Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating *
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Mercad, Celeste O’Connor, Tahir Rahim, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, Adam Scott, Adam Scott, Kerry Bishé, Zosia Mamet, José Maria Yazpik, Kathy-Ann Hart, Josh Drennen, Yuma Feldman.
Seemingly Sony feel as though every character that has stalked the pages of its Marvel acquisition of Spiderman is worthy of being transferred to the silver screen, and whilst the likes of Venom, and even the upcoming appearance of Kraven The Hunter has been widely applauded, and eagerly awaited, but to delve, to perhaps scrape the barrel of transferring comic creation to cinema, content that nobody was asking for, to put on screen someone who was never more than a bit player and give them the widest possible view above several others more inclined to do the genre justice is arguably one reeking of desperation.
Madame Web is like Morbius, characters on screen who should have only remained a bit part until their stock rose enough to contemplate a larger scale film, and yet in the infinite wisdom of studio and executive reasoning, the sense of showing the viewer someone who they barely know, unless they have been a comic book/graphic novel enthusiast all their lives, and asking them to accept the premise, to invest time in a movie where not even an appearance of a recognised hero or villain can up the game and feel of the storyline.
Another issue with Madame Web, and there a few of those to discuss over dinner or when you have time with friends, is that there are few characters involved, few actors on screen, to which the audience can identify with. To split the generation divide when it comes to art is not healthy, and yet in this film there is a hefty weight of subtext that suggests, perhaps most completely that in any other Marvel affiliated film that one gender in the 21st Century is wholesome than the other, there are no rough edges as there is in real life, no sense of darkness within the four main characters, and the effect of this is one of unrealistic attainment, of pushing an agenda not for cinema sake but societal sake.
If the viewer looks at comic book heroes and villains alike there is always a cross over, a moment where the person can be seen as carrying two identities, and it works, Spiderman/Peter Parker can be seen to struggle with the weight of his conscious, where is that with Cassandra Webb, where with the three charges who have been informed of their role to come. This is a film that relies far too heavily on the act of charity and kindness and not even the link to Ben and May Parker, the mention in passing of J. Jonah Jameson, can rectify or offer condolence to.
The audience expected poor returns from Morbius as the character had truly never been that popular, but the association with the mythos of Spiderman has a greater effect in the comic books, even in a limited quantity, should have given the makers of the film the sense that there was a huge opportunity to draw out the deeply tragic figure and give them a possible motive for rejecting darkness rather than becoming a committed empathic soul right off the bat.
It feels cruel to even speak the truth of the matter, but in Madame Web Sony shows once again it has no idea, no truth in which to hold, one of its star franchises together without the aid of Marvel itself. A misguided, unsettling, near instantly forgettable film with no redeemable end.
Ian D. Hall