Madame Web: Fifty Shades of Trash

Luca Fontana

13/2/2024

Translation: Patrik Stainbrook

The Sony Spider-Verse bobs between boredom and bad taste. But before you think I’m exaggerating, wait until you see Madame Web. Even Dakota Johnson from Fifty Shades of Grey can’t save this disaster.

First off, my review contains no spoilers. Any information stated here is featured in trailers that have already been released.

«So I had to skip the legendary 'Beef el Loco' burger from the canteen for this?» This is what I murmur to myself while the credits are still rolling. The press screening was scheduled for noon, and here I sit. No burger, but filled with questions. Questions about the logic and chaos of a movie that never misses an opportunity to inflict mental pain on me.

For example, remember the iconic «With great power comes great responsibility» line from what feels like every Spider-Man movie?

Yep, it’s back. But different. Hold on tight:

«If you accept responsibility, great power will come.»

Jesus Christ.

What Madame Web is all about

Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson) is no ordinary paramedic. She finds this out when she begins seeing fragments of the future after a near-death experience. In them, a man in a black suit, Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), hides his face behind a sinister mask. He’s hunting three young girls.

Where do her powers come from? And why does she see the future of this man and these girls specifically? Unclear. But a pattern slowly begins to emerge across this web of infinite possibilities. Turns out, the man was with Cassandra’s mother when she died in the Amazon jungle while searching for a mysterious spider people who grant superpowers – Las Arañas. Cassandra soon realises that she plays a much more important role in the lives of everyone involved than she initially thought.

Logic? You wish. Only crap.

As exciting as the premise sounds, don’t get your hopes up. Madame Web is a total disaster. It fails in every respect. There’s no logic, no plausible plot. Zero characterisation. I realise this the more I think about the film. It all starts with the villain.

His motive? Uuuuh, well, he wants to gain the powers granted by those Amazon spiders. He’s more than happy to walk over dead bodies for this. A job as Cassandra’s mother’s bodyguard helped in this pursuit. That’d be fine with me, if he weren’t suddenly filthy rich later in the movie and seducing women in his loft suite above the rooftops of Manhattan. I mean duh, it’s a baddie thing. But a bodyguard? How did he suddenly become so rich? Beats me. Only one thing is certain – it has nothing to do with the spider powers.

However, he now has enough money and influence (from where or for what is completely unclear) to buy the same surveillance equipment as the NSA. He even hires a woman to operate it. «I’ll pay you a fortune,» he says after she has doubts about using the equipment to hunt down and kill teenagers. Red flags galore, but she happily nods along. I roll my eyes.

Everything is at about the intellectual level of my elementary school essays. And it gets even worse. Cassandra’s powers, for example. Why and from whom did she get them? The answer’s pointless and almost laughable. The fact that she travels to the depths of Peru and back again in what feels like an afternoon to gain them isn’t even the worst part. Oh, I could go on like this forever. But then I’d spoil the whole movie for you. Actually, thinking about it, that might even be better.

And suddenly, I find myself cheering on the bad guy

What’s even more ironic is that despite all the nonsense, I find myself on the bad guy’s side. The three young brats that Cassandra Webb has to protect for two thirds of the movie are to blame.

They’re acted by Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor and Isabela Merced. Okay, «acted» is an exaggeration; their characters are rarely more than Gen Z clichés. There’s Mattie, the rebel, Anya, the clever one, and Julia, the socially awkward one. Their main job is to make it as difficult as possible for Cassandra to protect them – and to get on my nerves.

Successfully. My GOD, I’ve rarely been more annoyed by insufferable snot-nosed teenagers than in this movie. Every time one of these obnoxious mean girls shamelessly opened her mouth to excrete some stupid joke, unsolicited comment or idiotic idea, I wanted to scream. «Please let the bad guy finally rip these kids to shreds,» was a thought that popped up quite a bit. And every time they just barely escaped his clutches, I was quietly disappointed.

The fact that Cassandra’s powers of precognition are as mysterious as they are arbitrary puts the icing on the cake. Especially when classic copy-pasted dialogue like «How does that work?» – «I don’t know, it just happens» or «That’s not how it works!» are used in a pathetic attempt to explain. Is this supposed to be chemistry between characters?!

Gah!!

So much potential, all down the drain

To make matters worse, Madame Web has almost nothing to do with the original comic. There, Cassandra Webb is an old, mystical seer, a fortune teller with extraordinary abilities. Paralysed and blinded by a severe form of muscular dystrophy, she’s tied to her webbed chair. It keeps her in a barely alive state of suspended animation. Quite dystopian, actually. But thanks to her ability to see the future, she often acts as an advisor and mentor to superheroes, especially Spider-Man – even if her true motives are often shady and rarely transparent.

Dakota Johnson’s Madame Web has nothing remotely in common with this. Instead, she’s a reckless paramedic who likes to break rules, is socially awkward and generally dislikes people. Why? All together now, mommy issues! And yet she interferes in the fate of the three young women, risking her own life. But why? Because there wouldn’t be a movie otherwise, duh. Or, uhh… their fate’s just linked, somehow. Like in a web. Of course.

Ba-Dum-Tss!

But don’t worry, she’ll naturally grow fond of the girls later on. Why? Beats me. But hey, don’t ask questions you party pooper. I’ve picked up this attitude by now. And at the end, Dakota’s Cassandra concludes with a knowing grin: «The best thing about the future is that it has yet to happen.»

Please, anything but that.

Verdict: Madame Web, a disaster of biblical proportions

I’ve rarely been this one-sided in a movie review. I like staying respectful of everyone involved. Nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks: «I want to make a bad movie today.» Hundreds of people have put their heart and soul into Madame Web, worked overtime. Maybe they were even underpaid for a project they believed in. I respect that.

This makes it all the harder for me to pick apart their work in the way I’ve done here. Although I seriously have to wonder how the script, the edit and the finished movie passed so many studio checks without someone stopping and asking, «Guys, are we serious? Are we really going through with this?!»

So, as a short, sweet and painful conclusion: Morbius was better.

You can (but shouldn’t) watch Madame Web in cinemas from 14 February 2024. Runtime: 117 minutes. Age rating: 12

Luca Fontana

Senior Editor

Luca.Fontana@digitecgalaxus.ch

I'm an outdoorsy guy and enjoy sports that push me to the limit – now that’s what I call comfort zone! But I'm also about curling up in an armchair with books about ugly intrigue and sinister kingkillers. Being an avid cinema-goer, I’ve been known to rave about film scores for hours on end. I’ve always wanted to say: «I am Groot.» more

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