Madame Web (2024)

  This is currently sitting at a 13% on Rotten Tomatoes but honestly, it's not that bad.  It's not great, but it doesn't deserve the keelhauling it's been getting.

EMT Cassie Webb (Dakota Johnson) begins having precognitive visions after a near-death experience.  Most seem centered on three teenaged girls, Julia (Sydney Sweeney), Anya (Isabela Merced), and Mattie (Celeste O'Connor), that she had only barely met but who are being hunted by a strange man in a black and red bodysuit that can climb walls and poison with a touch.  Ezekiel Simms (Tahar Rahim) knows that he will be murdered by three women with spider-powers and will stop at nothing to secure his future.  Simms and Webb are connected through a mysterious tribe in the Amazon and if Cassie wants to save the future, she must understand her past.

That's all bog-standard comic book stuff, so I'm not sure why people are objecting to it.  Is Cassandra Webb a lazy shorthand for a prophetic spider-person?  Sure.  But it's no dumber than Steven Strange for a wizard.

I've seen some people complaining that the only person with spider-powers is the villain and the glimpses we get of the spider-women are only a few seconds in a flash-forward.  Okay.  That's more about managing expectations, I think.  If you went in thinking it was going to be an origin story for Sweeney, Merced, and O'Connor, you'd be profoundly disappointed.  But it's an origin story for Johnson's character -- like it says on the poster.  The teenage girls are incidental.

Some criticisms are valid.  Tonally, the movie feels off.  Like it's been muted somehow.  I also think it tries way too hard to establish that it's taking place in 2003.  There are a ton of pop culture references, especially the music choices, and less would have been more in that case.   Zosia Mamet's "hacker" character is also mishandled.  I get the post-Patriot Act surveillance being weaponized angle, but it is overly convenient for plot reasons.  

For me, the two biggest complaints I had were 1) Cassie's journey to Peru.  She is a person of interest in a kidnapping.  Post-9/11 you're telling me that she could just hop on a plane without the FBI putting her on a no-fly list?  No.  She also manages to find the exact same spot where her mom took a picture because none of the trees have changed in the jungle in 30 years.  And she masters the ability to use her psychic powers in five days.  It feels like the writers were struggling with getting to the third act.  2) Every line of dialogue Rahim says sounded like it had been re-recorded.  There were a lot of moments where the spoken words didn't match his mouth movements, where he was talking without being on screen, or behind the mask and I cannot figure out why.  Did they change the script a bunch of times?  Was there a problem with his original voice?  Is that even his voice?  Big "Marni Nixon subbing for Audrey Hepburn" vibes.

All that aside, it's fine as popcorn entertainment.  Tyler liked it and he's a way bigger Spider-Man fan than I am.  It's currently only in theaters.  Go on a Tuesday matinee and see it for 25% off.