Mikes Film Talk

Madam Web Marvels latest spin on the Spider Verse has Dakota Johnson in the lead role. She adds “grounding” to the Spider man mythos by completely bypassing those radiation filled web crawlers. The spiders who turn Peter Parker into the famous web crawler.

Watching the movie it is easy to see why this rather peripheral character never got a comic series. Most comic book heroes are reluctant to take on the mantle. Web is in extreme denial for most of Madame Web.

I just watched this latest oddball addition to the cinematic world of Marvel. I cannot belief the amount of vitriol leveled at Johnson and the movie. Honestly there seems to be no basis to the amount of hate this movie has earned. Rotten Tomatoes gives Madame Webb a paltry 11% and the audience score was only 57%.

Let’s look at the film before asking any further questions?

The Story

Mummy Web; Constance, is in Peru. (Played by Kerry Bishé with a quiet intensity that is impressive.) She is very pregnant and searching for a particular spider. The arachnid is said to have incredible healing powers.

Ezekiel (Tahar Rahim), her guide and protector turns homicidal when Constance finds the spider. The jungle dwellers step in and try to save mummy but only Cassandra survives.

Flash forward and Cassandra is a paramedic. She works hard to save lives but recently, she is having disruptive visions.

Someone else is having visions. Ezekiel dreams of three women who kill him. He knows the prophecy is true and he is hunting the girls down to remove them.

Discussion time

Considering that Madame Web is not really attached to the Marvel universe per se, it is interesting to see a film dedicated to her character. Are Sony and the studios running out of ideas?

Possibly.

Web is not a character the audience can get behind. This one off has no canon. Basically it is all about the most “un” super hero ever. It is all, “Right boys and girls. I am going to save someone with my on super power of foretelling the future.

Not something to draw fans to the cinemas.

But.

The film was, overall, good. Johnson would not have been my first choice to play a non super superhero. She does do a good job, and thankfully I never watched 50 shades of anything to shade my thinking.

Madame Web delivers. Just not, perhaps, like everyone expected. The story line, which may or may not have bordered on the banal worked. I will admit to having a Texas sized lump in my throat at the end. The movie comes closer to showing what “everyman/woman” would do if they could step up.

The Cast

I have not waxed lyrical about any of the characters as they all turned in solid performances. Despite many of the roles being painfully two dimensional. *However, kudos go to Emma Roberts as Spider-Man’s mum Mary.*

The Verdict

Madame Web does indeed work. Sure it is not as flashy as Spider-Man’s spider verse. But, it delivers on its own terms and does so admirably. Director S.J. Clarkson puts this whole understated hero film into prospective. Something she does well. Clarkson worked on one of the most brilliant television shows ever: Life on Mars. *The original UK version and not the abysmal US remake.*

She also has a number of other superb shows under her belt. If anything can be faulted, it would the number of writers involved with Madame Web. There were no less than four writers on this production, one of whom was Clarkson.

Despite the lack of luster and having no rousing theme music, Madame Web entertains. This is all we really ask of any film. The film rates a solid 4 stars. If for no other reason than making an almost Milquetoast heroine look like a super hero.

The film can be streamed on Netflix and rented/purchased on Amazon Prime.

The trailer