Madame Web Review

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This is a DynaMic Network podcast.

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Welcome to the Dynamic Duel Podcast, a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters in stat-based battle simulations. I'm Johnny DC. And I'm his twin brother, Marvelous Joe. And I have no idea why I'm leading this episode. It's like an all Marvel episode. Not only are we reviewing Madame Webb later on, it was alright, it wasn't terrible, but we're also breaking down the news from this past week.

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which includes the release dates for Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four being swapped and the trailer for the X-Men 97 cartoon that's coming out on Disney+. This is my favorite kind of episode, is the all Marvel episode. Like why am I even here? I ask myself that question every single time we record together. Honestly, who needs a Marvel vs. DC podcast when you could just have a Marvel podcast? Ugh, this sounds not very fun at all. Just like Madame Web and the movies that Marvel makes. You mean Sony?

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No, Marvel. Eh, Marvel has to take credit for it, too. Their name's in the front of it. As always, guys, we list our segment times in our episode description, so feel free to check out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to a particular topic. Our artificially intelligent dual simulator, AJ9K, has a quick message for our listeners, so listen up.

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Why hello there. Do you love listening and chatting about Marvel and DC? Then become a part of the dynamic dual community on Patreon, where you can choose from three tiers. The dynamic 2-0 tier lets you listen to this podcast without ads and gives you access to its Discord chat group, where you can chat with Johnny DC and Marvelous Joe. The fantastic 4 tier gives you that and more with two bonus episodes each month, including bloopers and top 10 shows where Johnny and Joe count down your favorite Marvel and DC subjects.

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The X-Force tier makes you an executive producer of Dynamic Duel, where every month you help the hosts choose what to review and who to fight against each other. And finally, the Dynamike Podcast Network tier allows aspiring podcasters to create their own battle-focused show using this Monte Carlo simulator. Johnny and Joe will help you develop your show, provide graphic support and consultation, and get you simulation results to announce on your show. Pitch the twins your show via email at dyna

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them on social media. Check it out at patreon.com slash dynamic duel. Pip pip cheerio. Thanks AJ 9K and thanks to everyone who supports the podcast. Be sure to tune into the shows in the Dynamike podcast network this week, including Max Destruction, which pits your favorite action heroes from film and television against each other. This week hosts Ken and Scotty find out who'd win in a fight between Johnny from Surf Ninjas and Colt from Three Ninjas. Now that's a throwback.

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Totally, can't wait for that one. Also make sure to tune in to the Send Your World podcast, where host Zachary Hepburn speculates on fights between fan favorite anime characters. This week, we'll find out who would win between Roronoa Zoro from One Piece and Ezra Scarlett from Fairy Tail. As always, I'm sure you nailed that pronunciation. Probably not. On the Console Combat podcast, hosts John and Dean find out who would win in fights between popular video game characters. In yesterday's episode.

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We found out who'd win between Halo's Master Chief and God of War's Kratos. Visit dynamicpodcasts.com or click on the link in our show notes to listen to all of the shows in the Dynamike Podcast Network. But with that out of the way, quick to the No Prize! A No Prize is an award Marvel used to give out to fans. Our version, the Dynamic Duel No Prize, is a digital award we post on Instagram for the person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week.

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Last week's question we asked, what has been your favorite Deadpool joke out of all of Deadpool media? And that was coming off of the Deadpool and Wolverine trailer that we got during the Super Bowl. We got four answers, so we'll break down this week's honorable mentions before revealing the no prize winner. Our first honorable mention goes to Clayton DeMato, who said, Hey there guys, my name is Clayton DeMato, long time listener. As someone who enjoys to have his balls fondled.

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probably go where Deadpool talks about fondling Wolverine's balls. But ultimately, I think the best is when Deadpool is fighting the mercenaries in the car and he sticks the lighter in the guy's throat and tells him not to swallow. Yes, this was one of many off-color jokes made in the first Deadpool movie, for which I saw way too many kids in theaters. I'm sure half the jokes went over their heads, but still people got to-

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Look at what the rating is before they take their kids to see a superhero movie. OK, dad. Yeah, I am one. The don't swallow joke. It's solid. It's quick. It's witty. It has a perfect mix of being both adult and crude, but also clever, which is one of the great things I think about the Deadpool movies and Ryan Reynolds style of humor is that it technically is juvenile, but it's not necessarily childish, if that makes sense. Great answer, Clayton. Our next honorable mention goes to

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Cornelius Robinson who said, Hey guys, this is Cornelius Robinson and my favorite joke from the Deadpool media is through the movies. When he mentioned that Nickassan and Teenage Warhead and Clauses were in a big house living together all alone. And it was funny how it was almost the studio didn't have any more money for new X-Men members. Which was a meta joke and was returned in the sequel.

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and it cracked me up. Yeah, that was a little bit of self-deprecating humor on behalf of the studio. Great joke with Deadpool referencing how only Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Colossus seem to be at the X-Men Mansion all the time. I really did love the follow-up in Deadpool 2 when we saw the cast of X-Men Dark Phoenix in one of the classrooms, like basically hiding from Deadpool. So good. It did make me wonder where in the timeline the second Deadpool movie fit, but yeah, it was a great gag.

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It was a meta joke, it doesn't necessarily have to be scrutinized in the larger continuity. Sure, sure, I get that. But great answer Cornelius, our final honorable mention goes to Travis Herndon, who said, Hey guys, Travis here. So my favorite joke would have to be from the Deadpool 2 teaser where he's changing into his superhero costume. Mostly just from the realism from it, like we all think we'd be these badass superheroes and stuff though, but let's be honest with me.

