Movie Review: Madame Web is the clear example of what NOT to do
It is well known by everyone and everyone that the MCU has gone through big problems in recent years, productions that have not had a good reception, productions that have been more about fulfilling and filling a space than about having good quality.
We have examples like this on the big screen and on the platform to which they belong, we recently saw it with the enormous failure of Marvel, and Sony Pictures has done the same with productions such as Venom (2018), Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021 ), Morbius (2022), Kraven the Hunter soon to be released in 2024 and very recently Madame Web.
The idea of these studios to create and be part of a Spider-Verse without Spider-Man has not been entirely good, they have presented villainous characters who try to have their personality in the movies and then be part of something bigger, although The latter does not at all meet the expectations not only of the studios but of the general public.
Madame Web is the new thing coming to the big screens from director S. J. Clarkson and aims to tell an origin story that is closely related to the origin of the friendly spider neighbor.
What is the movie about?
Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson) is a Manhattan paramedic who has the ability of clairvoyance and is forced to face revelations from her past to understand her present and be able to prevent the future. To face this she will meet three young women destined to have powerful futures if they can survive a relentless and unpredictable enemy.
The idea of bringing these characters to the big screen is not entirely bad, the problem is that Sony Pictures as a studio has been extremely ambitious in trying to compete with Marvel Studios to try to expand the Spider-Man universe and keep it current and that can interact in future projects, thus creating an alternate line in this vast multiverse.
It is a problem and a waste of time and money that these productions pretend that they are good and that they will be a success mainly among the fans. Another problem that has arisen with this has been the terrible scripts based on meaningless stories that have no meaning. clear where they want to go, this has caused delays, script rewrites, and refilming, not to mention that the actors involved are told one thing and end up doing something completely different.
This may be an effect like the one that Marvel’s The Fantastic Four Movie (1994) by director Oley Sassone had, which was destined to fail and be canned never to be released and which at some point was leaked and pirated copies went on sale in VHS format. and which has now become a cult classic not for being good but for maintaining the rights of characters who later and to this day continue to have problems with their film adaptations.
If we have the clear idea that all this is a joke or a joke on itself then the concept and the context change and becomes more enjoyable and entertaining, when the opposite happens and they pretend that this is serious and make us believe that this It is important to understand everything that is coming that is also poorly planned and structured. We have a big problem because then the only thing they are doing is playing and deceiving a captive audience and burning characters that could very well have a different treatment and be at the level of what Black Panther or Dr. Strange among others.
This is an origin story of a character created by Denny O’Neil and artist John Romita Jr. appearing for the first time in The Amazing Spider-Man No. 210 in November 1980, Madame Web in the panels is a mutant who helps Spider-Man to find a kidnapping victim, from this issue onwards the character gained popularity and recognition in the publishing house to this day.
The film is evoked in more modern moments giving a different origin based on the original in which we see that these abilities of clairvoyance and precognitivity are inherited from his mother when searching for a strange spider in Peru that is said to be able to cure any disease. As expected, some also seek it for other purposes that are not entirely good and that can endanger humanity.
It must be recognized that this work respects the rules of the genre and proposes its own and it is like watching one of those old movies about Marvel characters that were made in the 80s with Lou Ferrigno’s Hulk as the protagonist where these characters had an independent story and an aesthetic very different from what we know of them today but that fulfilled the purpose of entertaining and in a certain way seeing what the vignettes do in live action.
In the case of Madame Web, this begins like this, a flashback places us in the Peruvian jungle in 1973 where Constance (Kerry Bishé) is pregnant and in search of a rare species of spider known for its healing properties, from there, we jump to the year 2003 and Cassie, the girl that Constance gave birth to, is now an adult and a paramedic in New York, specifically in the Queens neighborhood that years later would also be the home of Peter Parker, during a rescue together with her partner Ben (Adam Scott). He ends up falling into the river, which reveals his strange ability that had remained dormant until that moment. Without understanding how it works, his mind now has confusing visions of strange events and discovers that he can see a near but limited future, in a moment that is intended to be shocking. He has the revelation of someone’s death but does not know how to prevent it.
In the sequence in which Cassie begins to understand and understand her unwanted abilities realizes that she must use them to do good and help others beginning with saving three teenagers from being attacked and murdered in the city subway, Here we already know the antagonist of this story, the millionaire and obsessed Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), who can also see the future and knows that these three seemingly harmless girls will kill him when they grow up, so he decides to look for them and stop them before that happens without knowing that he will have the help of Cassie, the daughter of the pregnant woman he attacked in Peru years ago and removed the strange spider.
