Well before it hit theaters, "Madame Web" had people talking. You have to give it that. Does the full film manage to escape its meme-inspiring pre-release buzz? Only one way to find out. Warning: Spoilers ahead! "Madame Web" focuses on Cassandra "Cassie" Webb, a New York City paramedic. Cassie's mom died giving birth to her while researching the healing powers of a rare spider in the Peruvian Amazon. You've probably at least heard about that part.
"He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died." Cassie isn't too good with people, having spent her adolescence in the foster care system. She can't even properly respond to a grateful kid giving her a picture after she saves his mom. Cassie has to quickly work through those personal shortcomings after she nearly drowns to death, gaining the ability to see the future in the process.
This puts three young women, Julia Cornwall, Mattie Franklin, and Anya Corazón, on Cassie's radar after she has a vision of them being killed by Ezekiel Sim. He's that man who was in the Amazon with Cassie's mom when she was researching spiders right before she died. Cassie gets framed for "kidnapping" the trio of teenagers, so she tries to stay off the grid and protect Julia, Mattie, and Anya while also coming to terms with her past.
Developing a bond with these three young women as well as learning details about her mom's life help Cassie realize she can do so much more with her superpowers than she previously imagined. This character growth and new relationships all come to a head in the movie's final act, which sees Cassie, Julia, Mattie, and Anya trying to outrun Ezekiel.
Getting to the fireworks factory
Cassie figures out that Ezekiel killed her mother 30 years earlier to gain possession of the rare Amazon spider and its powers. On a quick third-act trip to Peru, Cassie also learns that venom from the same species saved her life when she was born. The leader of a native tribe of spider-people explains that the spider's bite also provided her with her powers, which lay dormant until her near-death experience.
From there, things play out just about like you'd expect a modern-day superhero movie climax to, complete with Cassie remembering key events from her past as she channels the optimal version of her superpowers. After Cassie returns from Peru, she and her cohorts find salvation in a building full of explosives that they can use to fight back against Sims.
Thanks to the four women using flares to kickstart these explosives, this volatile location eventually goes kaboom as Ezekiel makes one last desperate bid to take Cassie and the teenage girls down. But once Ezekiel is defeated by the power of teamwork, the warehouse goes down in flames.
After that, there's an epilogue in which Julia, Mattie, and Anya visit Cassie in her new apartment, giving viewers a chance to see what Cassie looks like now — as she was blinded and paralyzed during the climactic fight.
Aligning with the comics
Yes, by the end of "Madame Web," Cassie is blind and in a wheelchair.comics fans will certainly recognize that Dakota Johnson's version of Cassandra Webb has become considerably more similar to the comic book version of Madame Web, but with some drastic differences. Johnson is much younger than Madame Web in the comics, for one, and the movie iteration of her character isn't tied to a life-support system.
But by the end of the movie, she's clearly more in line with the Madame Web fans have seen in comics and cartoons. "It's not the how you must master, it's the why." Cassie gets even closer to the comics version of Madame Web with a flash-forward vision into the future, in which she has donned a bright red spandex outfit while Julie, Mattie, and Anya are also wearing their respective superhero outfits.
Confining Cassie's exaggerated attire to just these final shots is a bit of a peculiar move, given that Madame Web is already a pretty obscure character. It's doubtful that just seeing Dakota Johnson in a red outfit at the very end will register with most people. Still, while probably confounding to newcomers, that element of the "Madame Web" ending does tie into what Cassie could look like in future movies.
Amaria simply vanishes
Several seemingly critical plot points in "Madame Web" never get resolved: Julia's father issues, what happened to the spider Ezekiel kept in his apartment, and Cassie being a wanted fugitive, to name a few.
Another character detail that also gets totally overlooked in the finale is the fate of Amaria, a technology expert who functions as Ezekiel's right-hand woman, his quote-unquote "woman in the chair." She helps Ezekiel track down his three teenage targets throughout the film, even after initially expressing hesitation about hurting people who are so young. If you left "Madame Web" thinking you blinked and missed some kind of resolution to Amaria's inner conflict, you didn't.
Amaria just vanishes from the movie altogether, with the character never getting referenced once in the home stretch of the film. Ezekiel doesn't even communicate with her through an earpiece for technological assistance when he's trying to wipe out his targets. Amaria's initial hesitancy to help Ezekiel would lead one to believe there might be a redemption arc for the character during the explosive ending, but nothing like that emerges.
Perhaps one was in there and it got cut out. Cassie's best work pal is a friendly fellow by the name of Ben Parker. "'You have a winning personality.' I guess I got yours by mistake." He's very excited that his sister-in-law, Mary Parker, is pregnant.
