laugh. Not with the film—try as Johnson and her co-stars may—but at it. It’ll come from lines like “us strays have to stick together” (delivered to a cat but also, presumably, as a thesis for the film as a whole); and from bonkers action sequences (did you know the Pepsi Co. sign—its S and a P, in particular—plays a prominent role in its climax?) and sometimes from the sheer tonal whiplash of it all (the utter waste of a Britney needle drop for a teenage dance party turned toothless fight is utterly shameful).
This laughter will feel indicative of something larger, another nail in the coffin of the great era of comic book blockbusters of the 21st century, yes. But also of something bleaker. About how much harder it is, perhaps, to thread the line between sentimental earnestness (this is a film about mothering!) and sheer absurdity (did we mention the mythic Peruvian spiders?). What we’re all left with is a conveyor belt of story beats and IP milestones and coy winking reveals designed to whet our appetite for more without failing to make us care about any of what’s in front of us; the limit case of a way of making comic book adaptations that has truly run its course. Like Madame Web herself, the film is often so hurried or so preoccupied with what’s to come that it ignores what’s happening in the moment. It may explain why there’s no post-credit sequence, for who else would want to see a future vision of this world?
Madame Web opens in theaters on February 14
209 Comments
Badly-written review for a badly-written film. Checks out.
If there are flashbacks to Peru, there had better be a Home for Retired Bears in there. That’s the cinematic universe I’m here for.
I’d love an appearance by Jon Voight with his Paraguayan accent.
Danger! Very essiting!
– Beloved aunt- Deceased uncle- Good at climbing- Friendly uniting force of the neighbourhoodIs Paddington secretly Spiderbear?
Like I wrote yesterday, this movie will bomb so badly, Sony will think twice before bringing another bottom-of-the-barrel Spidey character to the movies.
Nah, the “It’s Madame-ing Time!” meme will make it popular.
they’ve got 2 more out this year!
This sounds delightfully insane. I honestly think I’m looking forward to this more than any other DCU/MCU movie.
…and that attitude is why they keep making these shitty movies.
It could be that, but I’m leaning more toward the Morbius kind of insane, which inspires several different and harsher adverbs.
Morbius kind of insane
I wish these movies were a bit more insane-bad. Morbius was mostly just dull-bad outside of the Have Sex dance scene.
the fact that there is a standalone morbius movie is crazier than anything in the movie itself.
Are you saying it’s Morbin’ time again?
No. I’m saying It’s About Madamn Time.™
Take your goddamn star you monster.
No. It’s webbin’ time.
Yeah, it sounds gonzo/whacko, which is what I need from a superhero movie these days, after all the big budget sameness of the Avengers movies.
Have you seen it yet?? I’ve seen it twice because it is insane and hilarious because of it. New guilty pleasure for me lmao.
Hard to get excited for a character I only remember as that weird old lady from the later episodes of the 90’s Spider-Man cartoon.
Give me one good reason why she couldn’t be played by Stan Lee’s wife again!
“Who is that enchanting woman?”
I keep telling you: she’s 102 years old and she’s dead.
I keep telling you, she’s 95 years old and dead!
If they successfully turned Aunt May into Hot Aunt Mae, I can get on board with Dakota Johnson playing this role.
I love how the 90s Spider-Man cartoon looked at 90s Spider-Man comics and thought “why not dedicate a dozen episodes to the clone saga?”
The only time 90s cartoon touched the clone saga, was the 3part finale.
Didn’t it also pull off a version of Spider-Verse before Spider-Verse was a thing, using Madame Web as the focal point since it was before the whole Spider-Totem inclusion?
Here’s the thing: I was eleven, and it already seemed too convoluted to give a shit
It’s actually what the creator of the Spider-verse comics drew inspiration from.
“another nail in the coffin of the great era of comic book blockbusters of the 21st century”You had me until this moment. Yeah, let’s just ignore that Across the Spider-Verse was a giant hit far beyond its predecessor, tons of people are currently loving the hell out of The Marvels now that it’s on Disney+ and they’re no longer taking the word of right wing chuds about how they shouldn’t see it, and the Deadpool and Wolverine trailer was the biggest smash of the Super Bowl.
“tons of people are currently loving the hell out of The Marvels now that it’s on Disney”Uh…source?
All of social media.
Seems legit
You mean the media system that’s algorithmically-bound to feed you only stuff that reinforces your worldview?
His subreddit.
My couch, it was fun
Shhh. They’ve built their identity around being a Marvel fan and if it loses popularity they’ll have a massive psychic break.
the source is two people on Twitter.
Agreed — that detour into the ridiculous hyperbole of the zombie crowd who gets all their critical thinking done for them via herds and trends is a common disappointment around these parts, lately.
Yeah, the people shambling into Disney movies about superheroes are definitely not a “zombie crowd” that lacks critical thinking.
Sweetheart they’re talking about a superhero movie. Settle the fuck down.
And, is the other side any different?
