Omg! I just wanted to finish my Award Season viewing, but American Fiction doesn’t come out in Australia until February 27th, so I guess I’ll swing by Madame Webb in the meantime, and remain in the dark on whether Jeffery Wright deserves to be among the year’s best performers FOR 2023 😧 Yes, Madame Web, Sony’s Morbius 2.0 – a movie already condemned to garbage before it even came out. I was probably always going to see this movie in cinemas, but it does look kind’ve average, and I’m actually yet to see a convincing Spider-Man origin idea that doesn’t contain Spider-Man (Kraven the Hunter, your trailer’s pretty dismal too). I thought Madame Web was supposed to be an old biddy, but that’s about all I know of this eighties’ sidekick, so I will view this movie, as is… and pray for the best.
I’ll let Cassie Web (Dakota Johnson) explain the events of her own movie to you, the best she can, and I’ll just fill in the blanks – “A week ago, I spent my life racing against time, trying to save people who were running out of it. Until one moment, changed everything.” Cassie almost drowns, which awakens an inner ability to sense the future. Cassie’s new confusion is caught up in a caper where she sees visions of three young women – Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney), Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced) and Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor) – getting hunted and killed by the superhuman Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), who was “in the Amazon with my Mum, when she was researching spiders, right before she died.” – thanks, Cassie 😄 Cassie takes on the protection of these vulnerable girls, and walks back through her past to discover how she has been given this gift, and how best to use it.
You know, I’ve been spending the past month and a half going through the award prospects, and this is a steep step down into common muck. The script seems to be an investigation into “huh?”, and you’d need a fine-tooth comb to sift out all the inconsistencies that make the events and dialogue across this movie indigestible. You never can tell when Sony is involved, since they have a history of meddling in the process of their superhero movies, but I think enough blame for Madame Web can fall on the script supervisors and director – first time director S. J. Clarkson – who are supposed to be responsible for overlooking the entire project, right? The camera technique is largely unimpressive – watch Leave the World Behind for my favourable comparison – and there’s shocking ADR used for one character across multiple scenes that is completely slapdash. Watching this movie, I thought the studio must’ve cheaped out on the budget or scheduling, for at times, Madame Web looks no better than a CW show, especially in the flashes of our future Spider-lassies in their costumes – but hey, the CW never got their planned Powerpuff Girls TV show off the ground, so this is the closest thing we’ll get. But the budget for Madame Web is aligned with Morbius, and only a portion lower than Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage, where the latter pair would’ve required much more CGI at the jump. Which means there’s $80 million out there, and I can’t see much of it on the screen – $80 million, and I don’t think any excuse flies for that type of finance anymore, in a world post Godzilla Minus One, which achieved acclaim in fantasy action for $15 million. But I’ll put this movie’s disastrous production to the side right now, as I just want to focus on the acting and components of the story.
There is a fifteen minute chunk of this movie that really worked well for me. Although I wish he meant more to us, it starts with O’Neil (Mike Epps) getting killed, and continues throughout watching Cassie coming to terms with her new abilities alone. The scene on the train, that’s shown heavily in the trailer, is the movie’s best scene, and really the only evidence that this movie can call itself a ‘thriller’. Ezekeil Sims is a fairly uninventive antagonist, although I like that he gets around in a snappy suit, without shoes – that’s conformity on top, personal comfort and stealth on the bottom 😄 I don’t appreciate that his villainous costume is almost exactly the same as Spider-Man’s though, and I thought the movie might try to tie his appearance into how Spider-Man’s public perception always starts off poorly when he enters the game, since there was a guy that existed years before him that looked the same but was up to no good; but the movie never gets to that 😕 Partnering Cassie with Ben Parker for a shot at his backstory was an inspired choice, playing at something we’ve never seen before. I don’t know if I necessarily would’ve centered the climax of the story around his sister Mary Parker (Emma Roberts) needing to go to the hospital to deliver a certain baby, but I don’t mind thinking of a sweet Emma Roberts as Peter Parker’s loving Mum either. It’s quite surprising that Aunt May is never mentioned by name (nor is Peter, actually) and it got me thinking as to if we should be thinking about this Sony universe as leaning more towards an attachment to the MCU or The Amazing Spider-Man movies with Andrew Garfield? It then only occurred to me on the drive home, that Spider-Man may not even ever exist in this separate universe at all, and these three new Spider-ladies would surely predate him anyway, and I care for that less – who would’ve thought these multiverses would get so tiring so quickly? Because even through all the off-shoot movies we’ve had, I still like to think of Spider-Man as the central character of the Spider-Man universe – it’s the way I’ve always known it, and it’s the way I’d like it to stay 😤
