Since the release of the Madame Web trailer in November, people have figured that Sony’s newest movie about the Spiderman universe might not live up to the hype. The now infamous line from the trailer, “He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders just before she died” was an indication of the quality of writing we were in for. The movie, starring Dakota Johnson, was finally released on Valentine’s Day 2024, and seems to have lived up to the very poor expectations, scoring a 57% on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite the disappointment of many fans, I found the movie to be very enjoyable because it was, what I call, the perfect bad movie.
SPOILERS AHEAD:
“the sony marvel movies are better than like 90% of the mcu by virtue of feeling like they’re held together with scotch tape and pipe cleaners”
– Brianna, letterboxed
The movie starts with a flashback to 1973 where we see Constance Webb leading a research expedition for an elusive species of spider in the Peruvian Amazon with Ezekiel Sims. When Constance discovers the spider, Ezekiel steals it and escapes after shooting a 9-months pregnant Constance. She is saved by an indigenous tribe, who use a spider’s bite to give Constance superhuman strength so that she can birth her daughter, Cassie, before she dies. We then cut to adult Cassie in 2003 (as evidenced by a giant advertisement for Dangerously in Love by Beyoncè) working as a paramedic with partner Ben Parker (yes, Peter Parker’s uncle Ben). After almost dying Cassie begins experiencing hallucinations and visions of the future. We also see Ezekiel, played by Tahar Rahim, in 2003 with his stolen spider. He is being haunted by visions of three teen girls killing him, so he steals NSA technology to help track them down so he can kill them first. One day, one of Cassie’s visions shows her three girls on her subway being killed by Ezekiel. Cassie decides to take the girls and run, which starts their adventure. The girls get chased down by Ezekiel while Cassie hunts down information first in her mom’s notes, and later in Peru where she learns the true nature of her powers. During the climax of the movie, Ben Parker is trying to get his sister-in-law and the girls to the hospital as the sister-in-law is giving birth as they are being attacked by Ezekiel. Cassie Web saves the day by using her visions of the future and ability to be in multiple places at once to fight Ezekiel and (presumably) kill him with a Pepsi-Cola sign.
One of the most unnerving parts of the movie was the use of ADR, or Automated Dialogue Replacement, which means that the audio was added in after the scenes were recorded. It was most obviously noted for the character Ezekiel. While this is common practice in the film industry, it was not done well in Madame Web as we frequently saw his mouth moving when he wasn’t talking, cut away from him to another character during his lines, or heard him at volumes that didn’t make sense. It’s very likely that a lot of the lines were changed after the movie was already filmed, so Rahim had to film his lines later the production struggled to add them back in. The terrible ADR took viewers out of the movie and added to the completly unintentional comedic effect. (As a side note, I would love to play a drinking game of how many times his words and mouth didn’t match up during the film).
“funniest movie i have ever seen in theaters. this will be shown at midnight showings in theaters for decades to come”
– #1 gizmo fan, letterboxd
Another commonly criticized aspect of the movie was the character development. The three teen girls, Mattie, Anya, and Julia, were all given complicated backstories that made it so all of them were separated from their parents. Mattie’s parents were business people who spent more time on business trips than with her. Anya’s father had been deported so she was attempting to stay under the radar of the police until she was an adult. Julia’s parents had gotten divorced and her Dad was too busy with his new family for her while her mom was in a psychiatric ward. The movie also made an obnoxiously apparent point to subvert racial stereotypes, although it barely contributed to our feelings towards the characters. By the end of the movie, none of the girls had any sort of change in their family life. They all still had barely a home to go to, but I suppose we were just supposed to assume they had found their happily ever after. Their lack of growth and independence from each other made the characters difficult to relate to or care about. Despite this, these girls had some of the funniest scenes in the whole movie, such as when they inexplicably decided to dance on a table in a diner for some boys while being searched for by the police as kidnapping victims.
If I could sit down with the writers of this movie, the first thing I would ask is why we didn’t see the main characters of a superhero movie in their super suits until, quite literally, the last 30 seconds of the movie. To be fair, we did see flashes of them fighting in the suits during Ezekiel’s visions of his death, but the climactic fight barely showed them fighting. Instead, they relied on Cassie’s visions of the future (and new ability to be in multiple places at once) to defeat Ezekiel. I was baffled while watching when the most super-suit fighting came in a dream sequence that never ended up actually happening. In defense of the movie, it was intended to set up the characters and the origin of their powers so that Sony could build a franchise off it, so they may be saving the fighting and super suits for a future movie. However, after the ill-reception of Madame Web, it seems unlikely (but not impossible) that there will be a second movie.
“when you take responsibility, great power will come.”
– Santiago: A member of Las Arañas, a secret tribe from the Peruvian jungle with spider-based abilities
I would also absolutely love to ask the writers about all the set-ups they put in the movie that had no payoff. For example, early in the movie Ben is revealed to have an unnamed love interest who may be “the one”. That is actually the only time that plot line is referenced. I suppose the viewers are supposed to assume that he had met May, his wife in the comic books, but we may never know considering the movie gave up on the plotline. Another time, at Mary Parker’s (in the comics, Peter Parker’s biological mother) baby shower, the characters play a game to guess the name of her baby. The scene sets up an exciting reveal, but after Mary gives birth, we don’t learn the name of the baby. While the audience knows the baby will grow up to be Peter Parker, they refused to say the name in the movie. Some fans theorized that they had the name is the movie originally but ran into legal trouble with Marvel and had to take it out. The only set up that seemed to have any payoff was when the girls were taught CPR by Cassie in an unnaturally long scene. They end up using these skills about 20 minutes later to save Cassie after she dies by drowning (for the second time).
I have a million more gripes about the movie that I could go on about (including how they reused plot points like Cassie drowning or hitting the villain with a car twice), but they only contribute to why I think this movie is unintentionally brilliant. All the dialogue is unnatural and spoken awkwardly, which makes it hilarious to listen to and easy to make fun of. The production value doesn’t match the budget considering the terrible ADR and confusing editing, which adds funny scenes that can be discovered during re-watches. Movies like Madame Web are perfect to watch with friends because of the infinite jokes possible about the inexplicable choices the characters make. This movie has so many laughable moments and dialogue that I think that it will become iconic in years to come. Movies like Madame Web provide a necessary balance to cinema that help us classify the quality movies. Madame Web is a good example of a bad movie balancing taking itself seriously and being completely insane, which makes it a good reference point to compare other superhero movies. If youre the kind of person who loves making jokes during movies, Madame Web should definitely be your next watch. And don’t forget,
“Her web connects us all”
– Madame Web movie poster