Madame Web serves as Cassandra “Cassie” Webb’s origin story as well as her entry onto the big screen. In the comics, Madame Web is a blind elderly woman who possesses the power of telepathy and clairvoyance – but, in the SJ Clarkson-directed film, Cassie (Dakota Johnson) is a young paramedic working the tough streets of New York in 2003.
*This review contains some spoilers*
After a near-death experience on the job, she begins to experience random visions of deaths and destruction filled with jumpscares and impressive camera work, adding an element of horror and supernatural into the story. The visions become stronger with each recurrence after she meets three teenagers on the train — Julia Carpenter (Sydney Sweeney), Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor), and Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced). She sees a man in a spider suit chasing after them.
Reminiscent of the visions from Final Destination, Cassie only has a short amount of time to correct the situation before her premonition comes true. With baddie Ezekiel’s (Tahar Rahim) relentless pursuit, the group has no choice but to keep running and hide until they can form a plan.
Unfortunately, this is also where the movie’s pacing gets messy. At times, the camera work would be extremely shaky and distracting with excessive punch-ins and zoom-outs. This worked well in Cassie’s visions but became played out as it was used throughout the whole movie. Despite Sweeney, O’Connor, and Merced great performances, they were very short-lived. Between Cassie’s wrangling of the girls to hiding from Ezekiel to figuring out why she’s suddenly having visions, all the characters never really felt fully-fleshed-out or given a chance to develop other than through expository dialogue.
The best moment in the film was when they highlighted the Spider-Woman suits, which were beautiful, but it was disappointing to only catch a glimpse of it. Even the villain, Ezekiel, started intimidating and terrifying, but quickly fizzled into another mustache-twirling one-dimensional villain with no layers beneath him. Cassie was the only character given the opportunity to grow throughout the film from this stoic, closed-off person to becoming more open to trust in others.
While Madame Web is meant to be a standalone film, it does have a small connection to the Spider-Verse. In the comics, Madame Web often serves as a spiritual guide for Peter Parker. Though the film does not mention Peter by name, given that the movie is set in 2003, the connection lies in Cassie’s co-worker, Ben Parker (Adam Scott). Ben’s sister-in-law, Mary Parker (Emma Roberts), who is pregnant with Peter, is also in the film. This Easter Egg does not take away from the film’s momentum and serves as a reminder of how connected everything is in the Spider-Verse. Was it necessary? No. Will the comic book fans appreciate the nod? Definitely.
Overall, Madame Web does a decent job at setting it up as a psychological thriller rather than filling it with superhero tropes. But the awkward dialogue and messy pacing is where the movie falters, to no fault of its talented cast, but of the shaky script and misdirection. Madame Web is certainly intended to set up Cassie, Julia, Mattie, and Anya to have a bigger presence in future Spider-Verse films, but missed the opportunity to let these characters really shine.
Madame Web now available to watch.