Continuing with this adventure Cassie must become the protector of these unlovable teenagers, we have the demure Julia (Sydney Sweeney), the studious and intelligent Anya (Isabela Merced), and of course the rebellious Mattie (Celeste O’Connor) not missing. who, being in danger, have to put aside their differences and form a team to protect each other and defeat an enemy they do not know and who wants to stay alive at the expense of theirs, which causes each one to learn from others and herself to survive.
Since everything here happens by chance, they meet Cassie, who at every opportunity must explain to them and us as the audience the strange things that are happening to her, which seems trite, tired, boring, and extremely stupid, we could spend the whole day mentioning the big flaws. which has the script written by Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, Claire Parker, and Clarkson herself where the holes go from one nonsense to another, dialogues that are out of context and do not contribute anything to the central plot or the subs. plots, the latter are present only to fill time on screen, without taking into account that many scenes were left the same in the refilming and that they completely lose the order of events.
The narrative tries to be agile in its action sequences that are poorly filmed and that come from nowhere and by chance to try to stop a villain who has spider powers and who could very well be confused with a poorly made Spider-Man from another universe. who comes to this to try to stop 3 teenagers with poorly made spider powers who intend to be heroines shortly and who will be the guardians of the city as Peter Parker grows up and becomes what we all already know.
The references to the Spider. Man universe feels more than forced with unfunny jokes that range from mentioning that the boy will be called Peter to that he will be the pride of his parents who we clearly know will die, none of the above makes sense if we don’t have That dose of action and adventure that Marvel proposed from the beginning of its successful MCU, this remains as something forced with a mechanical script that shines for its lack of imagination and originality lacking in emotion and suspense.
Madame Web as a film strives to emulate the teenage girls of the 2000s who behave like superficial snobs who in the end will have a lesson learned about themselves and what it is like to team up with others, leaving aside any differences they have, We have seen this confusing moral message about femininity and the power of friendship and teamwork better presented in other types of works in other genres that exalt women in extreme situations and not, as in this case, remain as a joke and a mockery that women can do everything when they are not capable of having basic chemistry between them.
Director S. J. Clarkson, who here makes her debut on the big screen, has previously directed some episodes of television series such as Heroes, House, Dexter, and Succession. She does not understand what the cinematographic dynamics and the integration and interaction of these characters are like; she does not understand that the treatment that they must have their own rules and that from their aesthetics to their history that comes from years in comics, they must look and feel more real and spectacular within their fantastic world, being the protagonists of a story that leaves us wanting to know. and want to know more or how this will connect with everything else and form a meta story.
We are in a very complex cinematographic moment, the audience, whether they are fans or not, has become very demanding with the entertainment products we consume, this work is ultimately something that should not have reached movie theaters and that could occupy an undistinguished place in a streaming platform or perhaps it is that this format does not fully benefit a good idea with a terrible execution, this makes movies like Morbius seem well made and Madame Web manages to be even more stupid, more incompetent and written with the laziness of not wanting to tell something important, however, despite its great and very marked defects from its trailer without intending it and inadvertently it becomes a fun film more than because of its plot because of its terrible production.
We cannot deny that the costumes desperately tried to save its illogical plot and yet it falls far short of the expectations we are used to seeing in films of this genre. One more mistake among so many failures is having presented a scene in the trailer. in which the three of them wear those colorful costumes that we all wanted to see in action and that here only happens for a couple of seconds, and I emphasize, a couple of seconds, is that this is a blatant mockery of the genre it occupies and that It leaves us with the feeling that they have seen our faces and that we have paid to see something that is not what even the studio itself expected.
The cast is made up of Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O’Connor, Tahar Rahim, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, and Adam Scott who look and feel extremely uncomfortable having to interact with others, performances that are lazy and minimal that do not express at all how great and spectacular these characters can be in a universe that, although it has had its flaws, is still spectacular.
The music by the Swedish composer Johan Söderqvist, who has done good work, also feels simpler and only to be fulfilled, it fails to have a striking personality with a theme that reminds us of this film, a job that remains more to be fulfilled than to transcend.
In conclusion, Madame Web as a final product leaves a lot to be desired, it promises something that they never had the intention of fulfilling but we cannot blame it entirely, the studios are the ones that have indiscriminately wanted to present little-known characters when trying to create a universe that It has not worked nor will it work if it does not have its main element, it is a shame that productions like these get the green light for their production just to fill a space and to try to please an audience that is becoming increasingly more demanding, a clear example of what NOT to do and that despite this they have not understood that it is not enough to just entertain.
Madame Web is now available in movie theaters nationwide and we DO NOT recommend it.
