Madame Web — The Spiderweb of Cinematic Neglect

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Madame Web (2024): The Blockbuster Sony Gifts You So You’ll Learn to Cherish Silence

Here at Claqueta Ácida, we’ve seen disasters. We’ve survived unnecessary sequels that reeked of desperation (Ghostbusters: Afterlife), icy reboots that froze even hope (Fantastic Four 2015), and marketing campaigns that sold radioactive smoke with the same conviction as a late-night infomercial hawking miracle hair-growth serum (Morbius, The Marvels). But Madame Web (2024) isn’t just a commercial stumble—it’s a historic monument to corporate apathy, a "why not?" masterpiece erected by Sony with the budget of a small nation and the artistic ambition of an unpaid Survivor intern. It’s a movie that doesn’t want to exist, starring an actress who seems to be counting the seconds until she can fire her agent (and, while she’s at it, the entire writing team), directed with the passion of someone filing their tax return at 3 AM after three Red Bulls and a hit of resignation.

finalExplicado: "En el clímax, Cassandra Webb, tras una serie de visiones confusas y un viaje absurdo a Perú, se enfrenta a Ezekiel Sims en un almacén abandonado. Sin apenas acción ni coreografía, lo derrota simplemente anticipando sus movimientos tres segundos antes, lo que lleva a su muerte accidental y ridícula. Las tres chicas, ahora huérfanas de destino, aceptan su rol como futuras Spider-Women sin traje ni poderes visibles. Simbólicamente, el desenlace representa la rendición total del cine de superhéroes: un final sin catarsis, sin espectáculo y sin alma que admite que la franquicia ya no cree en sí misma. Es la telaraña de la desidia hecha texto: un producto que se mata a sí mismo por inercia, dejando solo vacío corporativo donde antes había mito."

A Psychological Thriller from the 2000s… If the 2000s Were Directed by a Netflix Algorithm

In their infinite wisdom, Sony Pictures has decided the future of their spider-verse doesn’t hinge on Spider-Man (which, let’s be honest, is like asking a kid not to touch the birthday cake) but on squeezing secondary characters until they’re an unrecognizable pulp. Enter Madame Web, a psychological thriller that feels like a rejected Charmed pilot written by someone who only watched The Matrix on a plane with the volume down. The premise is as thrilling as an IKEA instruction manual: a paramedic with panic attacks can see three seconds into the future. Three. Seconds. She can’t prevent natural disasters or win the lottery—no, her superpower is knowing she’s about to trip on a loose subway tile. Riveting.

The plot introduces us to Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson, in what can only be described as performance art about existential indifference), a Manhattan paramedic who, after a medical accident so poorly explained it feels like a House episode directed by a striking screenwriter, starts having visions. Soon, she discovers she must protect three teenagers—played by Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, and Isabela Merced—from a generic villain named Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim, whose post-production dubbing is so horrendous it sounds like a bad Godzilla parody dubbed into Spanish by a robot with Parkinson’s). Ezekiel wants to kill them because, in some undefined future, they’ll wear discount Amazon Spider-Man suits and beat him up. Yes, you read that right: the grand conflict of this film is a guy with a god complex trying to prevent three girls in leggings from kicking his ass in twenty years. The Infinity War of the broke.

The script, perpetrated by the usual suspects Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless (the same masterminds behind the "misunderstood gem" Morbius and Power Rangers, because someone at Sony has a fetish for punishing audiences), is a goldmine of implausible dialogue and lazy exposition. The promotional tagline about Cassandra’s mother studying spiders in the Amazon before dying has become an internet meme, and for good reason: it sounds like an excuse a ten-year-old would invent to explain why their Dungeons & Dragons character has superpowers. "My mom was a scientist studying spiders in the jungle, but she died in a mysterious accident… and now I can see the future!" Seriously, Sony? This is the "arachnid mythology" you’re selling?

The film lurches forward like a drunk at a ‘90s nightclub, jumping from scenes where Dakota Johnson drives ambulances without a license (because, of course, in New York, paramedics moonlight as cabbies) to sequences where the three teens dance on a diner table to Britney Spears while the killer watches in confusion, as if he’s stumbled into the wrong rave. Tension is nowhere to be found, and when the climax finally arrives, it happens on a Pepsi billboard exploding in slow motion—because nothing says "epic" like a soda can being destroyed by fate.

B-Movie Aesthetics and Product Placement from Hell

Visually, Madame Web is a festival of flat horror, a crime against cinematography that screams for justice. Mauro Fiore, Oscar winner for Avatar (yes, the same guy who made Pandora’s jungle look like a Windows XP screensaver), delivers a photography so bland, textureless, and style-free it could pass for a rejected The CW pilot from two decades ago. The colors are so muted you’d think the film was shot in a 2005 camera’s "eco mode", and the framing is so predictable it could be used as a textbook example of how not to compose a shot.

The direction by S.J. Clarkson (responsible for episodes of Jessica Jones and Succession, which explains why this movie feels like a Marvel fanfic written by someone who hates superheroes) is a parade of desperate gimmicks: sudden zooms trying to inject tension where there is none, Dutch angles so absurd they look like a YouTube tutorial, and editing cuts so jarring you’d think the editor fell asleep on the keyboard. The third act is particularly offensive, with CGI so dated it looks like it was rendered on a Commodore 64 and a rooftop chase in New York that could be mistaken for a 2002 Spider-Man video game cutscene.