This is the first time I’ve come across Sydney Sweeney! I write that defensively, since this woman has blown up in the past few months, starring in Euphoria and leading a couple movies. I certainly expected this movie is contain a scene that gives her a “glow-up”, since she’s cast as a nerd-with-glasses here, and has appeared on the cover of every glamour mag I’ve seen for months! But the movie never goes that route, and I’ll start respecting Sweeney’s acting choices from today. Oh, but I did quickly recognise Isabela Merced, and I like her – Instant Family, Transformers: The Last Night, Dora the Explorer; this chick has runs on the board! Wikipedia tells me she’s still only 22, and holey heck, I feel like she’s been around for ages. She’s already very good, and I could see her as a charismatic component of a superhero franchise, for sure. The trio of female characters in this movie don’t really have the time to have much going on individually, although I did find the third one, Celeste O’Connor’s Mattie Franklin, the most dully formulaic. The angst, the mouth, the skateboard; and then she talks about how her parents are rich international businesspeople, excelling in the “demonic” field of plastics, which pushes her into absurdity. I had seen actress Celeste O’Connor before, but I had to remind myself where – last year’s A Good Person, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, of course. After some careful deliberation, I have decided that I like O’Connor, but her character’s whack and needs a relatability do-over. Would I want to see this trio again for another movie? I don’t know, because I really didn’t see them yet in this movie 😕
And whining about the character of Cassie Web seems like a nitpick now at this point, in the grand scheme of things, but she did strike me as underdone early, perhaps restrained by a PG rating. She seemed to be presenting a bite-less emotionally blunt attitude, but without the attitude, and it dawned on me that we already did this, and so much better, with Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones. Cassie even sports a leather jacket, although this time it’s red 😕 Dakota Johnson is definitely capable of being that sassy bitter prototype, so there’s no problem there, and Madame Web shows potential in being an intriguing lead protagonist. I would understand if there were an argument that Madame Web’s powers were difficult to make cinematic, like Domino’s in Deadpool 2, but by placing this movie at a time where Web is only learning her powers, at least it lends to a copout in how her powers can come and go. Incidentally, I would’ve easily changed the origin of her powers – instead of the funky tree people explaining how they had to step-in due to the moral injustice of how Cassie’s mother was betrayed, I would have it that they also needed to select a champion, since Sims was stealing the means to their powers and threatening their existence, and baby Cassie was the easiest choice. Perhaps the idea of a champion ritual was always something that existed in their society, but they never thought they needed it since they were secluded and strictly peaceful. This adds gravitas to the flipped Spider-Man motto, that now sees it that Madame Web must accept the responsibility, to wield the great power bestowed upon her. It also removes the idea that her abilities are random, and adds an element of fate to the duel between Sims and Web, where every vision and action granted to the pair has led to Sim’s predestined defeat. I mean, it’s not hard to come up with an idea that may’ve strengthened this movie, but here’s just mine 💁♂️ I do think this movie did hold some deliberate homages to similarly structured movies though – the fact that Web’s car gets stuck behind a log truck while she speeds to the diner, did strongly reminded me of the famous scene in Final Destination 2. And the way Sims keeps coming on the attack through a fiery ambulance wreckage near the end, was akin to something of the Terminator franchise. Heck, maybe I’m reaching, or maybe Madame Web did contain some self-awareness.
But the worst part about Cassie Web, including her talking to stray cats, is the cornball ending that has Web in that deluxe wheelchair and those ugly glasses. I’m sure it was a push to get an audience onside, in making her appear comic-book accurate, but all it did was remind me of Ben Affleck’s Daredevil in the way it’s costuming was incongruent with style 😅 A walking cane and less goofy spectacles could’ve had the same affect, showing Web had matured. And for those who’d complain it’s a deviation from the comics, I’d say, I doubt the source material ever had it that Cassie was blinded by a firework landing too close to her face whilst submerged in water either… but I’m happy to be corrected…
It’s an interesting thought experiment to consider why I’d rate this movie less successful than The Marvels when they’re both awful. I suppose, Disney’s Marvel still has that glean – their colour palate is inviting, and Disney Marvel might look cheap, but never ugly. The MCU often reaches for jokes over gravitas, but at least their characters still appear heroic. Plus, the house of mouse has done well, and we want them to do well, whereas Sony hasn’t been good since… Spider-Man 2? Sony usually turns its productions into product placements and advertising (hello, Pepsi Cola and Mountain Dew!), and I actually find there’s a level of trauma attached to watching any Sony movie, knowing a negligence in prioritization will eventually appear, and push aside an immersion in the craft, for cross-promotion and marketing 😑 Speaking of Pepsi, did anyone else notice how Cassie has a weird aversion to opening cans? It happens twice, and what a fucking ridiculous character trait to come out of a movie. But as nice as I can be, I could call Madame Web a good-bad movie. Its issues stick out like stalagmites from the ground, but its story has merit, and in the world of superheroes on the big screen, original concepts can be hard to find. It reminded me of 2005’s House of Wax, and although Madame Web doesn’t have nearly the same level of devotion put into it, I’d put them next to each other as cliché movies of their genre, that just don’t have their big-girl pants on. This movie is odd all round and the internet is right to massacre it. Sony, keep trying.
1.5
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