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would take that long just to get into our superhero costume and possibly get the same outcome like in the teaser. So that's my favorite joke just from the realism for me as well as just the Superman theme too. Yeah, I'm not sure how many people remember the teaser trailer to Deadpool 2. It was played in front of the Logan movie. It was essentially...

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Wade Wilson walking down and seeing an old man getting mugged in an alley and he runs into a phone booth to change into his Deadpool costume and it just takes entirely way too long. That's the joke. It takes him like two minutes just to change into his Deadpool costume and in the meantime before he can even get out of the phone booth we hear the old man get shot. Great gag. A hilarious way to kick off the marketing for Deadpool 2. I had almost completely forgot about this teaser until Travis brought it up again.

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And now you just remember Ryan Reynolds ass. Thanks for that. The Stan Lee cameo in that teaser was pretty good, too, where he's like, hey, nice suit. And he's like, zip it, Stanley. R.A.P. Great answer, Travis. But the winner of this week's no prize is Sean Curtis. Who said, hey, guys, Sean Curtis, I have to say my favorite Deadpool joke of all time off the top of my head anyway, would be from Ultimate Spider-Man when

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Spider-Man is trying to warn Deadpool of Taskmaster's booby traps and Deadpool goes, ha ha, traps. Because I'm expecting him to say, to be laughing at boobies, but it's simple and catches me off guard. Yeah, and another classic Deadpool style joke where again it mixes the juvenile with the clever. In the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon, Spider-Man...

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and Deadpool teamed up against Taskmaster. And it was a nice bit of subversion where you think that Deadpool, upon hearing the phrase booby traps is going to laugh at booby. But of course, he laughs at traps. He's like, you said traps. It was a great gag. I never saw the ultimate Spider-Man cartoon. I didn't even know Deadpool was in that. He seems like a risky character for a cartoon. But, yeah, solid joke. Well, the nice thing about Deadpool is that you can make him as PG or rated R as you want to. And it just kind of works. As long as he's quirky and funny, it'll still feel like him.

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Do you have a favorite Deadpool joke? I really like the dig at DC that he did in Deadpool 2 where he's like, so dark, are you sure you're not from the DC universe? That was quality. This is fucking worst joke. No, but like I would say mine is in sort of the same scene. He's introduced to Black Tom Cassidy and he was like, hi, white Wade Wilson. And then later on he was just like, you killed Black Tom Cassidy. You racist. I was cracking up. Yeah.

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I also really liked the Juggernaut song though. Like that one stick with me for a while. Holy shit balls. Yeah, that was great. Yeah, Deadpool's humor is actually really solid and it makes me really excited to see Deadpool and Wolverine coming out the summer. So congrats again to Sean Curtis for winning this week's No Prize. If you the listener want a shot at winning your own No Prize, stay tuned to later on this episode when we'll be asking another Question of the Week. And now that that's done, on to the news.

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Alright, this past Valentine's Day we got official word from Marvel Studios finally that Pedro Pascal will be playing Mr. Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby will be Sue Storm, Joseph Quinn will be Johnny Storm, and Iban Mas Bakrak, I'm still not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but he'll be Ben Grimm. Now we talked about this news last week, before it was officially confirmed, but all but confirmed. It's nice to finally-

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get that news from the studio itself. It's shaping up to be a great cast. Really can't wait to see them as Marvel's first family. And out of all the cast that the Fantastic Four franchise has had so far in live action, this one actually seems the most interesting to me. Yeah, it is interesting. I think it's a great cast. The logo is what I found most interesting. Like it almost makes me wonder if the Fantastic Four is gonna be a period piece. I've heard rumors that that was gonna be the case. And I think that this mid-century logo proves that.

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I think they're really gonna set up the Fantastic Four as like Marvel's first superhero family chronologically within the Marvel Universe and have them like maybe time travel into the present day by the end of the film. And why not? I mean, that could work. It worked with Captain Marvel. So. Right. Yeah, exactly. But besides the cast and potentially the setting of the movie, we also got a release date change for the film. It was originally going to kick off the summer season in 2025.

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coming out May 2nd, but Fantastic Four has been pushed back to July 25th, which is the date when the Thunderbolts movie was going to come out, but that film has been moved up to May 2nd, so basically they just swapped dates. So now Thunderbolts is kicking off the summer movie season, which I think is good news. I think it shows that Marvel has faith in the Thunderbolts movie to have such a valuable release date. Have they started filming Thunderbolts? Not yet, no. Man, that seems like a quick turnaround.

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But I imagine it has fewer special effects than Fantastic Four would need. Maybe. Who knows? A few months prior to that, in February, we're going to get Captain America, Brave New World, which has already started filming and I think is close to wrapping up here. I think this is all great news. It gives the studio more time to work on Fantastic Four, which, you know, is a flagship franchise that needs to be done right in its third iteration. And nothing got pushed back. It's just dates that are swapping. So we can still expect.

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something Marvel to come out on those original dates. Yeah, next year. Again, I'm really just hoping for this year to fly by. I know it's gonna be a crazy year with like the election and everything. Just bring on 2025 after The Joker, of course, cause I really want to see that, but yeah, 2025 is gonna be better than 2024, I'm pretty sure. Now I don't want to skip over Deadpool and Wolverine. So we could get to that movie and then once it comes out, then yeah, I'm ready for 2025 already. All right, we'll just skip to Deadpool and Wolverine, then skip to The Joker.

