“Madame Web” Movie Review

This year’s Valentine's Day marked the release of Sony Pictures’ cinematic universe of Spider-Man characters' newest installment, “Madame Web.”

Starring Dakota Johnson as the titular character, “Madame Web” serves as Sony’s third release since the turn of the decade, following titles such as the much-maligned “Morbius” and the slightly better-fairing “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.”

Sony Pictures had big plans for this film to be a success; they needed it to, as in their attempt to follow a Marvel-style production schedule, they have entrenched themselves in many different projects at once, rather than first verifying that an audience would even be interested in the first place.

Unfortunately, viewers are becoming fatigued by the onslaught of superhero flicks being put before them, and another serving of corporate big-picture slop just isn’t going to feel filling.

The film follows the origin story of orphaned-at-birth Cassie Web, whose mother was killed by a rainforest guide whom she thought she hired to protect her while researching a specific species of spider native to the region, and one which is rumored to have special medical properties.

Before she dies, however, she is able to successfully give birth to Cassie, with the aid of some spider-empowered natives. Eventually, after living her life as a paramedic in New York City, Cassie (played by Johnson), begins to have visions of clairvoyance, which reveal to her that she has to protect three teenage girls from the same man who murdered her mother for her spider research.

The most notable shortcomings of the film came to light in simply how sloppy it was at times. Entire segments of the main villain’s dialogue had to be dubbed over in post-production, and it was abrasively clear how out of sync the audio and visuals were.

This production disaster completely sucked all of the life out of what was already a quite poor performance from Tahar Rahim, playing the villain of Ezekiel, the murderer of Cassie’s mom and the one who is now after the teenage girls as through the future seeing powers of the spiders he hoards, he believes they will one day kill him.

This is all to showcase that the nature of the shortcomings of the film point towards a directorial/studio-based failure, rather than the fault of the talented actors on screen. In fact, many of the actors' performances shone through despite the apparent lack of directorial cohesion.

“Madame Web” is in fact a movie that can be enjoyed, but only so long as it's viewed through the lens of a B-grade, campy romp such as that of a CW show.

The film’s best moments, such as the hearty dialogue interjected amidst a chase sequence, or the playful banter between Johnson and one or all of the three girls (Celeste O’Connor, Sydney Sweeney, and Isabela Merced) shoot a bit of life into what would otherwise be a confusing and directionless snoozefest.

While it’s certainly not Sony’s worst superhero flick to date, it would be best to look elsewhere during this box office cycle, and perhaps wait until this movie makes its way to streaming.

Rating: 2/5

Trip Tagle is a first-year majoring in digital and print journalism. To contact them, please email tnt5403@psu.edu.