Is it worth noting that, given the average weight of an American, “tons of people” is about 23 people.
face the truth nerd. it’s over
Incel
I could never face a truth nerd.
You’re commenting on the AV Club. You’re a nerd, too.
I finally watched The Marvels yesterday. It was awful, not quite as bad as Quantummania, but awful nonetheless. In my opinion, mainline Marvel is dead. I’m glad the Spider-Verse films continue to innovate and the Deadpool trailer looked promising but I’m finally throwing in the towel on the MCU (bar Deadpool probably).
I’ve seen quite a few MCU movies even if I’m not a big fan, but I haven’t heard anything around The Marvels that’s been very different from the reviews especially critics I respect, so I don’t even feel like giving The Marvels a chance. I like Chloe Zhao’s movies, but I’m not interested in watching The Eternals. Maybe similar fencestraddlers feel the same and are even less inclined now to start going deeper into the MCU.
I’ve become a “fencestraddler” after being a pretty big fan through Endgame. Nowadays I just watch while I’m on my bike trainer or treadmill and just need something to help pass the time, but I still feel like watching Marvel is a waste of time. There’s tons of better movies and TV shows out there.
Something that someone pointed out to me is worth bearing in mind: Endgame was a perfect jumping-off point. They just wrapped up the big plot arc, as well as arcs for several main characters, honestly a lot of people saw that and probably said “Okay, yeah, that was fun” and haven’t been particularly inclined to see what’s next. It happens in actual comic runs all the time! They’ll wrap up a big storyline and creative teams change and not everyone keeps the title on their pull list. I remember specificially the last issue of Walking Dead I picked up, they wrapped up this big arc involving a prison, it was suitably bleak and dramatic and I just felt, okay, yeah that was fine, done now.
The MCU keeps trying to make new starting points and things just keep happening. Deaths, covid shutdowns, contract disputes, strikes, characters held for ransom, domestic disputes, actors dropping from projects, dropped projects, rewrites, directors leaving projects, directors seeming to purposely sabotage the projects… You can count the amount of post-Endgame MCU content that didn’t have some weird problem before/during production on one hand. Meanwhile Sony Live Action is churning out mediocre (at best) Spider-Man adjacent films while somehow letting the success of Into the Spider-Verse turn its creator into some kinda super-director diva with an extremely wasteful creative process that overworks animators and laughs at the concept of deadlines.
Also the DCEU imploded and now they’re restarting with a guy who’s best successes have been using D-list characters in films that are carried by the cast and character interaction more than any actual plot.
“Also the DCEU imploded and now they’re restarting with a guy who’s best successes have been using D-list characters in films that are carried by the cast and character interaction more than any actual plot.”On the one hand I love these kind of movies , on the other hand most people want to watch Bats and Supes do generic Bats and Supes things rather than really funny /touching scenes with Condiment King and I dunno say Jack O’Lantern redeeming themselves and saving the world while having really funny bickering.Again I want the latter , but unless I can buy a LOT of spare cinema seats I dont know it it’ll be a sucess.
Honestly… thats what premium TV shows are for. It works for the MCU (most of the time) and it works for Peacemaker. Heck, it even worked for Legends of Tommorrow. The problem comes when they don’t take the time and effort to ensure quality.
No way. It had a humor the first one lacked. On Rotten Tomatoes, it had an 82 audience score and a 62 reviewers score, so people that saw it seemed to like it.
Captain Marvel has always been a boring character and Monica Rambeau doesn’t add anything special. Vellani as Kamala was the lone standout in the movie. The only humor that worked came from her. Otherwise we were given too much CGI, inconsistent powers, a lifeless villain, zero urgency, and probably the least exciting climax of any of the MCU movies. I’m sure some people liked it, but no one (relatively) went to see this movie. It made less money at the US box office than ‘The Nun 2′. As always, the problem with Rotten Tomatoes is that it doesn’t take an average of everyone’s review out of 10. An audience score of 82 just means that 82% of raters gave the movie at least a C- (3.5/5). Alternatively, IMDB has it at a 5.6.
I think Kamala is one of the better characters in Disney’s MCU, she’s lodged in a weird spot in the timeline tho.I don’t understand the disdain for Larson, she’s doing her best to sell a pretty stiff character.
Marvel has never actually known what to do with Captain Marvel. No matter the medium. They pulled some… heinous stuff with her when she was Ms. Marvel in old comics, then made her always be on the wrong side morally in modern comics. In the MCU, she’s always an afterthought. Like they want her around because she’s the closest thing to a Kryptonian the franchise has, but they never want to actually use her outside of ‘save the day at the last second’ moments because she’s too strong for anyone who isn’t a multi-arc cosmic villain. The worst part was the decision to make her first film a prequel despite it coming out at the end of the Infinity Saga. It set up for a conflict with the Kree that we never actually got. This makes The Marvels feel like they skipped a film, and its made worse when you consider that the perfect time for a second Captain Marvel film was right after Spider-Man: Far From Home given that the post-credit scene focused on Fury and the Skrull. The Black Widow film had the same issue in that it would’ve had a lot more impact if it came out just after Civil War. Instead, the timing made it clear it really only existed to introduce Yelena, the same way The Marvels seems to only exist to bring Kamala into the legitimate hero business and likely set up a Young Avengers team.
