Madame Web

“Don’t do anything dumb. Seriously, don’t do dumb things.”

Cassandra Webb is a paramedic in New York City who gains the gift of precognition after she survives a near-fatal accident. Forced to confront dark revelations about her past, she reluctantly accepts the task of protecting three teenage girls with important futures from a mysterious adversary who wants them all dead.

I tried multiple times to do a longer summarization of this movie, like I normally do, but I just couldn’t get any farther than the more official summary paragraph above, so I gave up. At this point, superhero movies have a wide variety of films available, and simply stated, Madame Web is one of the dull and poorly made ones. Destined for the same pile as Black Adam, the Flash, the second Shazam movie, or pretty much every single DC movie made by Zack Snyder, Madame Web isn’t just a bad superhero movie, it’s an all-around bad movie, and not in a good way.

The fact that it isn’t even an enjoyable debacle makes it even worse. There’s people out there acting like this movie is another Troll 2 or The Room or something like that, and honestly, it just isn’t. I’ve seen Troll 2 and The Room, and they really are terrible films, and while I do have a problem with the “acceptable bully” culture that grew up around the latter day late-night screenings of those films, I can clearly see that those films are really, really bad, impressively bad, the kind of bad you tell other people about, so I get that. I understand that. So listen to me when I say this… Madame Web is not anywhere near as bad in the same way that those two movies are.

Not in any way.

Madame Web is a bad movie, yeah, no doubt about that, but like most of the Transformer films, or Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, it’s bad because it’s boring, it’s bad because it’s forgettable, it’s bad because it’s pretty much unremarkable in every way. It’s the kind of bad where your mind wanders to other things as you’re watching it. I tell you this, because I don’t want you to get duped into watching this ironically—an activity you should always avoid on a general basis on any other day—because of all the movies that you might watch this way, if you absolutely have to… this just ain’t it. Don’t waste your time, because there’s nothing there. Sure, Dakota Johnson has a couple of funny line reads, but otherwise…

It’s just dull.

The many, many problems with Madame Web are rooted in the fact that the only thing Sony seems to know is that the Spider-Man IP is valuable, but other than that, they have no fucking clue how to capitalize on it. I don’t why these stupid assholes are so bad at their job, but they are, and while I understand why the Peter Parker version of Spider-man might be off the table, why do they keep giving us inert garbage like this instead, or what I assume the Morbius and Venom movies are like, or what I assume the Kraven film will be like, or what I assume the El Muerto movie starring Bad Bunny would’ve been like, if that terrible idea hadn’t imploded under the weight of its own ridiculously ill-conceived stupidity before it could even get started, a repreive that is probably something we can thank the failures of Madame Web and Morbius for.

Also, I say “assume” here, because these terrible Spider-man-less Spider-man Universe films that Sony has been making is yet another situation where I don’t need to actually cross the yard and step in dog shit, just so that I can know for sure that it’s dog shit, because I can see from here that it’s dog shit.

But… sure, yeah, okay, you got me… Sometimes I do cross the yard just to step in the dog shit, because I’m a dumb ass just like everybody else, with this being one of those times, as I did actually sit down to watch Madame Web, and I have no idea why.

(top) Madame Web, (bottom, l to r) Mattie Franklin “Spider-woman,” Anya Corozon who was first “Spider-girl” then “Arana,” and Julia Carpenter who was also “Spider-woman” first, but then became “Arachne” and is now the current “Madame Web”

So, as you all know, I’m a regular comic book reader.

I don’t go to the store every Wednesday anymore (known amongst the faithful as “New Comic Book Day”), but I do have a pull-file at my local comic shop that I pick up every couple of weeks or months, depending on whether or not the weather is bad, or if that awful yearly shitshow known as the State Fair is happening, as it lies directly between me and the shop, making traffic terrible...

But I digress…

My point is, it’s true, I don’t read a lot of regular monthly Spider-man titles, because they’re not my thing. I’ve always been more of an X-Men/Avengers end of the Marvel Universe reader. That said, I know enough about the Spider-titles in general, through nerd-osmosis, that I know who all of these characaters are, and the one thing I know about them for sure is this… they are all the definition of third tier characters, ones who have never rated their own book, and only rarely appear in others.

So, because I’m familiar with the comic books and these characaters, much like the movie The Flash, Madame Web is a film that only makes me ask…

Why?

Of all the weird and niche characaters that have been dug up from the pile of forgotten also-rans and then flung up onto the silver screen over these past few years, it’s honestly kind of shocking that anyone would choose Madame Web. In fact, before this movie was made, if I had ever wanted to illustrate my point to a fellow comic book nerd of how silly an idea it would be to focus a film on an absolute nobody third string character that no one likes or cares about, Madame Web would have been a perfect example to use. Especially as, in comics, Madame Web is currently dead, after dying two different times. And of the other three younger characters, Mattie Franklin is currently dead too, also after having died twice (a feat that isn’t all that uncommon in comics). Anya Corazon and Julia Carpenter are still considered active, and can both be found somewhere at the far end of a labyrinthian plot that ran through the Spider-books a few years ago, but despite both of them appearing in some high-profile books, neither of them have ever been popular enough to head up their own.

Mattie, Anya, and Julia are less perplexing choices to be featured in a movie than Madame Web herself, but should you actually sit through Madame Web—which I don’t recommend—you’ll see that this inexplicably-made film is somehow even more inexplicable than you would assume, as it takes place before Mattie, Anya, and Julia even have any powers, and treats them more like MacGuffins in the film’s Terminator-esque style plot, because… inexplicably… this is Madame Web’s film.