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and then skip to 2025. No, skip to Christmas, because you can't skip Christmas, man. That's true. That's fair. What are we talking about? I don't know. But let's go to move on to the next bit of news here, which is that the official trailer for the X-Men 97 cartoon has been released. It was released under a new banner.

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called Marvel Animation, which is pretty exciting to see, because I think it signifies that Marvel is going to be producing a lot more animated projects. Yeah, maybe What If will fall under that banner now, that's Spider-Man series, the prequel series that they're coming up with. I forget the name of it. Yeah, that was originally called Spider-Man Freshman Year, but they've since changed the title to Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. I'm surprised there's not a home in there somewhere, but that's probably Marvel Animation, I imagine, as well. Marvel Zombies is also going to be animated.

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when that comes out. So, lots of projects for Marvel Animation cannot wait. These type of stories do really well, I think, in animation and Marvel hasn't really invested too much in that lately. Their previous animated films weren't very good, but these series hopefully will be. Just like the X-Men cartoon was back in the 90s, the trailer starts off showing us clips from the series from Nali back when that ended and picks up right where it left off. It's cool that the camera goes into the analog screen and basically takes us right back into that world.

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The animation is a little bit different in style, but you can tell heavily inspired by the 90s cartoon at the very least, especially in terms of character design, especially in terms of voice. Yeah, it sounds like the voice cast is returning, which I think I had already known that, but it was a nice kind of surprise to hear as well. Yeah, if it's not the original voice cast, they are remarkable impressionists. It's nice to see Cyclops as the leader of the team again.

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and really take center stage. Hopefully he proves to a whole new generation of fans that he is the de facto leader of the X-Men because the movies kind of gave him the shaft. The most standout moment for me in the trailer is when Wolverine is charging toward the camera, Gambit jumps on his back and charges his claws up with kinetic energy. I thought that was really dope. Yeah, it was a nice combo move, kind of like a fastball special, you know, if Colossus isn't around or anything like that. Yeah.

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I like there was a scene with Storm and she has her new haircut. It's like the ponytail kind of thing and there's just lightning crackling all around her. I'm like, oh shit, the animation is a lot better than in the 90s. Yeah, the ponytail hair here is kind of like a nice compromise between, you know, her long flowing hair from the 90s cartoon and also her mohawk style. I really like the way it looks here. Yeah, same. We see Jean Grey in this trailer who appears to be pregnant.

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Which is a surprise because that never happened in the comic books. Scott knocked up Madeline Pryor, who was a clone of Jean Grey. So either this version of Jean Grey is actually a clone or they're just going to make Jean Grey the mother of Cable, which is what I assume they're going with here. I think that's Cable in the womb. Unless Wolverine's the father. Oh, shit scandals. I doubt that they would do that. But if they're making Jean Grey.

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Cable's mother. I'm totally fine with that because she basically raised him in the comic books anyway when she and Scott were sent to the future to take care of him. I don't really like the character of Madeline Pryor or like the Goblin Queen or any of that stuff. So I won't miss her if she's gone. It looks like Magneto has taken over the whole school, which is kind of cool. Yeah, that is from the comics. Magneto took over the school around the time of the New Mutants and he kind of turned over a new leaf for a while before, you know, going back to being the villain.

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The trailer got me pumped up with loads of nostalgia. I remember loving this series as a kid, especially the first two seasons. The show kind of fell off after that. But the show was always known for seriously tackling the issues of prejudice and things like that. And hopefully this new cartoon really runs with those themes, keeps it as straight as possible, doesn't make it too goofy or anything like that because that's what made the original 90s X-Men cartoon so great. I can't wait for it. The show is actually going to debut pretty soon here in about a month on March 20th.

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on Disney Plus. And speaking of the 90 series, that brings us to our question of the week.

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What was your favorite character from the X-Men 90s cartoon, besides Wolverine, and why? I mean, everyone's gonna say Wolverine, so yeah, that's probably a good caveat. Record your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message could be up to 30 seconds long, and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast. We'll pick our favorite answer, and award that person a dynamic duel no prize that we'll post to Instagram.

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Be sure to answer before February 24th.

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But I think that does it for all the news for this episode, so let's go ahead and get into our main event, where we review the latest Sony Spider-Man Universe movie, Madam Web.

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directed by S.J. Clarkson and stars Dakota Johnson, Sidney Sweeney, Isabella Merced, Celeste O'Connor, and Tahar Rahim. The movie is based on an obscure Spider-Man ally from the comic books, a mysterious psychic woman who can peer into the web of life and destiny, and has helped Spidey in several of his adventures. Madam Web is a project that literally no one asked for, centered around a character that isn't even bottom of the barrel.

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She's so under and below the barrel that you have to dig to find her. I wasn't anticipating this film, I only moderately enjoyed it and I won't be recommending it. I don't think a lot of people are going to be seeing this movie, I don't think it's necessary to see. So as I give our obligatory spoiler warning for this review, I do so with great ambivalence. If you don't want to be spoiled on Madame Webb's plot, give us a pause and I wish you the best in seeing this movie.

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If it sounds like I'm actively discouraging people from seeing the film, you may be partially correct. It's gotten to the point now where the obviousness of Sony's disregard for the source material and the audience is beyond the pale. For those who may not know, prior to the existence of Marvel Studios, the film rights for many Marvel characters were sold to outside studios with Spider-Man going to Sony. It made sense at the time because Marvel was a publishing company. They made comics. They didn't know how to make movies.

