Madame Web (2024) is directed by S.J. Clarkson and stars Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, Isabela Merced, Tahar Rahim, and Adam Scott. The film takes place in Sony’s Spider-Man universe (which inexplicably doesn’t feature Spider-Man). It follows Cassandra Web (Johnson), a paramedic in New York City who begins to display clairvoyant powers after a near-death experience. After having a vision of 3 girls (Sweeney, O’Connor, Merced) being murdered by a mysterious, Spider-Man-like assailant (Rahim), Cassandra chooses to act as their protector as she attempts to uncover why they’re being pursued. 

Capable actresses are cast, but unfortunately, there is no level of performance skill that can make up for the film’s horrible script work. The main cast rarely tries, but I don’t blame them when hearing the dialogue they’d been given. I’ve never felt that Dakota Johnson is a very skilled actress, and this film doesn’t change that opinion. The thing is, it doesn’t solidify that opinion either. I’m not sure if it was achieved by choice or just pure coincidence, but her aloof and dry reactions add to the film’s occasional “so bad it’s good” quality.

 Tahar Rahim as the film’s villain is particularly insulting. There is nothing about the character that is even remotely interesting. It’s like staring at a gray wall when all you want is some color. To make matters even worse, his costume is essentially just a black Spider-Man suit. This makes the timeline confusing. Did Spider-Man copy this guy’s suit? Did he see into the future and then copy the suit of the good guy? I’m not sure, but it ultimately feels like a cynical attempt to make up for the fact that there’s no Spider-Man by including a character who looks like him. It’s also funny to me that the character’s motivation is understandable to the point where you actually kind of wonder why he’s being portrayed as the villain. He’s trying to kill them because he has a vision that they kill him in the future. He doesn’t see why they do it, he just knows that they’re going to kill him. I think most normal people would kill the person they know will eventually kill them. At the very least, it’s not a clear moral choice. I found myself rooting for the villain simply out of disdain for how terribly everyone is written.  

Adam Scott is serviceable as Ben Parker, but it feels like an odd choice to use a historically comedic actor to play the one role in your script that doesn’t have any jokes. Oh, and Hollywood’s unapologetic use of Sydney Sweeney as a sex symbol and nothing else is disgustingly on full display here. She plays a high-school-aged character whom the film constantly dresses in intentionally skimpy boarding school outfits. It’s one thing if this appearance was a part of the character, but it’s clearly not. She plays the shy and conservative girl, the opposite of who you’d expect to wear revealing/sexy clothing. Because of this, the choice feels cynical, surface-level, and a bit creepy. 

The film immediately gets off on the wrong foot by asking us to believe that Cassandra’s character just happens to be Ben Parker’s co-worker. That’s a pretty ridiculous coincidence if you ask me. Ben Parker is just a magnet for people who get bit by radioactive spiders, I guess. The film just feels lazy in so many different aspects. A small moment hammered this feeling home for me. There’s a scene in which Johnson grabs a can of soda from a vending machine and then proceeds to act like she’s going to open the can, but never does. It’s clear in her facial expressions that she’s worried she will break her nail. Really? No one noticed that in the editing room? I have a feeling they did but didn’t care. That’s coincidentally how most of this film comes across. The film is essentially just two hours of the same setpiece over and over again. Cassandra sees a minute into the future, quickly warns everyone, and then moves on to the next situation. It’s like having the opening of every Final Destination film be sustained for an entire film. It even has a moment where the main characters are supposedly killed, but we immediately know that it’s just another clairvoyant vision because they’ve already done it countless times, ruining the misdirection. 

This all leads to one of the most laughably terrible superhero climaxes I’ve ever experienced. First of all, it takes place on the top of a NYC building at night. Yeah, real original. The characters (who don’t have superpowers yet) take on the super-powered villain with ease. This is thanks to Cassandra who’s able to tell the girls to move away from flying debris. Sound interesting? No? I agree, it’s not. This also features a moment where a firework blows a hole in a brick wall. Yep, you read that correctly. And no, it doesn’t make any sense. This is all while a giant, neon Pepsi-Cola sign hangs over their heads, one of the most absurd product placements I’ve ever seen. But it doesn’t end there: the villain is eventually crushed by the giant “P” in Pepsi-Cola, his deceased eyes peaking through the “P” hole. This is capped by one of the most laughably terrible lines of dialogue to ever end a film: “The best thing about the future is that it hasn’t happened yet.”

Overall, this is one of the worst films of 2024, and I’m confident my opinion will remain solid throughout the rest of the year. Not a single joke lands (unless you’re laughing at the film’s incompetence), the script is nonsensical, the dialogue is plain stupid, and the performances are uninspired. This feels like a student handing in an essay that doesn’t follow any of the criteria and hasn’t been proofread. It’s just kind of an insult. It’s one of those films that actually makes a person feel like they were scammed by the studio. It feels amateurish at best and completely soulless at worst. The only people I can see slightly enjoying this film are zealots of the superhero genre, but even then, I can’t imagine them enjoying it on a level other than that of an extremely guilty pleasure. For 99% of the moviegoing population, this should be in a museum of films that stink. F