IN the continued absence of Spider-Man in Sony’s notorious Spider-Man universe (SSU), the attention is pulled towards a female-fronted narrative in Madame Web.
Frankly, this diabolical addition to the franchise has no place on the big-screen – it’s unfathomable that it even got this far.
As far as comic-book movies go, this horrifically sterile effort makes Morbius look like The Dark Knight.
It has become abundantly clear – at least to us – that Sony cannot simply assume there is an automatic buy-in for a Spider-Man adjacent project, when the narratives are so lazily computed and unravelled, to the point where even the stars have given up.
The talented Dakota Johnson delivers such a monotone performance as paramedic-turned-heroine Cassandra Web, courtesy of appalling writing and insufferable dialogue.
Her fellow co-stars, led by the increasingly popular Sydney Sweeney, have barely anything to add in support.
In fact, the real selling point for the franchise’s three newest heroines is a complete and utter lie. They never get their powers, and they are only seen in costume during a pitiful number of dream sequences.
It’s just so overwhelmingly bad.
The plot itself is littered with head-scratching moments, mindboggling character choices and somehow, for a film branded as a superhero/action flick, possesses only intermittent action.
Madame Web is almost entirely a game of hide-and-seek, after a thinly-painted villain (played by Tahar Rahim) steals a spider from the Amazon and then plans to kill three teenagers – I mean the rainforest not the warehouse, though I feel that it somehow would have been better if it were the latter.
When our heroine and villain do finally meet, the narrative demands Webb drives a car into our evil Spider-Man through a wall – not only once, but twice.
The repetitive nature of Madame Web‘s plot perhaps echoes that of its all-encompassing universe – another fatal car crash of a production from a studio barely clinging on to the rights of its most prized character.
Ultimately, there is nothing here to convince viewers – Marvel fans or otherwise – that there is anything significant or logical to hold on to. Sony don’t own the rights to Abomination, yet somehow they’ve created (another) one.
This is only the second movie directed by S.J. Clarkson – previously 2010’s TV special Toast – and with a much larger portfolio of TV episodes up her sleeve, this is hardly the impetus she needs to take a bigger stride in the big-screen game.
For an $80 million movie, you would expect more than just a few teases of further spin-offs with younger characters that are unlikely to pay off.
Madame Web will forever be held in the same regard as noughties catastrophes Elektra, Daredevil and Catwoman; as well as 2015’s Fantastic Four. Sadly, there’s a pretty convincing case to say that this is indeed the worst of the lot.
Rating:
If Sony really want to do Kraven the Hunter justice, then they’ll have Kraven track down, and kill off every mis-step in their pathetic universe; starting with Madame Web.
A View from a Farr 