Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson) is a New York Paramedic who finds herself experiencing disorienting glimpses of the future after a near death experience. After rescuing three teenage girls from an unknown assailant she realises the death of her mother in childbirth holds the secret to her newfound power. 

Madame Web is Sony’s latest Spider-Man adjacent superhero movie and will sit alongside Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Morbius as Spider films without Spider-Man. Later this year we should also see the arrival of Kraven into this pantheon. So how does Madame Web sit alongside this rather ropey trio of Superhero films? Not well unfortunately and that really is saying something. 

Opening in 1973 we get to see Cassandra’s mother (Kerry Bishe) in the Peruvian Amazon. She is searching for a mythical spider that can supercharge its own cells. But when she finds it she is betrayed by her guide Ezekiel (Tahir Rahim). Moving to 2003 we meet Cassandra who is working as a paramedic with her friend Ben Parker (Adam Scott). Ben is of course Uncle Ben of Spider-Man fame but not yet. We will meet his sister-in-law Mary (Emma Roberts) who is pregnant with a boy who is “swinging” around in his mother’s womb and hear that he has met someone special. But the names May and Peter are never spoken, even if there is a guess the baby name game at a baby shower. Cassandra on the other hand is just plain awkward with everyone and lives a rather solitary existence. 

After suffering a near death experience Cassandra just becomes more awkward. Mistaking her gift for deja vu she initially thinks people are just repeating themselves but later works out her gift thanks to a pigeon with a poor sense of direction. Then she finds herself on a train and rescuing Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney), Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced) and Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor). At this point in the film Cassandra’s super powers are driving, slightly confusing deja vu and being snarky with teenagers. 

Cassandra then needs to establish what she needs to do. What is this gift? Where does it come from? Who is the masked man attacking the girls? How does she save them and does she want to? Ultimately the whole thing is rather surreal because it is a super hero movie without any real superpowers that allow for interesting fight sequences, yet the film still tries to go for them. 

For the majority of its running time I was able to mostly give Madame Web a pass. It felt like a fairly poor 1990’s action thriller with little connection to the superhero genre and poor special effects. But the final 10 minutes or so of the film firmly nail the coffin shut and at best it probably will become some cult classic where cinema audiences shout back the dumb line readings at the screen in some late night screening somewhere. 

So why is it so bad? Well a non exhaustive list includes some of the following…

The plot itself feature a number of issues that require leaps of faith from the audience. Cassandra grew up in foster care and owns all of her mother’s photographs and journals from her Amazon trip despite the fact her mother died there in childbirth. I guess the Peruvian tribes people who saved her collected her belongings and phoned the embassy? The villain wears a Spider-Man suit and the teenagers do also (but only in visions) prior to the existence of Spider-Man. Of course he would come up with a near identical idea twenty years later without any knowledge of them. Cassandra drives a stolen taxi without a number plate a lot. Including when she gets back from a week long trip to Peru. Which she went on despite being on a paramedic salary at the drop of a hat when wanted by the police. Cassandra says stupid things like, “I hope those spiders were worth it mom” out loud whilst looking at her mums things. Our three teenagers (all women well into their 20’s) start table dancing for some random teenagers. The villain has no back story or motive. I could go on. 

The Spider-Man adjacency is painful. I do not know what deal Sony made with Marvel about Spider-Man but his sort of existence has been awkward in all of their Spider-universe films. Here it is turned up to eleven! The latest re-working of the “with great power…” line is hilarious here. This film seems to want to survive on comic book fans noticing all the references that most people will miss. 

It has a terrible script that makes good actors look awful and has its hero mostly be rude, dismissive and hit the villain with a car. And puts Sidney Sweeney in one of the worst wigs ever seen on film. 

And yet… I still think this might be better than Morbius! 

Go in prepared for very little excitement and a huge serving of dumb and you may just get away with laughing at it rather than with it. But do not expect anything more.