Even star Dakota Johnson knew this was a mistake, saying in the press: “It was definitely an experience for me to make that movie. I had never done anything like it before. I probably will never do anything like it again, because I don’t make sense in that world. And I know that now. But sometimes in this industry, you sign on to something, and it’s one thing, and then as you’re making it, it becomes a completely different thing, and you’re like, ‘Wait, what?’ But it was a learning experience, and of course, it’s not nice to be a part of something that’s ripped to shreds, but I can’t say that I don’t understand. It’s so hard to get movies made, and in these big movies that do get made—and it’s even starting to happen with the little ones too, which is what’s really freaking me out—the decisions are being made by committees, and art does not do well when it’s made by committee. Films are made by a filmmaker and a team of artists around them. You cannot make art based on numbers and algorithms. My feeling has been for a long time that audiences are extremely smart, and executives have started to believe that they’re not, but audiences will always be able to sniff out bullshit. Even if films start being made with AI, humans aren’t going to fucking want to see those.”

There’s a lot of truth contained in there, which I appreciate, and it’s also something that Johnson is known for doing now whenever she’s doing press, something I also appreciate, but it highlights the problem with Madame Web… it’s the result of idiot Studio Execs business majors—who are basically just your typical dipshit Tech Bro assholes at this point—getting in the way of making art.

…which only ever gives you garbage.

(top) Madame Web, (bottom l to r) Mattie Franklin, Anya Corazon, Julia Carpenter

I mean… look at that shit. Look at it. This kind of garbage is allowable on the CW maybe, but in a movie? Fuck you.

In the end, it’s easy to dismiss Madame Web as a bad film, one that was poorly conceived and poorly executed from start to finish, one that was filled with terrible ideas, and even worse dialogue, not to mention straight-up boring set pieces. It’s easy to dismiss this film as an absolute all-around overwrought piece of shit that just never should have been made, because that’s totally what it is. It is a very, very bad, and very, very boring movie, but still, I think its important to ask…

Why the fuck did anyone, at any point, believe that any version of this film was not only a good idea, but was going to be successful?

Why?

If you don’t read comic books at all, then I’m sure all of the characters who now appear in the seemingly endless parade of superhero films and tv shows all seem like the same kind of completely random nonsense, so what I’m trying to convey here is that, while, sure, yes, that’s a pretty much true assessment… there are levels here, and the characters in Madame Web in paricular (or any of the characters who’ve already, or will soon appear in Sony’s weird live-action Spider-man-less Spider-man Universe films) are not necessarily “bad,” although they’re certainly not great, or very popular, or all that interesting, either, the problem is, none of them are MAIN characters. They are all tertiary characters of Spider-Man. Bit players. Without Spider-man, they have no reason to exist, because they were not just derived from his existence, they depend on him to be the central pillar for their stories to spin around, because they were built to be that way.

You can’t have Robin or the Joker without first having Batman, right?

That’s what’s going on here.

Okay sure, Venom is popular, something that I’ve never understood, but that’s because I’m not a fan of the character, but that aside, he’s still a great example. The weird knots the film had to twist this characater into, just to make a Venom without Spider-man film, is like making a film about Elliot from E.T. getting chased by the government, but not including any mention or appearance of E.T.

And that’s the thing I don’t understand… why bother?

Why bother risking not just the ire of a fanbase that is well-known for being extremely fickle and toxic and vicious, but suffering mainstream dismissal as well, not to mention a complete box office failure, all of which being directly due to your efforts to make a movie about a side character, but only after you’ve removed all of the main character, which is 80% of what makes the side characater who they are, when the best end result you can honestly hope for is a middling success?

Why bother?

Now, some folks might point out that neither Iron Man, nor the Guardians of the Galaxy were all that popular or very well-known before they appeared in their films, and that’s true, sort of, in a way, but this is what I’m saying… there’s levels to this, and the truth is Iron Man and the Guardians were not only always way more popular than any of the characters in this film, and there is no point in all of comic book history where this wasn’t true, but they were also their own things. Both of those properties were the centers of their own little corners of the universe. These characters, the Madame Web characters, Venom, Moebius, Kraven, El Muerto… they are side characters in Spider-man’s corner of the universe.

It’s such a weird decision

And here’s the main reason why… this is the kicker, this is the whole deal, people… why would you give any of these forgettable, uninteresting, and unpopular d-tier side characters their own films, when you could instead make a live-action Miles Morales Spider-Man or a Gwen Stacy Ghost Spider movie? They’re both hugely popular, all thanks to a pair of—soon to be a trilogy of—animated films, and Sony owns them!

It makes no sense.

On top of all that… the fact that this film is actually a pre-origin story for three of the four main characters, showing a time before most of them even have any superpowers, let alone superhero identities, and the fact the film ends with a line referring to a time still to come when they would all be superheroes, saying: “The best thing about the future? It hasn’t happened yet,” is just so…

The milk is well and truly spilled on this terrible idea, but still… how did anyone, at any point, actually think this incredibly bland and bad idea, one that was executed so poorly, resulting in such an incredibly mediocre film, was a good idea? And not only was it was such a good idea, it was going to spawn a bunch of sequels and spin-offs too? How? Why?

Whatever.

We’ll probably never have to speak of Madame Web again after this, which is a good thing, because like I said, it’s a bad movie.

There’s no reason to watch this film, if you haven’t already.