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But since the mid-2000s, Sony has cranked out a lot of subpar live action films, especially when compared to Marvel Studios, who has obviously had the best handle on their own intellectual property. Spider-Man has fared much better at Marvel than he ever did at Sony, but technically the Spider-Man Home Trilogy films were a Marvel production of a Sony franchise, because to this day, Sony still has the rights to Spider-Man, and they will continue to have them as long as they keep making Spider-Man-related films and don't lapse on their contract.

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The only reason average films like The Amazing Spider-Man, Venom, Morbius, and now Madame Web were made was to keep the character from reverting to Marvel. In Sony's eyes, it's better to make a mediocre movie now that no one wants to see in order to retain the potential of making money later. And as a Marvel fan, and as a movie fan, that sucks. And if we have to show the studio that message with our wallets, then that's what we should probably do.

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Don't go through any great efforts to see this movie if you already weren't planning on doing so. Yeah, it's definitely not worth your time, I would say. Yeah, I mean, it's not terrible, but you're right, yeah. It's not worth probably the money that you would spend. I would probably say if you're gonna see it, wait until it's out of theaters on streaming. That being said, I'm not gonna bash this movie for the sake of it. I will remain as impartial as I can as a critic. There are some people out there saying that this is the worst superhero movie ever made.

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But I think they're forgetting that 2015's Fantastic Four exists. Or Batman and Robin, which was worse than that. Or the Shaquille O'Neal Steel movie, which was worse than that. So, Madame Webbe, I would say, is around the same quality as Morbius, although I personally liked Morbius a little bit more. Madame Webbe is a film that is more divisive than outright horrible. And I'll say that I liked it a little bit more than I thought I would. But in the end, I could take it or leave it. Again, it's a film no one asked for. Yeah, I mean...

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I also liked it surprisingly a little bit more than I thought I would because I was expecting the worst movie that's ever been made honestly with the way film critics were talking about it. But I honestly liked it more than Morbius. I'd say I liked it more than Electra. There are worse Marvel movies than this in my opinion. Yeah, go see Howard the Duck, right? Exactly. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, it's really hard to watch non MCU Marvel movies, because it's obvious that they don't have a roadmap.

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You know, how does this connect in any way to Morbius or the upcoming Craven film or Venom? I have no idea. I honestly don't care. Yeah, I really don't care where this whole thing is going. And I kind of get the impression that the filmmakers didn't really care about this project at all either. And even the writers, it seems like none of them had really read the comics. Well, I mean, it's not like there's a huge amount of Maddenweb comics to go off of. You know, this is largely an original origin story for the character.

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Yeah, to be honest, I don't know much about the character. All I know from her is what I learned from the animated series in the 90s. Yeah, that was also my introduction to the character. She had quite a sizable role within that animated series, much larger than she ever did in the comic books. Interesting. The movie isn't a total dumpster fire. I think what keeps the film from being so is the director, S.J. Clarkson.

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This lady has been a part of every single television show you've ever loved in the last 15 or so years, having directed quintessential episodes of Heroes, House, Dexter, Bates Motel, Orange is the New Black, Jessica Jones, Game of Thrones, Succession, Need I Go On. You know, SJ Clarkson is incredibly acclaimed and talented. And I also think that she set up some incredible shots in this movie, especially in the first act when Cassie is discovering her powers. It's clear.

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that the director had an incredible knack for visual storytelling. The problem is that the story has to be good, and Madame Webb's story is not good. A lot of the characters are shallow, the second act is a drag with very little momentum, and I don't care how good of a director you are, there's no way to direct most of the dialogue in this film. Some of the worst dialogue I've ever heard in any film. And what's really tragic is that S.J. Clarkson actually has a screenplay credit here.

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So it's not clear where things went wrong, but given the director's track record, I can almost guarantee it was studio interference. Interesting. I didn't realize she wrote this as well. That's a shame if it was studio interference because they really threw her under the bus letting her put her name all over it. Yeah, it seems to me when it comes to Sony and the Sony Spider-Man Universe films, it's like a bunch of non-creative business people making creative decisions that muddle the overall vision.

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Cause I do think that there were flashes of a genuine suspense thriller here, but I guarantee you that some executive was like, no, we need a scene of these girls dancing on the table. And like we need the climactic fight to be under that Pepsi sign and like put in fireworks. Cause my niece loves fireworks. So much Pepsi product placement. It was a little ridiculous. Really made me want a Pepsi though at the end of this film, but hell no, I'm a Coke guy for life. Honestly, the movie that I,

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probably would have preferred to this one is the superhero movie that we were promised in the marketing. Like was this even a superhero movie? Maybe in the sense that there were people with powers and a struggle between good and evil, but the costumes were pretty much non-existent. It wasn't like this, it was a spider-woman team-up film where we got to see these ladies kick ass. Right? Yeah, I don't even know like how the girls got their spider powers. Like what the hell? Yeah, the characters were like pretty much a bait-and-switch I think, which was not cool.

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The film felt so small because the stakes were so minuscule. While the film implies that these teenage girls will grow up to become superheroes, doesn't show anything to the effect of them, you know, saving the world in the future or even stopping a crime or doing anything worthwhile besides striking some cool poses. I mean, technically they all kind of saved Peter Parker's life, but it's not even clear in this universe whether or not.

