Dakota Johnson holds Together a Tangled web that Doesn’t make much Spider-sense
DIRECTED BY S. J. CLARKSON/2024
For those wondering when the six-week Superhero Movie Drought Of Early ’24 would finally end, it’s Sony to the rescue with its latest attempt at Spider-Man-without-Spider-Man. As evidenced by the mere existence of Madame Web, the enterprising studio is all too eager to exploit even the deepest depths of its extensive webslinger licensing deal with Marvel.
Who is this Madame Web character, you ask? It is with zero hesitation that I admit that after roughly thirty years of devoted reading of Spider-Man comic books (1985-2015, or thereabouts), I do not remember. The best I can muster are memories of a decrepit, blindfolded geriatric woman who maintained a mystical presence. This was probably part of the serious J. Michael Straczynski era, when freaky eight-legged mythology entered Peter Parker’s world, the very mumbo-jumbo which enabled the whole “Spider-Verse”.
Admittedly, it either takes some major Spider-guts or some true cultural blindness to move forward with a multi-million-dollar film built around this particular character. In order to make it more palatable to the core demographic who might not line up for a female-filled flick led by an obscure creaky octogenarian, director S. J. Clarkson (who previously directed two episodes of the similarly MCU-adjacent The Defenders, among other such things) and company have made some very obvious changes. Most visibly, an active and spry Dakota Johnson is in the title role, effectively taking the character back to her mysterious and sometimes action-packed origins.
Alternately, Madame Web takes us back to a time when superhero movies were mid-budget outings at best, couldn’t help but come off as ridiculous, and we, the fans, were resigned to take what we could get. Appropriately, it even takes place in 2003, before the fabled radioactive spider that bit Peter Parker was ever a glimmer in its mother’s multiple eyes. Ben Affleck’s tonally whacked Daredevil would’ve come and gone through theaters the year prior, but Christopher Nolan’s self-serious Batman Begins was two long years away. Just to make this more awkward, Sam Raimi’s game-changing original Spidey film would’ve also come and gone. But a full-on shared superhero universe with the audacity of launching with an A-list adaptation of a B-level mainstay like Iron Man? Dream on, true believer.
Which brings us to our next question… What the heck is Madame Web? A fair inquiry at any point, to be sure. After seeing the movie, however, the “why” of the film is substantially clearer. Here we have an origin story of at least four superheroes, each of whom emerge as a spider-themed heroine. Besides the entirely capable and formidable Dakota Johnson’s Cassandra “Cassie” Webb- a New York City paramedic who develops the ability to see a minute or so into the future- we meet three teenagers who we know will go on to become a trio of costumed Spider-Women. (Sydney Sweeney as the pent-up Julia Cornwall / future Spider-Woman; Celeste O’Connor as the skateboarding attitude-driven Mattie Franklin / future other Spider-Woman; Isabela Merced as the admittedly bland Anya Corazon / future Araña, yet another Spider-Woman).
The three girls, all strangers until fate- and a frantic, clairvoyant Cassie- drive them together, will team up to kill wealthy creep Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim). At least, that’s what Sims believes, based on a vivid reoccurring vision that he has of his own death. Harnessing the great power of the rare spider he violently swiped from Cassie’s mother (Kerry Bishé) in the Peruvian Amazon Forest in 1973, Sims is now another arachnid themed villain (a particularly dark and gruesome one) obsessed with killing his supposed killers before they kill him. Notably, his death vision is only one of two quick times that we ever see the three girls in their Spider-hero costumes. For most of the film, all the heroines are in normal street clothes. (As counter-intuitive as this may seem to the ubiquitous comic book movies of today, this evokes the time of “Smallville”, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, and even the early X-Men films, when there was great apprehension about putting superheroes into colorful costumes).
The pincers have been out for Madame Web since the first publicity pics, if not earlier. That we as critics are predisposed to hate it is strong in the ether. But I for one did not hate Madame Web. Sure, it doesn’t make much sense or hold together well. And sure, it’s full of embarrassing fan service and silly nods to comic book storylines that aren’t that good. And yes, it’s tragically sparse on actual in-costume superhero action. But doggonit, it’s got the always likeable Dakota Johnson holding it all together with sheer force of will, and making it look effortless. And rising star Sydney Sweeney plays against type as an adorkable “Girl Scout” do-gooder. Both actresses, among others in the cast, are worth rooting for.
Before Madame Web proper even begins, we’re greeted with a self-congratulatory logo montage celebrating 100 years of Columbia Pictures. Long before the Sony corporation came along and ate it, Columbia, under the cheapskate auspices of apathetic mogul Harry Cohn, was infamous for its second-rate productions and limited budgets. (Frank Capra vehicles aside). Although the Columbia brand seems to have lapsed into on-again/off-again usage, it seems entirely apropos at the start of Madame Web.
Let’s put it this way… Circa the early 1940s, Columbia churned out something called “The Mad Doctor” series, a rash of low-grade Boris Karloff thrillers. They generally weren’t very good, and everyone knew it. But, they had Karloff, a grand movie star giving them his all- and for that, people still find value in those movies. Madame Web manages to land as good-natured faux-blockbuster nonsense for surprising stretches of its running time. Don’t ask too many questions (“If she’s so hellbent on protecting these three girls, why does she keep abandoning them?” “How exactly do the three girls become Spider-heroes??” “We probably shouldn’t get too attached to any of these characters, right?” “How the heck much did Pepsi pay to have the film’s final showdown play out on a giant Pepsi-Cola logo billboard???”) and you might be just fine.
This is absolutely an overly tangled web that doesn’t make much spider-sense, but it’s still much better than its cousin, Venom: Let There be Carnage– something I maintain shouldn’t be considered a movie at all. Still, I too have seen the future; it sadly does not go well for Madame Web. But maybe, over time, that can change. Call it… a premonition.