Madame Web (2024)

Directed by S.J. Clarkson in her feature-film debut (after solid TV work on Jessica Jones and Succession), Madame Web feels less like a bold new superhero entry and more like a cinematic shrug. While Clarkson takes some of the blame, the bulk of the responsibility lands squarely on writers Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, and Claire Parker, whose script is a tangled mess of contrivances, exposition dumps, and sequel bait.

The film stars Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb, a New York paramedic working alongside Ben Parker (Adam Scott). Yes, that Ben Parker. Spider-Man’s world is technically in play here, but thanks to the legal ramifications of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, Spider-Man himself can’t be referenced, mentioned, or acknowledged, even though his aunt and uncle exist and Peter Parker apparently hasn’t been born yet. The whole thing feels like kids playing with action figures while explaining why their favorite character can’t show up because he’s “out of stock.”

Cassandra’s backstory involves a mother killed while researching magical spiders in Peru because of course it does. Through a wildly convoluted series of events, Cassie discovers she can see a few seconds into the future, though she has zero control over it. This eventually leads her to protect three teenage girls, played by Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, and Isabella Merced, from a mysterious wall-crawling villain who looks like a Spider-Man knockoff but can’t shoot webs and is awkwardly referred to as a “Spider Person.”

Most of the film’s two-hour runtime is spent setting up a sequel that will almost certainly never happen. Ironically, the glimpses of the future where the characters actually resemble superheroes are far more interesting than anything happening in the present timeline. For a movie positioned as a female-driven superhero story, it’s baffling that none of the women actually get to be superheroes within the story being told. Instead, they dress stylishly, show off their abs, solve simple math problems, and vaguely allude to liking science.

Madame Web herself doesn’t do much beyond absorbing endless exposition in a strange psychic spiderweb realm that exists solely to explain things the script can’t be bothered to dramatize. It’s lazy storytelling, plain and simple.

To be fair, I can’t really fault the actors. The fact that any of them made it through scenes without laughing feels like a minor miracle. Dakota Johnson, often criticized as a weak actress, is actually decent here mostly because she approaches the role with the correct level of resignation. Sweeney, O’Connor, and Merced are all clearly adults playing teenagers (their average age is 26), which only adds to the film’s unintentional comedy.

Then there’s the editing, which feels like it was done by a child hopped up on sugar, and the aggressively obvious Pepsi product placement, which borders on parody. I wanted to say this was one of those “so bad it’s good” movies, but it’s not. The action is mediocre, the plot is tension-less, the dialogue is substandard, and the only payoff is the promise of a sequel that — thanks to the film’s box-office failure — will never exist.