Great explanation
The Marvels was far, far better than Quantummania. The Marvels felt like “old school” MCU in a way that many other recent movies have kinda lacked.Opinions, assholes though. Just putting my two cents in.
Yeah I’ve been down on a lot of Marvel lately which is why I was so surprised when I saw The Marvels and thought it was the best of their recent batch. Maybe benefitted from low expectations, though
“Old school” in the sense that The Marvels is a by-the-numbers MCU movie that we’ve all seen twenty times already?
What twenty times was that?Anyone is free to like or not like any movie, but when the complaints don’t make any fucking sense, the agenda is a little sus.
Ok forgive my hyperbole, “Old school” in the sense that The Marvels is a by-the-numbers MCU movie that we’ve all seen twenty times already?Can you honestly tell me that you didn’t know pretty much exactly what would happen next while you watched The Marvels? Was there a single scene that subverted your expectations? There’s no agenda here, just stating my opinions on an online discussion board designed for this sort of thing.
You saw Bollywood planet coming? The body switching that was the movie’s focus: what Marvel movie did that before?There isn’t that much that surprises me in any of these films, because I’ve spent 40 years reading the source material. But this was more surprising than a lot of Marvel films, especially compared with all the origin story films.This movie was no less unique than movies that get a lot of praise, so I don’t really buy singling this film out with this complaint. I’m not accusing you individually of anything in particular, but there is a long-running trend of people complaining about things in women-centered films that get a pass in men-centered ones. And more often than not, this doesn’t reflect like a deliberate sexist agenda, just the same subconscious biases.It’s not just films, either. Remember 2016, when things that every politician has done since the beginning of time suddenly transformed into the most unspeakable evils when Clinton did them?
“Bollywood planet” was just populated by a bunch of humans who sing. That’s hardly original as far as alien planets in movies are concerned. The body switching was in the trailer but the movie failed to do anything actually interesting with it. You knew from the start that at first they would struggle with the switching and then eventually learn to work together and use it to their advantage. Nitpicking here, but it was also pretty inconsistent as to when the switching happened. It was supposed to happen when two of them simultaneously used their powers but does Marvel or Rambeau flying not count as using powers? Quick, without looking what was the villain’s name? Why can Captain Marvel go toe-to-toe with Thanos in Endgame but in this movie she’s on par with Rambeau and Khan? When “Bollywood planet” was being evacuated the three heroes just stood in the spaceship doorway and herded people in. Could they not have done anything more useful? I could go on and on with a list of things about the movie that I thought were bad, but none of them have anything to do with it being women-centric. You can drop that argument, I’m an open feminist and not the person you’re looking for. I’m not singling out this movie anyway, it’s just the one I watched most recently. Quantummania was terrible. Love and Thunder was terrible. Secret Invasion was terrible. Echo was ok but unnecessary. My original point was that at this point I’m no longer interested in the MCU. But anyway what movie do you think is less unique than the The Marvels but getting lot of praise?
What male centered film similar to The Marvels got praised? The Marvels was a scattershot mess of ideas and the only reason the first film did so well is because it was riding the coat tails of Infinity War and people felt they needed to see it before they saw End Game. Its a completely forgettable film with completely forgettable characters.
everyone is allowed to not like a movie for stupid reasons that don’t make sense.
If you don’t like a series of movies, no one’s forcing you to watch them. I’ve consistently enjoyed most MCU products, even some of the shows, and I think there’s a ton of group-think about Marvel itself coloring the reception to its individual products. The Marvels and even Quantumania very much included there.
I get that MCU isn’t for you, and I respect your right to instead point to other movies that are also similarly full of tropes attempting to elevate themselves as “doing it right.”
The thing is, the MCU used to be for me. The movies used to be exciting and fun. Iron Man, The Avengers, Winter Soldier, Civil War, Ragnarok, Infinity War, and Endgame are all a blast. But Marvel has consistently put out duds post-Endgame (with a few exceptions). So yes, obviously no one is forcing me to watch, and to get back to my original point, I’m finally giving up after following along all this time.
While I think the movies haven’t had the same peaks as the Infinite saga – I’ve also recognized that there’s really only one way to go from there, similar to how Star Wars and a few other beloved series have gone.
I also struggle to really compare anything to Iron Man and the much older MCU – especially because that was 16 years ago and I’m no longer in my 20’s. Everything I watch now has a different hue, so to speak. We have to find ways to engage with media currently, not based off of nostalgia.
Honestly, I think current MCU’s biggest problem is that they’ve had to restructure plans a lot.I have the feeling that they were planning on putting a lot of emphasis on Spider-Man until Sony tried to hold him ransom. Immediately after we went from a film about Spider-Man being Tony’s heir-apparent to a film where the events make it so that he has no bearing on the MCU’s plot whatsoever anymore.Wakanda Forever had to make huge changes both because of the loss of Chadwick Boseman w/o the desire to recast the role and a desire to introduce Ironheart for… no real reason (and for some reason make it so she’s not a kid which kinda dampened the impact of Namor’s nonsense demand for her death).
