'Madame Web' Is a Disaster. I Loved Every Minute of It.
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The following story contains spoilers for Madame Web (2024).
SOMETIMES, WE, AS a culture, can smell blood in the water. When a movie is going to be bad bad, we can sense it coming. Movies like 2006's Snakes on a Plane, 2015's Fantastic Four, and 2022's Morbius are a handful of many that had a headful of steam ahead of their release where people had to know they were not going to be good. But while these movies are, in fact, bad, they failed in capturing a sentiment we all seem to use far more than it actually turns out to be true: "so bad that it's good." Instead, these movies were just regular bad, boring to watch and not interesting to look at. They're floating around Wal-Mart bargain bins right now for a reason.
2024's Madame Web may find its way to those bargain bins sooner rather than later, but we're going to make something abundantly clear: it is the hidden gem of bad movies. Madame Web is a masterwork in badness. If you head to the theater expecting a "good" superhero movie, well, you'll probably have a bad time. The Dark Knight, this is not. If you go in the mood for a comedy? Oh boy, there is a treat in store for you.
It's a disaster of a film, with visuals that make little sense, bizarre story turns, absurd dialogue, and an ending and conclusion that simultaneously makes no sense and also sets up a sequel that will, of course, never happen. And despite all that, it's some of the most fun I've had at any movie in recent memory—and I've seen almost all of the films nominated for next month's Academy Awards.
The blood in the water with Madame Web began with a trailer that featured an instantly meme-able terrible line (that didn't even make it into the film), and was followed by a press tour where its star could not possibly have seemed less interested, often deflecting questions with some masterful dry humor (incredible work, truly). Expectations for the movie were low, and the film—at just around two hours long—delivered exactly what was expected.
While the much-memed trailer line—"He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died,"—isn't even in the final cut of Madame Web, that ridiculous, overexpository nature defines the movie. After the movie opens with a flashback that literally depicts Cassandra Webb's (Dakota Johnson) mother in the Amazon researching spiders with the film's villain, Ezekiel Sims, (Tamar Rahim) right before she dies, we catch up with Cassandra in 2003, where the movie's action takes place. Cassie is a paramedic who goes around Queens helping people in need with her partner, Ben Parker (Severance and Party Down's Adam Scott, who is, yes, playing a young version of Spider-Man's Uncle Ben).
The film is filled with those sorts of not-so-subtle references to Spider-Man lore, including one character saying their "Uncle Jonah" (referring to Daily Bugle boss J. Jonah Jameson) can help with something, and hinting that three teenage girl characters (played by Sydney Sweeney, Isabella Merced, and Celeste O'Connor) will eventually not only take the mustache-twirling bad guy Ezekiel down, but protect the city as Spider-Women.
Those Spider-references are sprinkled in throughout the film, which mainly centers on a quasi-time-travel plot that is incoherent and half-baked. After an accident pulls her under water and nearly kills her, Spider powers from the Amazon (one bit her mom right before she gave birth, right before she died) activate within Cassie, and suddenly she's able to periodically see a few seconds in to the future. It's not consistent (don't try to apply any kind of logic to it, because it won't add up) and doesn't really help all that often, but it happens! And that's how she ends up meeting (and, technically, saving, and also technically, kidnapping) the three teenage future Spider-Women.
Perhaps the weirdest thing about Madame Web is that for as awful as it is, I have hardly a bad thing to say about any of the actors. Sydney Sweeney is a bit miscast—she's kind of playing a dorky girl in the same way Katy Perry did in the "T.G.I.F." video back in the day—but the rest are doing the best they can with a rough script. Johnson, in particular, is at least having fun with it; she seems aware that some of what she's saying and doing is beyond ridiculous, and it makes the whole endeavor a bit of a good time. If Madame Web ever comes close to working, it's because Johnson's dry sense of humor threatens to save the whole thing.
In one scene, Cassie puts her Spider-powers to the test and completely fails to climb a wall; it doesn't work, and goes nowhere from there. She also speaks to a cat (not a superpower, just for funzies) on more than one occasion. Is it good? No, it is not. Did I have a smile on my face? Yes, I sure did.
Later, when Cassandra begins to tell the three girls that she's "been learning more about her Mom," I audibly gasped, even though I already knew the memed line from the trailer wasn't even in the film. And yet it was still exciting, because of how truly absurd this whole thing had become. I was eating up whatever campy, hilarious nonsense—intentional or not—was being thrown at me.
The film's lowest point—and where it comes closest to Morbius level of just bad and bland—is with Ezekiel Sims, the villain. Rahim's performance was clearly tinkered with extensively in the film's post-production, as nearly all of his lines are ADR'd, recorded after-the-fact and played when Ezekiel's mouth isn't on screen. In supervillain form, he's referred to as "ceiling guy" (after he's seen crawling on a ceiling), and kind of looks like if black suit Spider-Man from Spider-Man 3 was drawn from memory. He's also got a "lady-in-the-chair" sidekick played by Girls and The Flight Attendant star Zosia Mamet, and I can only say that I hope she got paid nicely.
Madame Web is not a good movie, but, as a fan of the superhero movie genre when done well, am hopeful that this will turn out to be a net positive. The film is going to be rewatchable due to transparent camp reasons, yes, but it may also prove to be a kick in the butt to Sony (and other competing studios): if there ever was a time when this genre could just push anything out and it would be a hit no matter what—it's certainly over now. Marvel Studios has already scaled back its output for 2024 and future years, seemingly prioritizing quality over quantity in the future, while James Gunn's DCU won't even kick off until 2025's Superman: Legacy. There are two more Sony Spider-Verse releases scheduled for 2024 (Kraven the Hunter and Venom 3), and, well, those may continue to be rough.
The very end of Madame Web finds Cassandra randomly blind and paralyzed–a trait of the character in the Marvel Comics–after defeating Ezekiel with the help of a large Pepsi-Cola sign, drowning, and being saved by the three future Spider-Women. The three teens come and lovingly visit her as she navigates an apartment in a motorized wheelchair with strange sunglasses covering her eyes; images of the future crime-fighting trio again flash. It’s clearly meant to set up a future sequel that the studio entirely takes for granted—and one that anyone spending the time to watch this film knows will never be realized.
But it's not all negative; Madame Web is going to have its place in history, that's for sure. It's just may not be with The Dark Knight or Logan; instead, it's going to have to settle for the Daredevil and Morbius conversation. But we'll tell you one thing for sure—it's a hell of a lot more fun than those movies ever were.
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