Mary Parker's baby
The names of those characters will make the ears of anyone familiar with Spider-Man's origin perk up while watching "Madame Web," given that Ben is Peter Parker's uncle and Mary is his mother in the comics. Mary also mentions that the future webslinger's father, Richard Parker, is "out of the country.". The playful teases about what this lady will ultimately name her baby are supposed to subtly hint at the idea that audiences are watching a stealth "Spider-Man" prequel.
Interestingly, though, the audience never hears anyone refer to Mary's son as Peter even after he's born. The closing scenes of "Madame Web" feature Mary clutching her baby close with Ben sitting next to her, but the two never call the child by any name. Recent reports have suggested that reshoots for "Madame Web" removed explicit connections to any of the recent "Spider-Man" movies.
Dialing back on confirming that Mary's kid is Peter Parker may be part of Sony's plan to let "Madame Web" play out as a standalone enterprise rather than have its ending get overwhelmed in Spider-Man setup. However, such a plan does feel at odds with a movie where the villain wears a Spider-Man-like costume and Uncle Ben is a character.
First appearing in the world of Marvel Comics in 2001, Ezekiel Sims has become a recurring foe of Spider-Man and his associates in various comic storylines. Though he's not an especially well-known character in terms of appearances in non-comics media, Ezekiel is still enough of a presence in comic books to make him seem like a reasonable candidate for recurring baddie status in future movies.
Will Ezekiel come back?
The ending of "Madame Web" makes it unlikely, though, that Ezekiel would be back for further adventures in the "Madame Web" or "Venom" franchises, since he ends up dying. Even after all that work decades ago to prevent his demise, Ezekiel meets his end in 2003 by way of falling from a great height and then getting crushed by a crumbling letter from a neon Pepsi-Cola sign.
Granted, multiversal shenanigans could ensure that variations on Ezekiel Sims come back in the near future to torment other Spider-Universe characters. After all, there technically already was another version of Ezekiel that made a cameo in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse." For now, though, the ending of "Madame Web" sends the message that this notable comic book foe seems to be a one-and-done in the live-action realm.
"Morbius" only featured a pair of offhand references to the "Venom" movies, but its mid-credits scene did feature "Spider-Man: Homecoming" baddie Vulture. "Not sure how I got here. Has to do with Spider-Man, I think." Neither of the "Venom" movies teased the impending arrival of Morbius or Kraven the Hunter, but "Venom 2" referenced the MCU's Spider-Man.
Minimal references to other movies
"That … guy." "Madame Web" takes its cue from those titles in also largely being a standalone enterprise, though that was inevitable: "Madame Web" takes place in 2003, years before the events of "Venom" and "Morbius." "Let's try that again.". The closest connection to other Sony Spider-Man Universe titles is simply through small background details, like. The Daily Bugle newspaper. Those little nods come before the finale, which focuses squarely on the new "Madame Web" characters.
The aforementioned removal an explicit name-drop for Mary Parker's son allows the "Madame Web" ending to play things surprisingly "standalone." Studios like to keep big plot twists and sequel teases under wraps, so the cast and crew of "Madame Web" haven't said much about the film's ending yet. Director S.J.
The cast and crew's thoughts
Clarkson, however, did tell ComicBookMovie.com that the ending sets Cassie and her cohorts up so that "they can go anywhere…" ".because of that great plethora and wealth of character in the comics." And Dakota Johnson, who plays Cassie, referenced the finale in an interview with Entertainment Weekly — but only offered her behind-the-scenes perspective on the production: "I’ve never really done a movie where you are on a blue screen, and there’s fake explosions going off, and someone’s going, ‘Explosion!’ and you act like there’s an explosion.
That to me was absolutely psychotic." "I don't understand what's happening!" Even though "Madame Web" is meant to be a largely standalone affair, you don't need clairvoyance to see how it could easily impact future installments of Sony's Spider-Man Universe — especially when it comes to the ending. While the movie takes place in 2003, the final scene sees Cassie witnessing a vision of the future in which she, Julia, Mattie, and Anya are all costumed crime fighters.
Impact on the Sony Spider-Verse
It's easy to imagine a time jump taking place that allows them to become full-fledged superheroes and lets them rub shoulders with the likes of Venom and Kraven the Hunter. Meanwhile, the implied birth of Peter Parker at the end of "Madame Web" gives the film an easy way to connect to potential "Spider-Man" entries, although connecting to the MCU Spidey specifically could be difficult.
