The Big Picture

Madame Web
‘s uninspired cinematography and drab visuals waste the potential of the early 2000s setting.
Awkward writing and directing result in characters that lack depth and authenticity.

Madame Web
fails to deliver the laughs and thrills expected from a superhero movie.

Credit where credit is due, Madame Web kicks off its runtime by giving the people what they want: a mom researching spiders in the Amazon right before she dies. The first scene of this comic book movie centers on the mother of Cassandra “Cassie” Webb scoping out arachnids in the Amazon with the seemingly trustworthy Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) by her side. However, as these two characters begin to talk, something is immediately obviously wrong. Words are rigidly spit out of the mouths of the actors on-screen rather than delivered with verve. This pair of souls are speaking as if they’ve never engaged in a conversation before! Director S.J. Clarkson fails to instill any excitement or tangible humanity in their rapport. The stilted line deliveries here are enough to make one wonder if the projectionist has accidentally played a Neil Breen movie by mistake.

Alas, no such luck. This scene merely functions as a warning to the viewer about what the next two hours of Madame Web entail. A slew of performers look as lost Webb’s mom as they navigate a script (penned by Clarkson alongside Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, and Claire Parker) that never feels fully comfortable in its skin. Whether it’s trying to be funny, exciting, or intense, Madame Web always comes off as awkward and in dire need of a human touch. Save for offering up an instantly memeable moment where Dakota Johnson says “You did it!” in an inappropriately condescending tone, Madame Web has little to give moviegoers.

Madame Web Cassandra Webb is a New York City paramedic who starts to show signs of clairvoyance. Forced to confront revelations about her past, she must protect three young women from a mysterious adversary who wants them dead.Release Date February 14, 2024 Writers Kerem Sanga , Matt Sazama , Burk Sharpless

What Is Going on in ‘Madame Web?’

Set in the year 2003, Madame Web concerns Manhattan paramedic Webb (Johnson), whose mom died during childbirth after researching those spiders in the Amazon. While trying to save a life on her job, Webb ends up crashing into a massive body of water and awakening something inside of her. Now she has these extraordinary clairvoyant powers that allow her to see the future…and protect a trio of teenagers from the clutches of Sims. That trio, consisting of Julia (Sydney Sweeney), Mattie (Celeste O’Connor), and Anya (Isabela Merced), will eventually become superheroes capable of destroying Sims. For now, though, they’re just youngsters who need the help of Webb, a lady who can barely comprehend her own newfound abilities.

The critical flaw that deflates Madame Web is its lack of consistent tension. An urgency to protect these teenagers drives Webb to help a trio of people she initially believes are just strangers. Sims is a powerful man and they need protecting! However, on two different occasions, after this problem is established, Webb nonchalantly leaves the trio behind on their own so she can discover fragments of her backstory. One of those trips even involves our hero traveling outside of the country for a week! It’s hard to buy Sims as a threat if Webb feels comfortable leaving his targets unprotected in the forest for hours at a time.

Worse than a creaky narrative devoid of suspense, though, is how much Madame Web’s writing strains to emulate teenage girls cracking wise with each other or any other kind of positive human emotion. This is a screenplay that speaks in backstory and surface-level comic book references (like Sims always being barefoot). It doesn’t understand how people actually interact with one another.

A scene of Webb attending a BBQ with her pals, for instance, depicts “lively banter” containing all the naturalism of Peter Lorre trying to freestyle rap. This is supposed to be a gathering between friends, but none of the heroes and villains in Madame Web seem cozy with one another. Other lighter moments (like the three teenage leads dancing on a diner table for the approval of some boys) meant to flesh out characters are executed with discouragingly little spirit or believable humanity. Those diner shenanigans, for instance, come off as a rote recreation of teenage rebellion rather than something with real energy or passion (it doesn’t help that the personalities of these three individuals are tediously interchangeable even when they’re bending the rules). In terms of ordinary interactions between human beings, only Johnson’s genuinely amusing dry wit as she nonchalantly references her mom dying during childbirth at an otherwise chipper baby shower feels human.

