Madame Web
review by Bobby Blakey
Despite the latest incarnation of Spider-Man being a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe the characters are still very much owned by Sony. For years Sony has been trying to get their own Spider-verse universe established to little success outside of Spider-Man until the release of Venom in 2018. Since then, they have added Venom 2 with 3 on the way, Morbius and Kraven the Hunter coming in 2024. With the popularity of the Spider-verse animated films they have decided to go into the Spider-verse in a new way with their latest film Madame Web starring Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, Isabela Merced, Tahar Rahim, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, and Adam Scott from director S.J. Clarkson. Could this latest dive into the Sony Spider-verse bring a web worth spinning or will it fail to stick its landing?
Madam Web follows the standalone origin story of one of Marvel publishing's most enigmatic heroines. The suspense-driven thriller stars Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb, a paramedic in Manhattan who may have clairvoyant abilities. Forced to confront revelations about her past, she forges a relationship with three young women destined for powerful futures...if they can all survive a deadly present.
First and foremost, I am not a fan of this character and never felt like one that needed her own film but would be a great fit to the Spider-verse animated world. Here we are though, and I am all for anything comic related and knowing Sony is really trying to build out their own Spider-verse without the webslinger right now, this seems like the most logical direction to introduce not one, but 4 characters that good easily fill that gap. Per the trailer we have
not only Madame Web, but three other Spider women characters and while they are here that’s not altogether true in what we get.
As expected, this is a full-on origin story to Madame Web albeit the more current one and not the older version that I would have preferred to see. It offers up some clever alternate universe directions and familiar characters placed in a timeline that could still connect to stuff we already have including Spider-Man himself. The issue is that it builds up to so much and never really does much with any of it. I don’t want to spoil anything, but if you are hoping to head into a full-on flick filled with Spider-women in all their glory this is not that film.
There is way less action or even superhero-like elements to the film for most of the time and instead a lot of bickering between the three young girls and the grumpy Dakota Johnson. My first big issue here is the casting of Johnson. I don’t dislike her by any means, but she just brought nothing to the character whether by design or lack of real interest. The character comes across as just angry and bland for most of the film and when she finally opens up you just don’t buy into it.
The young trio of Sweeney, Merced and O’Connor are great. While they are annoying at times, I still enjoyed their banter and was eager to see them get to their counterparts and how they handled it. Sadly, that is not to be just yet despite getting a couple of scenes to see them in action. I really dug the addition of Ezikiel Sims to the mix to bring a new dark direction to the Spider-verse and essentially an evil Spider-Man like character for some fun. When in the suit and wreaking havoc he is all kinds of awesome, but out of the suit with Rahim in the mix is just not all that great. He is fine in the role, but it is just all over the place and not an interesting villain in any way.
I didn’t hate this film at all but didn’t really like it either. It’s one of those that brings so much possibility to the Sony Spider-verse yet brings nothing to it at all. It ends the film with kind of a tease of things to come, but not all that sure it will ever happen. I enjoyed the film more than I expected I would despite the many issues with it, but also just left it with a sense of underwhelming feelings that didn’t change my opinion on the character in any way.
In addition to the film this release offers up bonus content including a gag reel, deleted scenes, Easter Eggs, features and so much more. Spin a web and grab your copy of Madame Web when it swings onto 4K, Blu-ray and DVD on April 30th from Sony Home Entertainment.