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Peter Parker will become Spider-Man. If he does, he's not a very original character considering there's a shit ton of other Spider-People in this universe. And that's one of the worst things about this movie, right? The implications that it has on the larger Sony Spider-Man universe where everybody gets Spider-powers. You get Spider-powers. You get Spider-powers. There's a whole race of indigenous Spider-People in Peru apparently. And you know...

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There is some of that in the comics. There's the whole spider society, which I think was one of the worst ideas ever. Like J. Michael Straczynski really started this all when he insinuated that Spider-Man was part of the spider totem and that all of his animal themed bad guys were also representatives of their animal totems. It's kind of a neat idea and concept, but people ran with that shit for years and years. And then it just outstated its welcome. Like you had the sisterhood of the wasps.

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and the Spider Society and all this random shit. And it got really lame really fast. I'm just gonna say it now. There's too many Spider-Men, like way too many. I agree with you, for sure. At least within the 616 proper universe, I don't care how many Spider-Men there are across the multiverse. And I think that actually works, especially when you look at a film across the Spider-Verse. But when you have 50 million Spider-Men and Spider-Women in the same playground, it gets a little crowded.

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Which is a shame, I feel like, for anyone who liked the Spider-Verse films. Like if they go into this movie expecting like more of that kind of awesomeness, they're going to be sorely disappointed. Oh, for the most part. I really wish that this movie, like those Spider-Verse films, was made for the fans. Because honestly, I don't think this one was. I think this was trying to capture a new demographic for superhero films that really isn't.

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as interested in them as comic book readers. I 100% agree. It was like it was trying to tap into like the teenage thriller genre, like the people that went and saw Final Destination. But I think they'll be disappointed when they see this film. Of course, the fans will be disappointed. So it's hard to know exactly who is going to love this movie, if anybody. But speaking of the characters, let's go ahead and get into our character breakdown, starting with Madame Webb, aka Cassandra Webb, who was played by Dakota Johnson.

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I actually liked Dakota Johnson here more than I wanted to. I haven't seen her in too much stuff, only in Suspiria, but I was never too impressed with her acting ability. In this movie though, I actually thought she did well enough with most of the material, not just in conveying her burgeoning psychic powers, but also her emotional scenes as well. Yeah, this was also the first time I saw her. I agree, I didn't think she did that terrible. She probably had the best performance in the film next to like Adam Scott. Yeah.

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She has this kind of deadpan style to her that I think was really able to tap into the script's humor. I think she sold the comedy actually really well. What little comedy there was in the script. And surprisingly, I believed in the idea of her as a superhero toward the end of the movie more than I believed in her as a cynical paramedic in the beginning of the film. I wouldn't mind seeing more of her as a superhero character if and when she turns up again down the line.

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I praise her performance, however, with the caveat that she completely dropped the ball in her final scene with the wheelchair and the strange eyeglasses. That was just a really bad delivery. Absolutely. I'm still really confused by that whole thing. Like obviously she was blinded by some kind of debris, but when did she become paralyzed? How did she afford this like badass wheelchair? And why was she like all smiley at the end? Like the future has been really good, I guess. I don't know.

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I remember reading a quote from James Marsden over 20 years ago when he was doing an interview for the first X-Men movie saying that it was really hard to act through his cyclops visor and I think maybe Dakota Johnson just had the same struggles here. Yeah, it's gotta be a challenge. And it's a shame that Final Seem was what the audience was left with because I think the rest of her performance was pretty decent. Good even.

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Especially as she goes through her arc, you know, Cassie starts the film as a cynical paramedic detached from others due to her life as a seemingly unloved foster child. I think she resented her mother for being more invested in her research in the Amazon and then dying instead of caring and being there for her. And what's actually great about this aspect of the movie is that I thought the same thing about her mom. Like, I remember thinking in the beginning, like, lady, you are pregnant, do not fight over the spider with the gun toting psycho.

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But in Cassie getting her powers and exploring their ties to her mother's past, she learns that her mom did care about her, that her whole reason for seeking out the spider was for the improved quality of life for her child. And I don't know if it's because I'm a parent now, but that revelation hit me like a punch in the gut. And Cassie carried that forward, protecting and then seemingly raising these neglected teens as the mother figure herself, coming full circle.

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Cassie's arc and that theme of motherhood is the best part of this movie without a doubt. Yeah, that was a nice revelation. The fact that she learned that, you know, what her mom was doing was for her. It was a selfless act. You're right that she should have just given up the spider though. Like she shouldn't have put up that much of a fight. It's like things will be okay. Yeah. What's interesting is that the disease that the doctor told Cassie's mom that her baby would have is what-

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character of Madame Webb actually has in the comic books. It's called Myasthenia Gravis, and in the books, Madame Webb was born with it. She was born blind and a paraplegic, and she developed these psychic powers, this ability to peer into the web of life and destiny, which is a construct of fate. And in this movie, that is the disease that Cassie's mom was trying to prevent. Yeah, so you could say it's ironic then that her daughter ended up blind and in a wheelchair anyway at the end.

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Yeah, like it was faded or something. The web of life and destiny is actually the source of Spider-Man's Spidey-Sense and all the Spider characters who have Spidey-Sense are able to tap into that just a little bit. In the comics, Madame Web worked as a psychic medium who was once visited by Peter Parker, whom she knew off the bat was Spider-Man, surprising him, and she would go on to help him in several of his adventures. She not only had telepathy, but she also had clairvoyance. She could predict the future and she could also astral project.