Thor 4 apparently cut a lot of stuff involving pantheons and seemed to have a major tonal shift from what was implied by the storyboards and interviews. QuantumMania only existed to introduce Kang the Conquerer following Loki’s ‘He Who Remains’. Outside of that, it ran on sheer nonsense, Janet refusing to warn people about threats, and Cassie being dumb. Even the Modok reveal was undercut by the changes made to his character in terms of personality.
We know that several of the Disney+ shows had major last minute changes to the script, with Covid shutdowns messing with shows like WandaVision and Falcon & The Winter Soldier and then there was that whole mess with Secret Invasion. Hell, What If? season 1 had (at least) one episode missing entirely because it wasn’t finished in time, which made a character from that episode appearing in the finale seem weird.
The Marvels wound up just being more of the same. Marvel heroes fight a villain with a variant of their powers/exact same powers. It happens just about every solo film now. It’d be a decent formula if they did something interesting with it but all The Marvels did was introduce a musical chairs element. As is, I wouldn’t say it was a bad movie, but I can’t say it was good either. It had entertaining moments but seemed to only exist to move Kamala to the big screen and hint at more Multiverse stuff.
Now the MCU basically has a Young Avengers setup primarily built through Disney+, a need to recast Kang, and a bunch of plot lines that have yet to go anywhere.
Another great explanation. Unfortunately for Marvel/Disney, we only get to judge the final product, not what could have been had everything gone according to plan.
I just watched it. Thought it was on same level or maybe better than Thor 4 and DS2. Definitely better than AM3. The opening fight sequence when they’re all trading places is really fun and well done and Kamala is great throughout. The villain was terrible and forgettable. Not really high praise but I thought it was a squarely OK movie that would have fit fine into the first three phases (albeit as one of the weaker entities).
I’m hoping it’s a good sign that Deadpool is the only MCU movie scheduled for next year. I’m hoping it means Fiege and company have finally realized maybe focusing on quality and not quantity is the better way to go.
people love the hell out of any movie. you’ll eventually find people who will love the hell out of ‘madame web’.
I really, really wanted to love the Marvels but it just wasn’t very good. The three leads and their chemistry was great, everything else was pretty bad. And then it just kind of ended.
I think its debatable when talking about the Sony-verse characters (other than Spidey himself.) Think: Morbius, Venom, Madame Web — all of which seem like also-rans they are trying to shove into a Sinister Six situation. (Are there high hopes for Kraven??) I’ll be happily surprised should they all add up to a good SS vs Spidey movie. But based on what we’ve seen thus far, my hopes aren’t high.
Haha I forgot that Kraven was even a thing. Didn’t the first trailer for that come out months ago? Did they change the release date or something? Figure the hopes for it can’t be too high if they didn’t spring for the hype a Superbowl ad would have gotten.
Yeah, I think it was some kind of pandemic related pause on the production. I’ve heard almost nothing, but IMDB has it opening in late August of this year.
Oof. August is the February of summer movies.
Seriously is Disney paying you ? The superhero genre is almost dead. Nobody is suddenly liking The Marvels on D+ this is a media campaign, and Deadpool 3 as good as it could be (or not) won’t change anything.
Across the Spider-verse and Deadpool are their own things arguably, Spider-verse is great but it’s not the standard comic book movie of the boom in the 2000s, and I think Deadpool was always a release for the fatigue of comic book movies, and is in its own way a sign of the end. I can’t imagine Deadpool being the thing that revitalizes the genre when it’s almost certainly going to be full of jokes about how bad and oversaturated the genre got.
You lost everyone at “tons of people are loving the hell out of The Marvels.” They didn’t love it at the theaters and the don’t love it now. You win the dumbest comment of 2024 on A/V Club. Congrats!!
just because there are some good things happening doesn’t mean there isn’t someone else hammering nails. neat, you named a few things people like. there were more people didn’t in the same time frame.what’s certainly unfair is pretending that Sony ever had a seat at the table or was given a hammer. Their movies suck but it’s not going to be a part of the DC or Marvel conversation to fans who really care about the whole thing anymore than the CW was “hurting” the DCEU.
…tons of people are currently loving the hell out of The Marvels now that it’s on Disney+Source: Trust me bro
“another nail in the coffin of the great era of comic book blockbusters of the 21st century”This , Moebius , possibly Kraven are more Comic adjacent movies , I mean they’re a minor character that should really turn up in a Spiderman movie , rather than on their own. (Venom has a big enough following in comics to stand on their own).If Sony had any sense they either would have made non MCU spiderman movies alongside the MCU ones , either a live action Miles Morales movie that they can set characters up in to spin off , or .. I dunno “Ben Reilly :Scarlet Spider “ …instead they’re trying to skip a load of steps and make these ..things that its pretty obvious are going to fail.
