It has been 691 days since the release of the genre-defining, thought-provoking, dissection of the very human condition experience known as Morbius graced our beloved cinema screens. And for 691 days the world-famous SPUMC (which is, as we all know, the official name for the Sony Pictures Universe Of Marvel Characters, I mean what else?) remained dormant, and I waited. Like a lovesick swooning fool patiently and eagerly awaiting their beloved to return home to them from the callous clutches of war, I waited for this beloved universe to continue whilst we endured such cinematic pains and torments such as Oppenheimer, Poor Things and The Iron Claw.
But at last, we are thrust right back into the diamond age of cinema with the release of Madame Web. Having experienced the film over the weekend, I am ecstatic to report it does not disappoint.
I thought it was impossible, to surpass the story of the iconic and great Michael Morbius. But I should’ve known that writer Matt Sazama of immense Dracula Untold and Power Rangers (2017) fame knows how to conduct a pen as his artistic weapon. He shepherds a story about the extraordinarily well-known Spider-Man character, Madame Web, and uses her cinematic debut to tell her origin story in an enlightening way. Just imagine if we got Solo: A Star Wars Story, but we never had the original Star Wars movies to begin with. The answer is: an even better origin story where our assumptions and pre-requisites of the character aren’t built through useless storytelling elements like plot or storytelling, but the wonders of our own imagination and Sony’s box office report figures. It’s like telling someone to be excited about something that they don’t know yet. You think you’d give them reasons why it’s exciting. But no, the financial advisor who somehow accidentally ended up as the head of the Filmmaking department at Sony has an even better idea, we just keep telling them to be excited giving them zero reason to be!
With this ground-breaking philosophy in play, the film is almost avant-garde in its methods of storytelling as its entire plot is based around things that do not happen, but might…at some point…maybe. Because who wants a film about 3 talented, well-cast, good chemistry Spider-Women, when we can get a film about someone who spends the whole movie telling them they’ll be Spider-Women at some point and showing the 40 seconds of that action in all the film’s marketing? It results in a great treat and feat of storytelling where the marketing promises something, only for the final film to not deliver it…but…it promises it again! This subversion of what mediocre films like Parasite or Spirited Away do just makes me more excited to see this universe continue, like a crystal carrot of opportunity on a studio executive’s stick. In the meantime, the film blesses us with a masterfully crafted plot that delves into the lore of what makes Spider-Man, Spider-Man. It isn’t useless garbage like humanity, resilience, and responsibility. Nope, it’s Amazonian spider-tribe lore! Move out of the way, Dune, this is how you achieve cinematic world-building, by having Dakota Johnson mutter exposition to herself off some pages. Fret not, there’s never a dull moment even in information-heavy moments like this, as the camera work is simply delightful. I don’t think I’ve ever even been on a rollercoaster with more random spins and swirls and 360-swishes, truly making the film feel like an eccentric ride, definitely not headache-inducing!
In summary, as we trudge through award season watching bland garbage like Barbie or The Holdovers take home the golden trophies, keep in the back of your mind what truly makes a good movie. There’s no structure or blueprint you can use, which is why Madame Web completely throws any idea remotely close to that out the window. The result is not a puzzle of a film to be solved, but an experience to live. I eagerly await Madame Web: Amazon Drift.