32:34
This movie had an interesting take on the astral projection though, in that she could send out multiple copies of herself who could also interact physically with the environment. That was a little weird. Yeah, pretty unique though. I thought that was actually kind of cool. Yeah, it's an interesting way to not limit her so much if the character is ever used again in future films. Let's go ahead and move on to Julia Cornwall who is played by Sydney Sweeney. This is actually my first time seeing Sydney Sweeney in anything. I never watched Euphoria or White Lotus or anything.

33:03
I only really know of Sydney Sweeney by her reputation as a smoke show, but I'll say that I walked away disappointed by her acting. Like is she overrated or was this just not the right project for her? It was almost like the insecurities of her character leaked into her performance, making her come across as more of an awkward actress than an awkward teenager. I've never seen her in anything either, but I don't think she did terrible. I-

33:30
I think she played an insecure teenager fairly well. Stop thinking with your dick. She was not great in this movie. I don't think I am. Honestly, I think she did the best out of the three teenage actresses or playing teenagers. I think Isabella Merced did the best. And that's good news for you considering that she's going to be Hawke Girl in next year's Superman legacy movie. But let's talk about Anya Corazon played by Isabella Merced. None of the characters were written well. Again, the dialogue was so incredibly awful.

34:00
But at least I think Anya had the most believable delivery. Sydney Sweeney had to play this shy teenager, which she totally didn't come across as. Celeste O'Connor, who played Maddie Franklin, tried to portray herself as this rebellious teen, which I also didn't think she sold. But Isabella Merced as Anya really just had to play smart. She was the smart one. She had the easiest acting job, and therefore I think she pulled it off better.

34:25
Yeah, I mean, she did fine. I don't know if I agree that she did better than the Sidney Sweeney, but yeah, she definitely did better than Celeste O'Connor. Yeah, Celeste O'Connor played Maddie Franklin. This is my first time seeing Celeste in anything, and if I never see her again in another film, I think I would be just fine. Her acting was so bad in this movie. She brought down the entire film like she didn't deliver a single line, believably, I thought, and it was probably one of the.

34:51
worst performances out of any superhero movie in the last few decades. But not only that, like her character sucked. Like Maddie was so unlikable and rude and impulsive. And when she tried rescuing Cassie while skateboarding on a piece of debris, I wanted to fucking puke. If we gave away Brothers Awards for the worst moment, that would win it, because that was just ridiculous. What did you think about her backstory? Are I guess any of these three girls backstories? I thought they were good backstories. I agree. I thought.

35:20
that made the characters more interesting. What I'm really curious about is how they got their powers in the movie. Yeah, they never address that. They just leave it open-ended, I assume, for maybe a sequel, where they'll get their powers or something like that. But in the comics, Cassie just kind of developed her powers. She's not a mutant, but she just became a psychic, I think, largely because her condition left her with a clairvoyant mind. But Julia Cornwall, who would later become Julia Carpenter, she got her powers through genetic experiments.

35:49
by a secret government group called the Commission and they gave her like, you know, the standard power set. But what's unique about her is that she has psychic webbing. It's like psychic energy that lets her restrain her opponents and she can also send out psychic feelers as like the spider sense. And we saw that in the movie. That was kind of cool. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't clear that it was psychic webbing, but that's what it was. Maddie Franklin, she's called Spider-Woman in the comics. She gained her powers through this

36:17
It didn't give her spider abilities, but it did give her strength, speed, agility, reflexes. But she later got the additional abilities of Madame Webb's granddaughter, who had been turned into a spider-human hybrid by Doctor Octopus, hence the giant spider legs from her back that allow her to wall crawl. And then Anya, who is known as Aranya in the books, or Spider Girl sometimes, her powers were given to her by a sorcerer of the Secret Spider Society who was trying to save her life.

36:46
and she did get the powers of a spider in addition to the ability to summon this exoskeleton armor. And she also carries these spider bola devices that she created that allow her to grapple ledges and snare opponents and can also be thrown as projectiles. So we saw that in the movie too. Man, that's a lot to get through in a sequel if they ever do. Yeah, I assume that if they ever get to those superhero origins, they'll probably all get their powers in the same way. Yeah, from the spiders in Peru, I guess.

37:15
Speaking of that, let's move on to Ezekiel Sims who is played by Tahar Rahim. I don't even know where to start. Tahar Rahim is an actor I've never heard of playing horribly a role that is unrecognizable compared to the comic book Ezekiel, a character who in itself is a big ol' sack of mediocrity. Never ever have I cared less about a comic book movie villain. He had no arc beyond his desire to just continue existing.

37:45
Beyond that, there were no goals. You know, he's a guy who wanted the spider venom to give himself power. And I guess he did that. You know, he amassed this power and wealth, but like, who the fuck is this guy? Like, why did he want power? What did he plan on doing with it? What was he doing all this time as Cassie was growing up? Like fucking investing in stocks and jacking off or some shit? He was not a good villain. He was barely even a character. You know, he mentioned something in.

38:13
the Amazon about his family starving or something like that. And I guess he built an empire after that. But I have no sense of how loaded this guy is. Apparently only has like one employee who works in his apartment. It's like they couldn't find another location for him. They couldn't like show him walking through office space or anything like that. It's like, holy crap, what is going on here? Like he wasn't evil enough. He wasn't interesting enough. He wasn't anything worthwhile enough. And also his acting was not great.

