Sony & Marvel, we need to talk...
So here is Madame Web, another installment set in the world of Spider-man yet stray away from the actual character. Now one thing to point out, I never aim to trash any movie or series surrounding female superheroes as many people online would, being that I'm the open-minded type---but for this I'm willing to make a reasonable exception.
It revolves around the character who happens to be named Cassandra Webb, an everyday paramedic who'd rather be dry and distant with others in which that's explained but only little explored, such as being born in the amazon and how it would have her be granted the power of clairvoyance. What could've end up being an intriguing character instead comes down to a rather bland performance by Dakota Johnson; and when she's not looking like she's staring off into space and talking to her cat, she's forced into protecting three young women from Ezekiel Sims, whose vision of being murdered by spider-women motivates him to want to murder them first, but his approach and dialogue leads him feeling almost so one-dimensional that he's bound to become a forgettable villain.
For the outcome, it's about exactly what I expected: an origin story that puts little effort into what we expect in any engaging origin story, compared to that of the Venom movies or even the equally forgettable Morbius. Instead it plays like a comic book movie that's a product of its time in 2003. (which happens to be the year this takes place.) I feel this is the kind of film either for those who anticipate it but will come home disappointed, those who will embrace it as being so-bad-it's-good, or those who just want to see Sydney Sweeney on screen again.
Either way, the end results of it had me feeling both the actors and their characters deserved a lot better. It'd have you wonder that if Madame Web was this crucial, she could have worked as a supporting character in any other movie, or even in the next Spiderverse movie, whenever that's releasing... 4/10