Madame Web (2024) 🕸🕷

Spider-Man’s shadow, but make it corporate and confused.


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Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers shall we? 🎥

(And yes, the trailer that gave us that infamous “my mom was studying spiders in the Amazon…” exposition dump that didn’t even survive the final cut. Iconic. For all the wrong reasons.)


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🕷️ Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

Ok let’s get something straight, aint no one was asking for a Madame Web movie, that idea was on nobody’s radar. No one was ranting for a Madame Web film, let alone in 2024. Idk who at sony thought yeah this what everyone wants. So with that out the way, whats the plot?

So here’s the setup.

Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson) is a New York paramedic who suddenly starts experiencing déjà vu-level psychic visions. Turns out she can see fragments of the future. Meanwhile, Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) — who looks like he ordered a Spider-Man suit off Wish — is hunting three teenage girls because in his future they grow up to become spider-themed vigilantes who kill him.

No Spider-Man.

But every five minutes the movie leans over and goes,
“Remember Spider-Man though?”

Cassandra has to protect Julia (Sydney Sweeney), Anya (Isabela Merced), and Mattie (Celeste O’Connor) while figuring out her own spider-adjacent backstory involving the Amazon, a magic spider tribe, and lore that feels like it was written on a napkin during lunch.

That’s the movie.

It’s not even complex. It just feels messy.


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🕸️ Character Rundown

Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson) – Feels like she wandered onto set by accident and stayed because craft services was good. Half the time she looks confused, the other half she looks bored. I don’t blame her. The script gives her nothing.

Majority of the time she looks like she doesn’t even want to be here, I cant blame her because I did some research. Turns out she thought this was a Disney marvel project, not a sony marvel project, yeah dont ask.

Hell the script was changed every second, that can be very disheartening.

Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) – Dollar-store Spider-Man with future visions. The suit looks like someone said, “We legally can’t use Peter Parker, so how close can we get before Marvel’s lawyers blink?”

Is he any good in this film? Well when he isnt sounding like a poorly dubbed ADR voice (which is 99.9% of the time) then uh no. Also why is he even dressed like a dollar store version of Spiderman? Oh right because, cant forget this is a Spiderman movie.

Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney) – Exists mostly to react.

Anya Corazón (Isabela Merced) – The most personality out of the trio.

Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor) – Also there. Occasionally funny.

Ben Parker (Adam Scott) – Not Uncle Ben. Just Ben. Because Sony wants you to nudge your friend and whisper “wait a minute…”

Also hws the only good part of this film.

Mary Parker (Emma Roberts) – Pregnant the entire movie. Yes. That Mary Parker.

Also yes Peter Parker is in this film as well, as a new born. Also the film never lets anyone call the baby Peter, because uh idk.

This movie is less about these characters and more about orbiting the concept of Spider-Man like it’s a forbidden ex.

Also oh cant forget the final character, Pepsi. Yes thats right gold old Pepsi, they are a character in this film. No i dont mean theres a literal character named Pepsi, nor do I mean they just pop up every now and then, no I mean they are the heros of this film.

They are the ones who save the day, wow talk about shameless product placement, they basically were like hey we helped funded this film, so by damn were gonna save the day. I kid you not folks, they are everywhere in this film, its like the film is putting subliminal messaging of Pepsi into y’all minds, to go out and buy some.

Jeepers moving on plz.


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🕰️ Pacing / Episode Flow

This movie feels like:

Scene.

Vision.

Flash.

Vision again.

Long awkward dialogue.

Pepsi ad.

Another vision.


There’s no escalation. Just repetition.

And the big Spider-Women suit moments?
They’re barely in the actual story. Mostly just future vision snippets.

You’re waiting for the movie to actually become something.

It never does.


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🧃 The Spider-Man Reference Breakdown (Rant Mode Engaged)

Let’s dissect the desperation.

1. The Amazon spider web framed perfectly like the Spider-Man chest emblem. Subtle as a brick.


2. Ezekiel popping up behind Cassandra’s mom with a red umbrella slicing across the web like, “DO YOU GET IT??”


3. The cowardly remix of “With great power comes great responsibility” into:
“When you take on the responsibility, great power will come.”
Just say the line. We all know what you’re doing.


4. Ben Parker being around constantly like a walking Easter egg.


5. Mary Parker being pregnant. We know with who. You don’t say it. But you scream it.


6. Cassandra literally assisting in Peter Parker’s birth. Why.


7. Ezekiel’s future hallucinations of the girls in full spider suits that we never properly get to see in action.



This entire movie feels like Sony is acting like they lost custody of Spider-Man in a divorce settlement.

You own him.

Why are you acting like you can’t say his name?


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🥤 The Pepsi Cinematic Universe

I cannot not mention this.

Ezekiel, who can see the future, is ultimately taken out by a giant falling Pepsi sign.

Not the spider-girls.

Not Cassandra.

Pepsi.

So apparently he can see the future, but he didn’t see that coming?

And why are there fireworks stored in a building with a giant Pepsi sign?

What factory stores fireworks like that?

This movie feels like satire.


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✅ Pros

Some of the future-vision editing tricks are interesting.

The idea of a grounded psychic thriller in the Spider-Man universe isn’t terrible in concept.

The three girls have potential in a better script.

It’s unintentionally funny.



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❌ Cons

Lifeless performances.

Tonal confusion.

Every Spider-Man reference feels forced.

The villain is underwritten.

The script sounds like a first draft.

The “Great Power” paraphrase is genuinely painful.

Product placement destroys the final act tension.

It never justifies its own existence.

About eveything else about this film belongs in the cons section, better yet maybe a trash bin.



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😐 Final Thoughts

This movie is shameless, its just god damn shameless. Idk any other way of putting it.

This movie isn’t just bad.

It’s confused.

It doesn’t commit to being:

A superhero film.

A thriller.

A character study.

A franchise starter.


It just exists in this weird limbo of almost.

And the saddest part?

There was a concept here.

A psychic paramedic predicting disasters?
That’s a movie.

But instead we got:

“Remember Spider-Man?”: The Feature-Length Film.

Oh and we will be starting to reveiw so bad its bad films soon, keep eye open for those because theres so many of them. Next up on bad movie roasts, Chairmen Of The Boatd, yeah oh boy. If anyone remembers that film.


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⭐ Rating

4/10

It’s not unwatchable.
But it’s fundamentally hollow.


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⚠️ Spoiler Warning

Alright. Past this point, we’re going into the chaos.


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💥 Spoilers

Ezekiel is hunting the girls because he sees them killing him in the future.

Cassandra goes back to the Amazon and meets the spider-tribe guy who delivers the rearranged “great power” line like he’s afraid of being sued.

She learns her mom died researching magic spiders.

We get multiple chase sequences where Ezekiel stalks them like an off-brand slasher villain in a spider suit.

Final showdown happens at — you guessed it — a Pepsi sign construction site with fireworks for reasons.

Cassandra goes blind, ends up in a wheelchair, fully embracing the Madame Web look from the comics.

Ezekiel dies not because of destiny.

Not because of the spider-girls.

But because a giant letter from a soda brand collapses on him.

And that’s the Sony Spider-Man Universe in a nutshell.


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We will absolutely go even harder when we tackle Kraven the Hunter.

Because if Madame Web was confused…

Kraven is something else entirely.