38:42
Not only did I not believe any of Tahar Rahim's line deliveries, I don't even think he delivered them because his voice never matched his mouth. It was like most of his lines were 80 yard in post-production. Yes. I actually wondered if that was his actual voice in the movie or if they got another actor to do his lines because I don't know, maybe he had a really heavy accent that was difficult to understand. I could definitely see in a lot of the shadowy scenes and just in the poor editing that he wasn't really actually saying.

39:11
the lines we are hearing. Yeah, that may be due to rewrites, might be due to an accent or something. He's a French actor, and maybe he couldn't pull off a convincing Latin American accent, which I think the character was supposed to be. Yeah, who knows? But in the books, Ezekiel is not Peruvian, although he did get his powers through a mystic ritual in a Peruvian spider temple, which is probably why the movie started off in Peru. But like Ezekiel never wore a black Spider-Man suit in the comics.

39:40
Where did that come from? Like, I want to know the reasoning behind that. The film never addresses why he looks like Spider-Man. It makes no sense, especially when you consider the implications for Spider-Man and his costume, which he developed and created and conceived of all on his own. It implies that maybe there was some external influence in Peter Parker's costume creation, and that doesn't make sense. Maybe from the Peruvian spider people? Not sure. Oh, that was dumb too.

40:09
It was interesting. I kind of feel like when they were trying to explain the character of Ezekiel, they're like, he's kind of like Spider-Man. So they're like, oh, so he wears a suit. Let's just make him look like evil Spider-Man. Ugh. Yeah, that was some studio executives idea for sure. They're like, we got to make it marketable. We got to make it seem like Spider-Man's in this movie. 100%. The final characters I want to talk about are Benjamin Parker, played by Adam Scott, and Mary Parker, played by Emma Roberts. I don't have too much to say about them because their roles were so small.

40:39
They're both likable actors who I think were entirely wasted in their roles in this movie. I don't know about wasted. I think they almost kind of added credibility to the film that it would have normally had. I liked seeing them in those roles. I think they're bigger actors than, you know, what those roles called for. They could have gotten away with actors of a lesser caliber, but no, I like seeing them in the roles.

41:01
Yeah, it makes you wonder if they're planning to use them again down the line, which is why they wanted to get these bigger name actors. I keep making allusions to a sequel to this movie, but I think it's pretty clear that that's not going to happen. If Madame Web ever shows up again, it's probably going to be in some kind of like team up film, like Sinister Six type movie or something like that, that I think Sony is working toward, but probably not a Madame Web too. Just taking the box office into consideration. Yeah, I didn't even get number one. And this is a Spider-Man movie. That's crazy.

41:31
Yeah, but that does it for all the characters. Let's go ahead and move into our story highlights.

41:43
In 1973, medical researcher Constance Webb discovers a rare species of spider in the Peruvian jungle whose venom has healing and strengthening properties. Though she is pregnant, her security escort Ezekiel Sims shoots her and steals the spider. An indigenous tribe tries to save Constance's life using the spider venom, but she dies shortly after giving birth to her daughter Cassandra. Now writing out that scene kind of sounds pretty interesting and cool in theory.

42:11
But seeing it done in practice, I thought was kind of ridiculous, especially when you see the indigenous tribe crawling through the trees looking like Spider-Man. It's like, what the fuck is going on here? The CG is pretty bad seeing them leap through the trees. But I honestly didn't hate the designs of them. Like, if you're going to do an indigenous Amazon tribe, Spider-Man, that's how you do it. I didn't like the black webbing that they covered their bodies in. It was like.

42:39
black twigs or something. Yeah, or netting, something like that. Some kind of- It was like trying too hard to make it look like Spider-Man's costume. Probably, probably that's fair. I thought it was just kind of an interesting design at the very least. Now when they were talking about the legend of the Aranya people, I forget what they called them, they mentioned a poison touch that Ezekiel Sims, of course, later on gets. What did you think of that?

43:03
I think that's a cool idea, Ezekiel does not have that power in the comics, but I think it was a way to make him seem more villainous and more threatening. Back to the story, 30 years later, in 2003 Queens, New York, Cassie works as a paramedic alongside her partner Ben Parker. After helping rescue a man from a car about to fall off a bridge, she falls into the water and has a near-death experience that awakens her psychic potential to see into the web of life and destiny.

43:30
I thought that was a pretty cool scene when she first started seeing the web in the water. It was hella confusing, honestly. I did like how the shattered glass looked like a web. Actually there's a ton of shattered glass in this movie that's very web-like. It's kind of like a recurring visual motif. Yeah, I thought that was pretty neat. Especially when it also correlates to what feels like her mind fracturing as her powers start developing. Right, yeah exactly. I do have a question.

43:57
Were Cassandra and Ben fucking? No. OK. He stuck in the tip once. It didn't count. He put in a ball. All I know is that didn't really mean anything. Ben tells her that, like, you know, he's met someone, but he never says may. I was just wondering because they had like a weird chemistry between each other. No, I think she was too detached for any sort of relationship. Oh, Cassie began suffering from visions that turn out to come true, such as the death of her coworker, O'Neil.

44:27
Meanwhile, it's revealed that since his time in Peru, Ezekiel used the spider venom to grant himself enhanced physicality, wall crawling ability, a poisonous touch, and precognitive dreams. Ezekiel seduces and kills an NSA agent to get access to a person tracking system to find three girls that his visions have convinced him will kill him in the future. I do think you can't really say precognitive dreams considering the fact that his dreams were lying to him.