Save for that one humorous sequence leaning on Johnson’s best assets as an actor, Madame Web’s attempts to flesh out its characters suffer from the same silted lines and awkwardly inhuman performances that plagued its prologue. Stan Lee once proclaimed that the creative impetus for Spider-Man in the first place was to put a teenager just like the reader into the world of superhero mayhem. Madame Web runs counter to that ethos with its batch of characters who never come off as authentic. They’re unrecognizably human individuals getting into antics that have no concrete emotional grounding. Good luck getting invested in anything on-screen.

How Does ‘Madame Web’ Look Visually?

Clarkson’s de facto visual style for Madame Web occasionally leans heavily on crooked camera angles and intentionally jagged editing by Leigh Folsom Boyd to communicate how Webb is now a woman permanently out of time. Her present and future are always colliding, so the images on-screen also overlap in what space in time they occupy. The most visually evocative scene of Madame Web depicts Webb and Sims talking about the trio of teenagers without ever moving their lips while occupying a sort of astral plane. This heightened conversation makes good use of that disorienting fusion of differing periods and personas.

Unfortunately, it’s the only real burst of creativity Madame Web offers. Otherwise, Webb’s superpowers are reflected through editing and camera angles reminiscent of so many other movies where people are aware of what the future entails (namely time-loop films like Palm Springs or Groundhog Day). Meanwhile, Clarkson, Boyd, and cinematographer Mauro Fiore disappointingly fail to lean into visual impulses that evoke the movie’s 2003 setting. Imagine if more of Madame Web’s filmmaking was reminiscent of early 2000s media like the “you wouldn’t steal a car” PSA. Perhaps then this superhero feature would finally have a sense of visual identity to it!

Reinforcing the blah visual aesthetic in Madame Web is the complete lack of colorful superhero costumes save for very brief glimpses into the future in just two scenes of the entire movie. Just eight months after Sony’s own Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse plastered movie theater screens worldwide with vibrant visions of superhero attire, Madame Web now has its leading ladies evading evil in completely ordinary outfits. This is a “grounded” superhero movie, with even the “evil” Spider-Man outfit donned by Ezekiel Sims drained of nearly all its color. Even darker weighty features like Certified Copy and The Northman have more variety in their color palette than this superhero movie blockbuster! Trying to lend “realism” to such an innately heightened character like Madame Web was always going to be a fool’s errand. Going this boring route merely solidifies Madame Web’s total lack of visual imagination.

‘Madame Web’ Will Leave Your Brain Instantly

Image via Sony Pictures

The actors inhabiting Madame Web have done great work elsewhere, whether it’s Rahim in A Prophet, O’Connor in Selah and the Spades, or Johnson in The Lost Daughter. At their best, these performers have earned a positive reputation as artists for taking bold swings that stick in your mind long after the movies they inhabit finish playing. What a tragedy, then, that these actors have become trapped in Madame Web. The only thing that’s remotely memorable about this project is its most incompetent bits of filmmaking, like the distractingly awkward ADR work and editing surrounding Rahim’s performance leaving him rarely visibly speaking on-screen (think Val Kilmer in The Snowman).

Beyond even those staggeringly amateurish filmmaking flourishes, Madame Web has none of the laughs or thrills that general audiences come to superhero movies for. Much like Morbius from two years ago, it’s a pale imitation of comic book motion pictures from the past. In this case, Web cribs pools of magic water, unresolved parental trauma, teenage superhero antics, and other elements from the last two decades of Marvel adaptations. Going that route merely makes Madame Web feel like a half-hearted rerun, though, rather than automatically rendering it as good as The Avengers or Across the Spider-Verse. Not even immediately delivering that sweet “moms researching spiders in the Amazon before they die” action right away can salvage Madame Web.

Madame Web Madame Web wastes a talented cast on a superhero movie shockingly devoid of tangible humanity.ProsDakota Johnson has one scene of wry humor at a baby shower. ConsUninspired cinematography fails to take advantage of the early 2000’s setting.Awkward writing and directing leave the characters feeling like shells of themselves.Drab visuals don’t capture the vibrancy of the heightened source material.

Madame Web comes to theaters in the U.S. on February 14. Click below for showtimes.

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