I thought The Marvels was better than the whole internet outcry, and the actors in that have had a world of unnecessary shit. But it’s still a pretty poor movie. If that’s anywhere near the best comic book movie you can point to from the last few years, isn’t the writer’s point quite obvious?
How do these films get so far, when it’s obvious they suck.
I will totally drunk(or hungover) watch this one saturday morning when it’s on free TV. Sounds/looks Jason X so bad it’s funny awful.
My guess is it will be on FX as early as this Sunday morning.
Ha!
It’s funny that Sony is the one of the major five companies that understands how important a long release schedule is.
Exactly, get me some friends maybe a few drinks/smoke and tearing apart this bland trainwreck sounds like a great time for your crew if they enjoy “so bad it’s good”I look forward to the laughs this will bring to a couch near you.
“free TV” lulz
Hard to believe that a lead who, based on interviews, seemed to have zero clue or understanding of the film she was in, couldn’t sell a role convincingly, huh? Shocker.
I never particularly cared for her right from the start of her fame, but I never knew exactly why — she just gave off an unlikable vibe, IMO. I only recently found out she was a nepo-baby, and though this usually isn’t a deal-breaker for me, in her case it perfectly explains the “ugh” vibe I get from her.
Look, I believe your assessment of this movie is probably accurate. However, publishing a review this rife with grammatical errors undermines any critical authority it might have otherwise asserted. Doesn’t it feel like learning to proofread should maybe come before judging the creative efforts of others—especially writing quality? Did an editor look at this?
There are a few sentences in there I’d really like to see diagrammed.
Complaining about editing on the A.V. Club? What is this, 2016?
An editor would likely also object to this verbiage you created.
Aye, it’s a truly awful review. I’m sure the movie sucks, but this Betancourt guy has some nerve accusing it of being badly written.
Oh man, the missing hyphens in this article…
“One who’d decided to travel all the way to Peru while eight months
pregnant in search of a mythic spider whose venom could potentially heal
all sorts of ailments.”Yeah, that’s not a sentence.
Turner D. Century looks forward to viewing this motion picture at his favorite nickelodeon.
IF FUCKING ONLY.
I am going to will a Turner D. Century film in to existence.Do your stuff interwebs.
I think at some point, a character should point out that Turner D. Century’s whole schtick is actually now turn of the “previous” century. He then smiles wryly as a bleach-blonde, midriff baring, low-rise boot-cut cargo-pants-adorned, spray-tanned woman emerges from the shadows and lifts her shield sunglasses. “Allow me to introduce you to my niece …”
You kids and your ragtime music! Scott Joplin will never catch on I tells you!
Aside from maybe the first Venom, have any of the Spidey-adjacent movies worked, or even been any good at all?
Whoa, whoa, easy there. The first Venom wasn’t good either.
It’s the best Romcom Tom Hardy has ever done.
You mean Rock’n’Rolla wasn’t a Guy Ritchie Romcom?
Adam Scott playing someone named Ben, you say?
Get on your feet!
We know Ben knows his way around the world of cinema too!STAND IN THE PLACE WHERE Y–
Is there a bird spider in here?!
I am convinced this movie exists to set up a Sydney Sweeney -as- Arachne (Julia Carpenter…or Cornwall if this review is correct?) movie which will also disappoint, because Sony is just using these films for the years when they don’t have a Spider-Man / Spider Verse film to keep film rights to the characters.
i’m not sure of the exact specifics but i think they only need to be developing a spider-man movie every 10 years to keep the rights. they do not need to be doing all this to keep the rights, this is something else entirely.
It’s way less time than that. They need to produce a movie every 5 years in order to keep the license.
good to know. nevertheless it’s only been 16 months since venom 2 and kraven comes out in 5!
Yeah, but it’s still because of that 5-year deadline. GQ lays it all out pretty well here: https://www.gq.com/story/sonys-weird-spider-man-extended-universe-explained-to-the-extent-that-its-explicable
it doesn’t really explain why they’ve decided to stack so many of them, other than the obvious ‘let’s try to make money’ angle. it’s a 5 year and 9 month window according to the article, and in the last 5 years and 9 months we’ve gotten madame web, spider-verse 2, morbius, venom 2, spider-man’s no way home & far from home, with kraven and venom 3 also out this calendar year. i guess it’s just a ‘do it cuz we can while we can’ thing.
Probably because when they were doing them one at a time, Sam Raimi became unable to do Spider-Man 4 in that time frame, which led to the Amazing Spider-Man reboot in a panic. Since that didn’t turn out so well, they probably think having a bunch of irons in the fire will guarantee at least one film makes it if there’s delays on any of the others. Which, yeah, that keeps the license in their hands, but it seems that they’re either oblivious or ambivalent of the fact that going the quality-over-quantity route causes audience fatigue.
as good an explanation as anything else i guess.if they always have 4 on the go they’ll never lose the rights. and if i paid 10 million dollars for the spider-man licence i’d never give it up, either.
