Madame Web Review: Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney's Spider-Man Spin-off Faces Scathing Feedback, Critics Call It 'Drab'

Madame Web, the latest Marvel adaptation featuring Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney, has faced a barrage of criticism from early reviewers. Based on characters from Marvel's Spider-Man universe, the film follows Johnson's character, a woman experiencing premonitions of the future. Alongside Johnson and Sweeney, the cast includes Tahar Rahim and Adam Scott, the latter rumoured to portray Peter Parker's Uncle Ben. Now, critics describe it as a dull and uninspired venture, driven by a mechanical screenplay penned by Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, Claire Parker, and SJ Clarkson, who is also the director of the film. Madame Web Review: Early Reactions Call Dakota Johnson–Sydney Sweeney’s Superhero Movie ‘Poorly Written and Sloppy’.

The film will hit theatres on February 16th. Before purchasing tickets, check the reviews here:

Moviefone.Com:  Just when you thought the “Sony Spider-Man Universe” (as the Sony Pictures cinematic pool of movies starring Spider-Man villains and minor characters has come to be known) couldn’t get any sillier and more generic than Morbius, now Madame Web comes along to say “hold my beer.” Despite a promising cast and director, Madame Web – based on a little-known yet powerful psychic in the Marvel canon – ends up deadly dull.

Variety: Frankly, the world already seems a little overcrowded with arachnid-related superheroes, what with the seemingly infinite swarm of variations introduced by Sony’s recent Spider-Verse movies. Instead of clarifying all that confusion, Clarkson’s movie (co-written with three others) merely widens the web, teasing a future vigilante trio, plus whatever Cassie’s supposed to be by the end. Madame Web: Dakota Johnson, Tahar Rahim, Sydney Sweeney and Others Arrive in Style for Los Angeles Premiere of Upcoming Film (View Pics).

Screenrant: Of all the Sony's Spider-Man Universe movies that have been released — Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Morbius — Madame Web easily has the strangest relationship to Spider-Man. Whereas Venom and Morbius, for the most part, acted as if Spider-Man doesn't exist, Madame Web is constantly wink-wink, nudge-nudging the audience about him. It's made worse because the movie includes three characters who become a version of Spider-Man, but relegates them to side characters. Madame Web clearly wants to be a Spider-Man movie, and comes closer than previous SSU installments, but it's still not actually a Spider-Man movie.

Watch Madame Web Trailer:

Rolling Stone: Well, having now seen this tangled-up I.P. gossamer first-hand, we can say that Madame Web isn’t as bad as its somewhat botched promotional campaign might suggest. It is, in fact, way worse. A genuine Chernobyl-level disaster that seems to get exponentially more radioactive as it goes along, this detour to one of the dustier corners of Marvel’s content farm is a dead-end from start to finish. It is the Cats: The Movie of superhero movies. Not a single decision seems of sound mind. Not a single performance feels in sync with the material. Not a single line reading feels as if it hasn’t somehow been magically auto-tuned to subtract emotion and/or inflection. The sole amazing factor of this Spider-spinoff is that someone, somewhere signed off on actually releasing it.

Are you planning to watch Madame Web when it hits theatres?

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 13, 2024 08:49 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).