After all, "Venom: Let There Be Carnage" and "Spider-Man: No Way Home" confirmed that Tom Holland's wall-crawler exists in a different universe from Venom. It's also worth remembering that comic book and animated TV versions of Madame Web eventually become powerful enough to cause ripple effects across multiple universes. That power could, if translated to the world of movies, see Dakota Johnson's Cassandra Webb finding her way into the animated "Spider-Verse" titles.
The "Madame Web" ending suggests that this movie is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Cassie's powers. For nearly two decades now, audiences have been conditioned to stick around through the credits of Marvel movies for scenes teasing future sequels and adventures. The Marvel Cinematic Universe popularized these mid-and post-credit scenes in movies like "Iron Man" and "The Avengers" — but they've existed in Marvel adaptations even before the MCU launched, like in "X-Men:.
No post-credits scene?
The Last Stand." Sony's Spider-Man-less Spider-Man Universe has kept this tradition alive with major mid-credit scenes in both "Venom" movies and "Morbius," teasing the places where these darker anti-heroes could go next.
Naturally, we expect plenty of moviegoers to sit patiently through the credits of "Madame Web" for some kind of teaser, like a hint of a crossover with "Venom" or "Kraven the Hunter." If, after all of this, you still want to go see "Madame Web" in theaters, we'll save you a few minutes: there's nothing there. Date: 2024-02-16
taylormadealpha Yall have talked about this movie so much me and my son are going to see it tomorrow just bc I want to see if it's really that bad. I remember the relentless drubbing that Morbius got and that was a fun night out for me and my kids lol. Antman and the Wasp Quantumania, Thor Love and Thunder. all these movies got these same over the top criticisms and we still had a good time. I'll go see for myself. I mean are you saying this movie is way worse than those That means people were over exaggerating when those movies came out. The only movie I felt legit let down by was the second Venom movie and that was because there wasn't the carnage I was expecting in a Carnage movie.
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brianrobinson8903 I actually liked it. I don't know what people going into this would expect but I got what I paid for. I agree it's a very obscure character to try to do so much with story wise but the film was trippy and I liked how it was shot. Had very Nicolas Cage's Next vibes which was more entertaining in a super hero setting. The ending was a bit of a let down but what it opened up was any of these characters are now literally plug and play and they can put them (even re-casted) in any future movie they want! I feel if Sony's going to give it a real go for their own super hero universe having movies with open endings like this is a good thing.
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tallgese The director referencing the potential of the franchise because of the comics is the most ironic thing about this project. Nothing about this movie follows the source material apart from names and spider powers from spiders. Ezekiel isn't even a bad guy in the comics, he's Peter's ally. Missed opportunity to introduce Morlun and Silk into the MCU/Sonyverse(whatever deal they got going on. I'm not a comic purest, haven't even read that many, but if you're gonna stray at least do a good job.
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Zombiesnyder13 VENOM had the writer from 50 SHADES OF GREY (who is also directing VENOM 3) MORBIUS had the writers from GODS OF EGYPT (Who are also behind MADAME WEB) And KRAVEN THE HUNTER has the writers from TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT AVI ARAD ruined everything again, just like he ruined TASM series And he isn't even involved in MADAME WEB
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KootenaiKing Oh, man. I can see Sony straying away from Tom Holland's Spidey, and just focusing on these characters (Venom, Morbius, Kraven, and now the Women Webbed Warriors) and their own universe. Sony should just give Spiderman back to Marvel, Sony doesn't know what it's doing.
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bbsy1 This movie was doomed to fail, where Morbious added scenes it shouldn’t have, this film took scenes away it shouldn’t. Sony needs someone in charge that knows what they are doing. They need to stop being reactive and start being proactive.
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YaNice117 Some characters and things should just stay in the comics. Lol. Also, some characters just don't deserve their own stand alone movie because people don't care that much about them if they aren't next to main characters.
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Mechadroid209 What would of worked better not making it an origin story the story should of been madame web telepathically contacting the girls guiding them to saftey as well as teaching them how to use their powers
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donovan802 I saw the rotten tomatoes scores pop up on my newsfeed yesterday, and seeing 15% was crazy (let’s be honest, most of us kinda saw this coming; who reveals all the context within the first trailer)
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looper Cornwall. Why the fk did they choose to change carpenter to fkng Cornwall Reminder of general Cornwall Ave, and my middle name is Wallace, and I still hate how corny that change is
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kiragoe I actually kind of enjoyed it, I don't think it deserves all this hate it's getting. It's not the best movie but it was a decent watch. reply