Five years, nine months. I’m not being pedantic, but more pointing out the hilarious lawyering that no doubt led to that time frame:“A movie every ten years for us to retain rights.”“Unacceptable. Three years.”“No. Eight.”“Four.”“Six.”“Five.”“Five years, eleven months.”“Ten months.”“Nine months.”“Deal.”“Hey, how many hours you billing Marvel for this?”“This? It was nearly ten minutes worth of work. So…three.”
5 years not 10.
Julia Carpenter is legit one of my favourite Marvel characters. Disappointing she’s being wasted like this. Ah well, maybe with Wonder Man coming (and Vision, Scarlet Witch, War Machine already here), we’ll get our Avengers West Coast movie some day…
Really? Why?She’s been around a long time and I’ve never seen her be interesting, but I obviously never read anything. Where’s have good Julia Carpenter stories been hiding?
I don’t see why they needed to do this to do that.
Cornwall was Julia’s maiden name in the comics, Carpenter her married one, so yeah, she’s probably still just Julia Cornwall here.
The box office of this hot garbage will guarantee that there won’t be any spin-offs for these characters.
To think we’ll never get El Muerto. They cancelled El Muerto!
“save, perhaps, her co-worker Ben, played by Adam Scott in a much too thankless a role”Ok, we see what you’re doing here, film.
Also, Emma Roberts as Mary PARKER?
this is a surprisingly bland review for what would, in A.V. Club days past, have been a hilariously scathing takedown. Manuel, do better next time.
Maybe Nathan Rabin will add this to the Flop series.
If this was the guy behind Contract to Kills review…..
Igmatiy Vishnevetsky. There was a man who could tear a film a new asshole and make it look classy.
That review should be in the Smithsonian. There were so many memorable third degree burns in that review:“Seagal’s team of ‘whatever, sure’ men”“The Turkish and Mexican locals are played by Romanians, and it’s truly something to see a thin, pasty guy who looks like he was just let go of his cashier position at Mega Image yell, “Move it, gringo!” or “Hey, ese!” at an American sort-of star with a printer-cartridge dye job”“His fully dressed body is lowered over a naked woman like a drawbridge” (my favorite)“Overall, he gives the kind of performance traditionally associated with stars who died during filming”
Nasa needs to make another Voyager probe and put this review on it.
i do wonder if even this shit has NDAs, so they might not be able to truly get into it.
There’s so much paranoia around reviews and until there’s some tell-all (or if it already exists pls share) that reveals the supposed bias-pushing practices it really feels like the ramblings of people who spend too much time online
you’re gonna have to rephrase that i have no idea what you’re talking about.
Can’t Sony just give Lord & Miller the Spider-Man universe and put them in charge of every non MCU Spider-Man movie?
Going by ‘recent’ comments about Lord… that might wind up costing them the rights just because of delays.
Movie studios have to realize that if a character has never taken off in the comics it is extremely unlikely that they will take off in a movie. Marvel has been trying since the 70s to make some version or another of Spider-Woman happen (the original Secret Wars spends way more time than you remember trying to make people care about the Julia Carpenter version of Spider-Woman and Brian Bendis’ Avengers run assumes that the audience is much more invested in the Jessica Drew version of Spider-Woman than anyone really is) and every version of the character is still C-list at best. The only times I can think of where characters who struggled to support ongoing comic book series headlined successful movies are Blade, Ant-Man, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Of those, Blade was marketed as just a cool, late 90s-as-hell action movie while Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy were (a) genuinely good superhero movies, (b) made at the peak of Marvel’s ability to get audience’s to watch anything that tied into the overarching MCU narrative, and (c) in the case of Guardians of the Galaxy based on a recent comics run that was maybe the most criticially acclaimed cosmic Marvel story that had ever been published, despite being a modest seller.
I expect I speak for a lot of people in saying I had no idea until much later that Blade and Guardians originated in comic books. One’s a cool vampire fighter (which DOES make sense to have come from a comic book property) and the other’s a sci-fi action comedy. I was legit confused when I first saw the Guardians were joining the extended Marvel universe.
I also hate women. High five.
Ah damn you got me. I haven’t ever really clicked with one of Marvel’s attempts to make a Spider-Woman character popular and I think it’s probably a bad idea for movie studios to make big budget movies based on characters who are not popular enough to sustain an ongoing comic book, therefore I hate women. Impeccable logic.
I wouldn’t mind a Jessica Drew or Anya Corazon standalone film if they were actually well written. You could treat an Anya film sorta like a continuance of Homecoming or the first Shazam! movie. Jessica Drew I’d probably treat as either something similar to the early episodes of the Hawkeye D+ show, or a focal character to kickstart a new version of Agents of SHIELD.
I’ve never really clicked with Julia Carpenter though.
The weirdest thing is that it looks like they were solid with the casting but then forgot to actually write a good film.
Why are these SONY movies so aggressively bad? They even look terrible.
The executives like Tom Rothman don’t care about quality, they are money focused. They hire cheap directors and writers and put money behind everything else.