But the real tragedy of Madame Web isn’t that it’s bad—cinema is full of bad movies that are, at least, entertainingly bad (Sharknado, The Room, Morbius). No, what’s tragic is how extraordinarily boring it is. There’s no action, no chemistry between characters, no memorable villain, not a single moment that justifies its 116-minute runtime. The dynamics between the young "spiders" feel forced and artificial, like someone made Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, and Isabela Merced pretend to be friends on a survival reality show. No charisma, no spark, no nothing.

And then there’s Tahar Rahim, a brilliant actor (The Serpent, The Mauritanian) reduced here to a man in neoprene tights running across New York rooftops screaming nonsensical threats. His performance is so over-the-top it feels like an SNL sketch about how not to play a Marvel villain, and his Spanish dubbing is so atrocious you’d think Sony outsourced it to an Indian call center. He’s the most generic villain since the hockey-mask guy from Friday the 13th, but at least Jason Voorhees had a machete and daddy issues. Ezekiel Sims only has a god complex and a suit that looks like it was bought from AliExpress’s Halloween section.

Product Placement: When Pepsi Becomes the Real Villain

If Madame Web does one thing well (or, at least, with sick obsession), it’s product placement. The film is so stuffed with brands you’d think Sony sold its soul to the devil for a Pepsi check. Soda cans, billboards, Times Square ads… There’s a moment where the villain hides behind a Doritos ad, and you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. It’s like Michael Bay and a marketing exec had a bastard child, and that child is this movie.

The climax, set on a Pepsi billboard exploding in slow motion, is so ridiculously commercial you’d expect a McDonald’s logo to appear at any second with a character screaming, "The future depends on a Happy Meal!" It’s the cinematic equivalent of being forced to watch a 30-second ad every time you try to enjoy a scene, and the worst part is it’s not even subtle. Sony doesn’t bother disguising its greed: this movie is a 116-minute ad with famous actors.

The Performances: When Boredom Becomes Contagious

Dakota Johnson, an actress who proved in Suspiria (2018) that she can be unsettling and fascinating, here resembles a wax statue with anxiety issues. Her performance is so flat you’d think she was paid per second she managed not to blink. There’s no emotion, no intensity, nothing to suggest Cassandra Webb is a woman with psychic powers and not a psychiatric patient who stopped taking her meds.

Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, and Isabela Merced try, but they’re doomed by a script that treats them like walking stereotypes. Sweeney is the "rebel girl," O’Connor is the "sarcastic nerd," and Merced is the "fiery Latina" (because, of course, in 2024 we still haven’t moved past ‘90s clichés). Their dialogue is so artificial it sounds like it was lifted from a Wattpad fanfic, and their interactions are so forced you’d expect one of them to say, "You know what? This is too weird. I’m going home."

The only one who comes out relatively unscathed is Adam Scott, playing Ben Parker, Peter Parker’s uncle. His role is so pointless and forced it feels like a misplaced easter egg, but at least Scott tries to inject some decency and warmth into a character who exists solely to remind us that this is a Spider-Man spin-off without Spider-Man. It’s like Sony hired Scott to say, "Hey, guys, remember this is connected to something you cared about… even if we don’t know how."

The Sound: A Soundtrack Composed by a Spotify Algorithm

The score for Madame Web, by Johan Söderqvist (A Man Called Ove, The Guilty), is so generic and forgettable you’d think it was generated by an AI trained on "focus music" playlists. There are no memorable themes, no leitmotifs, nothing that elevates the scenes or makes them more exciting. It’s the sonic equivalent of painting with invisible paint: it doesn’t bother you, but it doesn’t add anything either.

The sound design is equally anodyne. The effects for Cassandra’s visions sound like an Instagram filter applied to a X-Files sample, and the "action" sequences (if you can call them that) lack impact or dynamism. It’s like the film was mixed by someone who’d only heard of Dolby Atmos in a brochure.

The best

• Dakota Johnson’s promotional tour: The actress’s brutal honesty in pre-release interviews, admitting she didn’t understand the movie and that her character "made no sense," has been the best entertainment this production has generated. Watching a Hollywood star elegantly dismantle her own project is a guilty pleasure even The Bachelor can’t match.
• Adam Scott as Ben Parker: Scott tries—God knows he tries—to inject some decency and warmth into a role that serves only as a forced, unnecessary nod to spider mythology. It’s the only moment the film almost remembers that, in some parallel universe, this could’ve had something to do with Spider-Man.

The worst

• The script: Flat dialogue that sounds like Google Translate’s take on a fanfic draft, plot holes the size of the Amazon (the real one, not Cassandra’s mom’s), and exposition so tedious you’d expect an omniscient narrator to pop in and say, "And so, dear viewers, we learn that spiders are important. The end."
• The villain: Tahar Rahim is a phenomenal actor, but here he’s reduced to a man in neoprene tights running across New York rooftops screaming nonsensical threats, like a rejected Power Rangers extra with anger issues. His Spanish dubbing is so horrendous it sounds like a parody of ‘80s dubbing.
• The shameless advertising: The film’s obsession with Pepsi billboards, foreground soda cans, and product placements crosses into intolerable territory. It’s like Sony sold every frame to a different brand, turning Madame Web into a 116-minute ad with famous actors.

The Verdict of Claqueta Ácida (1.2/10)

If this is the future of Sony’s spider-verse, we’d rather get a spider bite that causes instant necrosis than sit through a sequel. Madame Web isn’t just bad—it’s an insult to intelligence, a waste of talent, and a monument to corporate greed. A true masterpiece of unintentional comedy that will go down in history for all the wrong reasons, like that awkward family member at Thanksgiving who doesn’t know when to shut up and ruins dinner for everyone. 1.2/10, and that’s only because the system doesn’t allow negative scores. 💀

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