SPOILERS FOR A RECENTLY RELEASED FILM
What’s this? A non-Star Wars movie, interrupting my watching of Andor? Look, I do watch other movies; if it was all Star Wars all the time I’d probably Order 66 myself. I also managed to see Madame Web in theaters on Valentine’s Day, because why not! This is the latest entry in the Sony Spider-Man Universe (SSMU) featuring Spider-Man adjacent characters. Is the SSMU a real thing or just some fan making an acronym and taking the piss? Does it really matter? The answer is no, it does not. Madame Web is not the best.
Opening in 1973, we see a very pregnant Constance Webb (Ms. Kerry Bishé) in the Peruvian jungles looking for a rare spider. Her bodyguard or whatever, Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), name drops Las Arañas, a tribe of spider-people who can do whatever a spider can. Constance finds the spider but Ezekiel steals it and shoots her. Las Arañas grab Constance, help her give birth to her daughter, and then the mom dies. We then cut to 2003, land of Mountain Dew/Pepsi product placements and the era when the thought of pulling an all-nighter didn’t make all my bones hurt. Cassandra “Cassie” Webb (Dakota Johnson) is a NY paramedic working with Ben Parker (Adam Scott). Hey, I know that name! An on-the-job near death experience triggers Cassie’s abilities to see the future and puts her at odds with Ezekiel, who presumably used the spider’s venom to gain super powers but every night sees three superheroines who kill him at some point in the future. He wants to kill them before they can do it to him, so now he’s hunting Julia Carpenter (Sydney Sweeney), Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), and Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor). In the comics they’re Spider-Woman (and currently Madame Webb herself), Araña, and another Spider-Woman; there are a lot of Spider-Women in comics. Back to the movie, Cassie saves the girls but now they’re on the run from Ezekiel, who eventually realizes this is the daughter of Constance who somehow survived. Realizing she needs training from Las Arañas, Cassie flies to the Amazon to go on a dream quest to hash out her mommy issues and presumably trains to use her powers, not that we see any of that part. The girls are hidden with Ben but when his sister-in-law, Mary Parker (Emma Roberts) goes into labor, in their rush the girls are spotted by Ezekiel. But now mastering her powers of future sight and astral projection, Cassie saves the girls and Ezekiel is killed, and all it cost her is her eyesight and maybe her legs; she’s def blind, not sure if paralyzed. Cassie’s only personality trait of “hating children” is gone, she adopts all the girls or something, and the movie really thinks it’s getting a sequel, or a series of spin-offs.
The question I have is, who is Ezekiel Sims? Sure sure, I could go into his comic book history, but this ain’t Chwineka Reads; this is Chwineka Watches, and I watched a movie that had so many issues it was honestly kind of astounding. But focusing on Sims for right now, who was he? What was his deal? All we know from the film is he grew up poor, stole the spider for unspecified reasons that somehow are tied to him being poor, built up an empire of something, and spends most of his life trying to stop his death. He has spider-themed powers–presumably from the spider bite–and is cursed because he stole the sacred Amazonian spider. But that’s it. That’s literally all we know. He walks around barefoot sometimes, but only because the comic version of him–who, by the way, was not a total villain–does, and he wears a suit that looks like a color reversed Spider-Man because… why not. And I swear Rahim’s lines were dubbed in. Nearly two hours and there’s no time to tell us anything valuable about the main villain.
But that’s not the only awkward part! Dakota Johnson is great at being interviewed but just… not a great actress. The whole first act was filled with wooden dialogue and did not endear any of the characters to me. Then there are weird lapses in logic, like when Cassie steals a cab, removes the license plates, and then not only drives it around for most of the movie but presumably leaves it in an airport parking lot for a week and it’s just… still there. Then there are the things I guess we’re not allowed to say! Did you know that Ben Parker has a serious girlfriend? What’s her name? Oh, we’re not saying “May,” as in “Aunt May.” Odd choice, but whatever. Oh, Mary Parker is pregnant with a boy? And her going into labor is the catalyst of the third act showdown, meaning the pregnancy and baby are tied to the plot? What’s that boy’s name? Oh, we’re not saying it’s “Peter,” as in “Peter Parker,” even though there’s a scene where baby shower guests try to guess the baby’s name but we cut away before it’s revealed. Sony, what are you doing? How are you trying to create this universe–or universes, who knows where Venom or Morbius take place–without even being able to name drop Spider-Man’s main characters? And while I’m asking questions, why set the movie in 2003 outside of showing the birth of Unnamed Parker? The whole thing feels like a first draft that was rushed into production. I can’t hate it, but I can’t say it was very good.
And yet despite all that, have you looked at the list of superhero movies coming out this year? We’ve got Madame Web, Kraven the Hunter, Venom 3, and possibly Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse from Sony, really trying to make that SSMU a thing. Meanwhile, over with Disney/Marvel, they have half an MCU film with Deadpool & Wolverine. I think it’s fairly safe to say that the superhero bubble is bursting from a combination of fatigue and a deluge of mediocre movies, but that has never stopped Stony from trying to build up their Spider-franchises. And how has that worked for them, hm?
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