Webs…darkness…..no parents……!!
Im stunned, STUNNED that the cinematic masters of Sony made a mess. There was no sign or hint this would be this bad………………………..
I *almost* feel bad for the people involved in this movie. AFAIK, no one really cared about a Madame Web movie. I read comics into the 90s and I don’t even know who she is. The principal cast seems pretty unenthusiastic with it; I did not even know Adam Scott was in it until now and it seems like they would want to get him on a press tour. Dakota Johnson seems whatever about it. The trailer made it look like one of those pre-MCU movies where it’s too self-important to be fun, but not self-important enough to be thoughtful.But then again, this movie was a naked cash grab by execs, so fuck them.
Stop making comic book movies about characters who have never even carried a comic book title.
We have James Gunn to blame for this. The Guardians of the Galaxy were a deep Marvel cut and he still pulled together a trilogy of great movies about them. Now Sony thinks we want a Kraven movie
It’s not even the same. The Guardians of Galaxy were an obscure group for decades who had been rebranded following a massive crossover event and given their own critically and commercially successive title, which ran for years before that movie was greenlit.There’s a huge difference between “relatively new and not known outside of comics” and “been around for ages but no one ever gave a shit and never carried a title once.”
Not sure that is exactly the case. The new Guardians became a team in 2008 and had a run that lasted two years before being cancelled. They had a new run start again in 2013 that was clearly done to tie into the movie being released(The characters get redesigns to look more like their MCU versions at that time).
In all honesty the new team feels like it was manufactured mostly to sell a movie about, that is not a bad thing. But really even in comic circles they were not very popular brand in 2014. But you are right, they are much more of something then Madame Web was
It was an organically popular new title (which included a few long-time fan favorite characters) that inspired a movie and then was unfortunately chopped up to align with the movie. That hurt the comic, because many of the best characters got axed because the movie.It’s more like Miles Morales and Ms. Marvel than fucking Madame Webb.
The weird thing with Gunn with both GotG and The Suicide Squad is that the movies have a lot of heart, great character interaction, and excellent actor portrayals but their actual storylines are pretty bad when you list the events that occur.
Also, I stand on the hill that Star Lord is the worst MCU lead character and I only specify lead character because the MCU continues to have a problem with developing villains.
This is generally true, although Sersei is pretty tough competition.And yeah, for all the other complaints people have about the MCU, the lack of compelling villains is the biggest one. So far, on the positive side, we have had Loki, Killmonger, Namor, Ultron, Thanos, Wanda, and Kingpin, with a few other mid ones (Hela, Winter Soldier, Red Skull, Wenwu, Arthur Harrow) and a long list of forgettable clones.This universe BADLY needs some Doom, Magneto, Sinister, anyone with personality. Of course, good villains can be done badly (cough cough Apocalypse), but even a generic comics villain could be strong if the writers actually gave a shit.
At a current 19% (!!!) on RT, I don’t think there’s going to be much cash to grab here.
And released on Valentines Day! How many people are going to get dragged to this on *Valentines Day*?
The #1 thing I want to know about this movie is how much they paid Adam Scott. It had to have been a LOT.
Adam Scott is an actor who is almost universally liked, or at least I have never heard anyone say anything bad about him, nor has he done anything controversial. Why is he not out there in front of every camera promoting this thing? I suspect he feels the same low level of enthusiasm for this as everyone else does, so once that check cleared he had “scheduling conflicts”.
i imagine that fact that he’s like 6th billed has something to do with it. they barely even seem to have sydney sweeney out there and she’s got one of the biggest hits of the year already (and is arguably more famous than the entire cast put together)
Dakota Johnson is whatever about everything. I do not understand why she gets work.
I was only aware of Madame Web because Adam had talked about it on CBB way way back in like 2020 or whenever he was first allowed to talk about it, then occasionally wondering if that movie was ever coming out over the next few years
To be fair, Dakota Johnson seems about as low-energy as they come.
Why couldnt THIS be shelved for tax rebates?
Look, you can complain about having to dub all of Tahar Rahim’s lines. But what were they gonna do? Not cast Tahar Rahim, just because he lacked one of the foundational requirements to appear in a movie with English dialogue? The public demanded Tahar Rahim!
He speaks flawless English in the Serpent, so it clearly wasn’t a language issue
Two takes that I’m sure will leave me completely unflamed.1. Dakota Johnson is not a good actor. She is a bland, one-note performer whose range goes from “mildly put upon” to “mildly perplexed.”2. In most feature films, the presence of Adam Scott (who, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love) is a signifier that the A-lister they really wanted for the part did not like the material.I now await all the fans of Suspiria and Torque to shower me with praise for my cutting insight.
Maybe they couldn’t get anyone else for those 50 Shades movies, but her casting there was completely perplexing.
She was good on Ben and Kate.
I think Johnson is plenty talented, she plays a type, but she plays it well. She also just changed agencies, I anticipate she’ll be exploring new roles.
