Madame Web Got All Tangled on Itself

Something new and fresh is what I would rather watch when it comes to superhero films these days. It may be a new superpower I may not have seen before or the same old ones with new angles to them, perhaps with peculiar characters or the story itself. That's what I hoped Madame Web would be when it drew me in with snippets I found on Netflix.

I'll be honest and say that finding that the entire film had to do with a spider immediately made me sceptical about it. I wasn't in for some Spider-Woman show. But then, the hero and villain individually piqued my interest, so I gave it some benefit of the doubt. Turns out I probably shouldn't have.

Cassandra Webb is a New York City paramedic who starts to show signs of clairvoyance. Forced to confront revelations about her past, she must protect three young women from a mysterious adversary who wants them dead. _Google

I wondered why Sony would make another film that's like Spider-Man but isn't connected to Spider-Man in anyway. They went with a very similar origin story with a spider's bite and all, but tried something a little different with it this time. I think that they tried so hard to make it different that more than half of the film had gone by and I was not feeling the film.

I was expecting an intense story between hero and villain, like the way its always done, but things were so flat for me. All I could hold on to were the cinematography efforts and engaging CGI to at least get by.

It took too long to develop, and with the way it was going, I felt like I was seeing the live action of Miles Morales' Into the Spiderverse and not even the cool versions of it.

It wasn't all that Spider-Man-ish, though. They went for a somewhat archaic version of spider people. I think that was okay. And there was this new idea of being omnipresent that I had mixed feelings for.

I have to talk about the dialogue. I couldn't tell if it was the actors, but much of the dialogue in the film didn't flow well for me. It was almost as though the film was made to accommodate teens or even children. Sometimes they were unncessarily dramatic. Sometimes it was just bland. It all just didn't feel natural.

Something that I found really cool was the precognitive abilities of Madame Web. It was all nice and fun seeing her predict future events and use them to her advantage, but I really don't think it particularly is a great offence ability in combat. I mean, "bending luck" to your advantage isn't something totally reliable. In other situations, of course, precognition could be so useful.

Another thing I was looking forward to was the unveiling of more superheroes in the film, but it took a rather different route instead. I think that's fine, as it seems like a sequel may come out of it, but it felt more like the kind of film for teens.

Madame Web had promising potential, but I prefer to say that it's probably one of those films spun out of the comics for money. I'll rate this one 5/10.

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