Image courtesy of Sony Corporation

Released on Feb. 14, 2024, “Madame Web” is a spin-off of Sony’s “Spider-Man” films. When I first heard about the movie, I was really excited. I constantly saw promotions, such as trailers and TikToks, featuring celebrities Sydney Sweeney and Dakota Johnson in dynamic action scenes.

The film is about two scientists looking for a special spider that has medicinal properties. One of the scientists, Ezekiel, betrayed his partner, Constance, to get the spider’s powers. The rest of the film follows Constance’s daughter, Cassie, and her journey. Cassie used to be a paramedic before experiencing a life-changing accident. After the accident, she is able to see the future and go back in time. She uses these powers to help three high schoolers, Julia, Mattie and Anya, who Ezekiel was hunting. Ezekiel is trying to kill them because he keeps having visions of them killing him in the future. 

In one word, the movie was a disaster.

First, the production value of the film was inconsistent. In the beginning, the filming appeared to be unprofessional. The camera rapidly zoomed in and out, causing it to feel awkward and like a home-made movie. While the filming was not always shaky, enough moments in the movie felt tacky.

The dialogue also felt very out of place. Cassie lacked emotions while speaking. Her tone was very flat, and she had blank facial expressions. The dialogue felt random and unintentionally funny because of how bad it was. A lot of scenes had random lines that did not make sense, adding confusion.

Furthermore, I did not feel any connection with the characters, even when they talked about their backstories or underlying motivations. Everything felt very forced. The characters followed set archetypes and they stuck to them, whether it was being mean, nerdy, or “cool.” The attempts at character development seemed more unnatural. For instance, Anya turns from a timid introvert to an extremely confident leader without any exploration of her character. 

The plot was mediocre and far from what the advertisements showed. The clips I saw on social media made the movie seem very action-heavy. Though the beginning of the movie would be like the simpler trailer, then lean more into the clips with action. However, after watching the movie and rewatching the trailer I realized they were practically the same. The movie lacked so much substance that by just watching the trailer it gave 95% of it away.  The actual movie contained no new shock factor or plot twists. 

Although the last ten minutes of the movie were the most interesting, they still lacked substance. Their actions looked fake and out of place.  Reminiscent of the beginning, the camera movements were also strange during the ending fighting scene. Most of the film felt repetitive and full of filler scenes. The action scenes had less fighting between characters, which is usually the interesting part, and more chasing. hey could have included smaller storylines to make everything connect more. For example, it would have been interesting to learn more about the history of the spider people in the village. 

Furthermore, there were a couple of plot holes. We never found out why Ezekiel wanted the spider so badly in the first place or why he became a villain. I never experienced the fear or threat that villains generally invoke. I connected slightly with Julia when she was sharing her family problems and how she felt invisible, but she never brought it up again. We also never got an explanation of how the girls got their powers. Finally, I don’t understand how Ezekiel tracked down the girls with just a dream. Jumping from a dream to running facial recognition software makes no sense. 

All in all, I would give Madame Web a 3/10. I was disappointed with the production quality and plot, especially given the high production cost of 100 million. I doubt I will go out of my way to watch the sequel when it comes out.