REVIEW: ‘Madame Web’ is a woeful ‘Spider-Man’ spin-off

This film may be titled “Madame Web,” but the titular character barely gets to shine in her own movie.

Dakota Johnson stars as Cassie Webb in this new film set in 2003 with loose ties to the “Spider-Man” mythos. Webb is a paramedic in New York City in her 30s who grew up in foster care as her mom died in Peru studying a rare spider species.

The film picks up with Cassie as she begins to have visions of the future on a regular basis. Her most important vision comes when she sees three girls in danger of being attacked by a person with superhuman abilities. From there, she sets out to protect the girls who are destined to do heroic things in the future.

“Madame Web” begins by introducing the character’s mother with some of the most excruciatingly expositional dialogue in cinema. It’s amazing how a film can immediately put up a red flag so big that it lets you know what you’re about to watch is going to be awful. As expected, it never recovers from its opening minutes.

However, the mostly atrocious dialogue littered throughout this film isn’t the worst aspect. No, the real detriment to “Web” is the fact that it’s a prequel to a movie that doesn’t even exist. Here’s the breakdown.

The film introduces three teen girls who are destined to be future Spider heroes (Spider-Women?). But the movie doesn’t play it like these are people we’re meeting for the first time, instead it’s portrayed as if we know who these characters are meant to become, and the audience is being shown a flashback to how they got started.

This is backed up by the fact that this film is set in 2003, rather than being a present-day feature. It’s as if this movie exists in a reality where a “Spider-Women” movie came out a couple years back, because the filmmakers put these eventual heroes on screen as if they’re established in pop culture.

Not only does it make a viewer feel lost in what seems to be larger story that they’re diving into at a random spot, it takes away from the person whose name is on the damn title. Yes, the film shows the origin of Madame Web’s powers and how they manifested, but it’s hard to say that this is really her adventure.

It’s true that in many iterations, Madame Web is portrayed as a mentor, but that’s often when she’s older. In this film, she’s supposed to be just getting started. Most of the time, origin stories for comic book films are enjoyable as a viewer watches the character learn their powers, find their courage and begin to understand what it means to be a hero in their own personal story.

What should be an interesting character arc about a unique hero, though, becomes a film where the main figure’s journey is put into that of a supporting role for a trio who are pushed as pseudo leads. There’s also the issue that Web herself doesn’t have that detailed of a personality.

The issue is less with Dakota Johnson, who certainly wasn’t miscast, and more with how the character is locked into the reluctant guardian role and we don’t really get to know her beyond that. This should have been her story where all aspects of her character are explored but it can’t be because it’s an ensemble set up for heroes we don’t’ know.

While the mishandling of the character is the film’s greatest weakness, though, Web is far from the worst on screen. That honor goes to this film’s woeful villain.

It’s not hyperbole to say that the antagonist of this film is one of the worst ever featured in a comic book flick. Tahar Rahim portrays the big bad Ezekiel Sims, who has a vision that in the future the Spider-Women will kill him. What is the reason they target him? We don’t know, the film never tells us.

Ezekiel also says that if he doesn’t stop the Spider-Women in the present, that they will destroy everything he’s built. What has he built? An underground arms dealing business? Human trafficking? Drug smuggling? We don’t know, the film never tells us. So, we’re left with the most stock bad guy who has motivation that is kept from the audience.

What’s also strange is he wears a Spider-Man suit. Now, in most Spider-Man movies that were released, the web-slinger has made the suit himself through his own inspiration. But I guess this movie shows that anyone who has spider powers just make the same suite. Huh.

But how about those future Spider-Women? Well, the teen versions of the characters are also fairly generic. One’s a nerdy girl who’s by-the-books, one’s an edgy rich girl who rejects authority and the other is a loner who doesn’t need help. Again, there’s a sense that we’re meant to know these characters and we don’t.

Oh, Adam Scott is also in this, playing the role of Ben Parker, AKA the uncle of Spider-Man. Instead of Madame Web having visions of the future and needing to protect Ben because of his impact on the web-slinger, a character most audiences know, the film seems to just use him as an Easter egg.

Even if one were to ignore the poor dialogue, mishandling of characters and weak storytelling, “Madame Web” isn’t even worth seeing as a mindless action flick. For one, there’s not a ton of action featured and what is offered isn’t well shot or choreographed, not to mention the CGI is dated as hell.

The film’s director, S.J. Clarkson, mostly has a TV background, and it shows, because the picture lacks a cinematic flair, too. In the end, it’s hard to look at this as anything but a cheap attempt to cash in on the “Spider-Man” connection because of how void the film is when it comes to artistry and care for its characters. 1 out of 5.