With Kraven the Hunter arriving in cinemas now and Venom: The Last Dance still in theatres (just), now’s a good time to take a look at the other two sides of the deeply weird Sony Not-Quite-Spider-Man verse. After the disappointing Morbius, Alasdair Stuart wonders how Madame Web holds up…

Madame Web

Starring Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O’Connor, Tahar Rahim, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts and Adam Scott

Directed by SJ Clarkson

 

It’s 2003 and Cassie Webb (Dakota Johnson) is a FDNY paramedic. Partnered with Ben Parker (Adam Scott), Cassie is the sardonic, awkward flipside to Ben’s mildly shellshocked kindness and charm. Until a job goes sideways, Cassie dies for several minutes and comes back with the ability to see possible futures. An ability that Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor), Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney) and Anya Corazón (Isabela Merced) will need if they’re going to survive the murderous Ezekeil Sims (Tahar Rahim).

Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first. Merced, O’Connor and Sweeney are all top notch actresses who are given almost nothing to do here. What’s more frustrating is that when they are given stuff to do, the movie soars. The one scene where they swap stories gives them all emotional weight, and the way they imprint on Cassie is often very sweet and feels hard won and genuine. The only person worse served than them is Rahim. Sims is a really interesting idea – a villain who becomes a villain to close the causal loop of his own defeat – and the movie layers in some great twists with him, and a surprisingly fun sidekick, that ultimately go nowhere.

It’s a massive shame, but where Morbius is damaged even further by its structure, Madame Web is ultimately saved by it. Mattie Franklin references ‘her Uncle Jonah’, Ben Parker is of course Uncle Ben and the birth of Peter Parker is a major plot point of the final act. That, combined with the fact the only time the characters suit up is in flashforwards, should be maddening. For a lot of people, it will be. For me, the movie being set in the past made it feel like it had earned its spot. This is a Spider-Man universe movie in a universe before Spider-Man and there’s some worth and interest to that.

It helps too that Johnson’s Cassie is instantly and consistently more likable than Leto’s Morbius. Johnson’s a similar performer in many ways, awkward, emotionally distant, presenting as almost cruel. But that’s always tempered with humanity and self-awareness. The second act here, which is mostly Cassie and the girls frantically improvising their way through life-or-death situations, is very good fun because of that. Also, Johnson and eternal MVP Scott have great chemistry and the easy-going, fatalistic paramedics give this movie a humanity Morbius never reaches.

Clarkson, a veteran of dozens of TV shows, can direct too. The fights with Ezekiel are all visually inventive and lock into the script as a plot and as a character arc. The diner fight is great, Cassie shifting through different versions of it until she can get a result where everyone lives. The closing action scene too ramps in a very pleasing way and, again, is based in character. It doesn’t all work, but more works than doesn’t even in the movie’s weakest sections.

A look at the development history of Madame Web is educational. Both Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield were purportedly planned for earlier iterations and there’s more than a hint of last-minute changes to a lot of what you see here.

Verdict: It works well enough to be entertaining. That’s not something all these films can claim and if you wanted to sample the deeply weird, lumpy wares of the Sony not-quite-Spider-Man movies, this is one of the best places to start. 6/10

Alasdair Stuart

 

Madame Web is on NOW TV in the UK and available to buy through other streaming services and on disc.