Okay that was one time for Hot Tub Time Machine and his profile has raised since. Severance etc.
Severance is brilliant and he’s a terrific actor. I was talking specifically about significant roles in feature films (Step Brothers notwithstanding)
a Millennial/Gen Z odd couple/buddy comedy flickIf the movie is set in 2003, and the oddbuddies are supposed to be Johnson and the teen Spider-Gonnabes, it’s a Gen-X/Millennial dynamic (dammit!).
extremely funny thing is that, apparently, this movie was originally set in the 90s and then, through reshoots, was reset in 2003 so it would line up with (i guess) peter parker’s age. so there’s a bunch of shoe-horned in ‘2003-specific’ dialogue.
“Boy, it sure has been an eventful 2003, what with [THE TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS WINNING SUPERBOWL XXXVII], [THE LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING BECOMING THE HIGHEST GROSSING FILM], and [THE BEGINNING OF THE IRAQ WAR]—boy, am I exhausted! I think I’ll sit back, relax, listen to [METEORA] by [LINKIN PARK] on [COMPACT DISC].”
apparently there is an off-camera ‘i gotta get home to watch [idol]!’
I’m honestly going to take pleasure in Sony losing so, so much money on this one. Hopefully it’ll stop these lazy cash grabs.
It won’t, though.
How many cures for cancer does the rainforest have, exactly? Are people just tripping over them and not noticing it? If I go to the Amazon and scrounge around for 20 minutes, will I find one?
Lorraine Bracca did it first!
The best thing this movie might produce is some gags on Adam Scott’s podcast.
“ And one is spoiled and impulsive but good on her skateboard”Poochie is in this movie?
On the plus side, they do, in fact, get to the fireworks factory.
shockedfry.gif
I think trying to link “Sony does things to keep the rights to the small pool of characters it has” to The Marvels as proof of anything is probably a stretch. The Marvels performed poorly. Deadpool and Wolverine is almost certainly going to make bank. Echo, Loki, and pretty much everything else they throw on D+ inevitably jumps to the top of the charts. People aren’t going to the movies. That’s a problem studios need to grapple with in a more meaningful way.
So this movie takes place in 2003 right, and I read that Adam Scott’s character name is Ben Parker. Is Adam Scott Uncle Ben?
Yep! We’ve had hot, sexy young Aunt May, so now we’re getting hot, sexy young Uncle Ben!
i guess he’s young for an uncle ben but i wouldn’t call adam scott young.
was this review written via google translate?
Literally the only thing to look forward to is Adam Scott guest-starring on the “How Did this Get Made” episode for this film.
At least we are getting an honest review here and not the completely laughable A- that Lisa Frankenstein got. I’m sure its not a terrible film but calling it a “Triumph” might be the most laughable review this site posts all year.
Movies about women make your peepee shrink
Yeah because this movie is getting such rave reviews. Everyone hates women I guess, including all of the female reviewers who trashed this pos you limp dick twat.
My favorite complaint from a movie review about this film is that evolutionarily it makes ZERO SENSE for a spider to deliver venom that makes its victim *more powerful*.
I find it weird to make a superhero movie where the character doesn’t wear a mask, but then you cast an actress who acts like she’s wearing one. This movie screams out as a tax write-0ff.
Please use fewer parentheses. It makes the points you’re trying to articulate come off more as tangential asides rather than anything important or worth reading, and ultimately makes the whole thing feel like an ADHD scattershot of thoughts. It’s as all over the place as the movie you’re talking about apparently is.I think you could have achieved the same effect other ways: using colons or – maybe – dashes. Some of the thoughts in the parenthesis were also strong enough to actually carry on in their own sentence and take part in the larger thoughts they were surrounded by.I’m dangerously close to liking the body of the review to the MCU and everything in () to Sony or Disney TV asking if they can get a nice RT score as well, so I’ll stop there.
ahem…..I have Madame Web’s first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #210. I need this movie to succeed so I can sell it. I hatched this plan when I was a teenager. It’s my retirement plan. My Morbius plan fell through.
“Roll up! Roll up! Read all about it. AV Club gives Madame Web a hard D!”
Just watched it. (I have an annual Odeon pass, so it cost me nothing but time.)By the gods, it is so shit. It reeks of wrong decisions at every stage of development, from story to script to casting to direction to acting to editing.
God, what I wouldn’t give for the Vishnevetsky review of this monstrosity.
Johnson stars as Cassandra “Cassie” Webb (yes, really; this movie is nothing if not thick with its cues)Cassandra Webb is literally her name from the comic books.
My husband and I went into it only hoping it was as bad as advertised, and we had a blast. I would/will watch this movie ten times just to catch every bizarre story decision, terrible costume, or inexplicable line reading (the scene with the villain menacing his hookup is one of my favorite scenes ever, like every person on screen is absolutely committed to Brechtian levels of underscoring the artifice of it all.) I think the real joke here is on Sony, and everyone who made the movie was in on it, and now we can be too! This flick has a future, and I will die on that hill like Cassandra until the rest of you get hip to it