44:54
Yeah, it's hard to say because, you know, according to this movie, the future can be changed. So, I'm wondering if that's what would have happened to him if Madame Webb never came to be or something. Who knows? I have no idea what happened there. Yeah, kind of dumb. Meanwhile, Cassie has a vision on the subway of Ezekiel murdering the three girls, Julia Cornwall, Maddie Franklin, and Anya Corazon. She convinces the girls to get off the train and they flee. Ezekiel pursues them.

45:21
but his attention is diverted long enough by local police trying to stop him for Cassie and the girls to escape in a taxi. Cassie drives them to a nearby forest where they discuss the man who moves like a spider. Cassie tells them to wait there as she leaves to revisit her mother's spider research back home. I thought it was a little convenient how easily they were able to ditch Ezekiel.

45:42
Really, he was too distracted by taking out police officers. Why not just wait for them to be away from the police considering no one was looking up at the ceiling apparently to see him? Well, the police were shooting at him. He had to take him out. They would have kept shooting at him as he was trying to get at the girls. But they were only shooting at him because he started attacking them, right? Well, and also because he's a fucking dude crawling on the ceiling. I think, you know, anybody would shoot at that. That's where I would.

46:11
Back in the forest, the girls get restless and walk to a nearby diner. Cassie learns from her mother's journal about the rare Peruvian spider, the mysterious indigenous tribe, and Ezekiel's identity as her mother's former security escort. At the diner, the girls draw attention to themselves, prompting a local to report the location of their missing whereabouts, leading to Ezekiel finding them. Cassie gets visions of Ezekiel killing them in the diner, prompting her to crash her car into the restaurant to ram him.

46:40
Teenage girls, man, you can't leave them alone for a second before they're dancing on a tabletop so impress some boys. I don't know what kind of kid you're raising, but she needs to shape up. I was just saying, it was like bad writing. Like really bad. It was. Cassie hides the girls at a hotel where she learns more about Ezekiel's motives and abilities after communicating with him through a dream. She teaches the girls how to perform CPR, then leaves them to hide out at Ben's while she travels to Peru.

47:08
There Cassie discovers a member of the indigenous tribe who tells her how her mother died and guides her through the web of life and destiny revealing that her pregnant mom sought out the spider in Peru to cure her daughter's myasthenia gravis. I do wonder why the guy wasn't dressed up like rainforest spider-man anymore. He was like wearing regular clothes. Like, does the tribe sometimes paint themselves red and cover themselves in black twigs and then sometimes wear regular clothes?

47:35
Or I had something happen to that guy in the last 30 years where he was like, you know what? I'm going to move out of the rainforest. Yeah, I wondered the same thing. I think that was a mistake. I think they should have kept with the tribal look. Yeah, I agree, because, you know, they felt very mysterious and mystical almost. Back in Queens, Ben's sister-in-law, Mary, goes into labor on the way to the hospital. Ben's car is caught on camera with the girls and Ezekiel pursues them. Cassie.

48:01
Now back in New York has a vision of them being attacked and steals an ambulance to help the girls escape and divert Ezekiel away from Ben and Mary. She takes the girls to a condemned fireworks factory where they set up traps for Ezekiel and call for a helicopter medical evac. Now I'm pretty sure that freaking fireworks factory burned down earlier in the movie, right? Right? Yeah, like how are all those fireworks still there after a fire like that? That doesn't make any sense.

48:26
Also, I didn't realize that bottle rockets could shoot holes through brick walls. I got to be more careful with those things. I know, right? Those fireworks were so ridiculously overpowered. I think it was a front for like a mafia artillery cache or something like that, because like literally one of those fireworks took down a whole fucking helicopter, like exploded it. It's so crazy. And like ripping holes through the roof and like it pretty much toppled the whole building down.

48:54
It's like, where can I buy these fireworks? Not where we live. You and I have had some fireworks mishaps on our own, you know, like accidentally having them explode the cardboard tube that they're in and like sending sparks everywhere. But I don't remember that being powerful enough to like rip a hole in someone's house. It's sad guys are on fire, but didn't destroy a house. When Ezekiel arrives, the fireworks distract him as the girls make their way to the roof for the evac. Ezekiel follows and the helicopter gets destroyed, putting each of the girls in danger.

49:24
Cassie's powers then fully manifest, allowing her to project astral projections to help each of the girls. As the building falls apart, Cassie reveals that it was she and not the girls who were destined to destroy Ezekiel, and he falls to his death before being crushed by a falling Pepsi sign. There are so many times in this movie where I'm like, does Ezekiel not have spider sense? Like, how the hell is he getting hit by all these different things? Like-

49:48
ambulances and fireworks and signs. I think that maybe his spidey sense kind of manifests as those dreams, visions that he gets. Sucks to be him then. Yeah. Cassie also falls off the building into the river below where she's blinded by a firework. She's saved from drowning by Julia and Maddie and Anya perform CPR. Cassie awakens in a hospital, now paralyzed and blind, and learns that Mary gave birth to her son, Peter.

50:16
Back at her apartment in a wheelchair, Cassie decides to mentor the girls in their future roles as Spider-Heroes and has a vision of them in costume. No, they never named the baby Peter. No, and you know, fans will obviously get the reference. I don't know if general audiences will know that that's actually Spider-Man and Uncle Ben and Spider-Man's mom. Yeah, no one in my family did. I saw it with my wife and daughters and I had to explain to them who those characters were and why they were important.

50:45
Seems like they dropped the ball on that front. Yeah. You know, considering that at the baby shower, they played a game where they tried to guess the baby's first name. They could have at least followed through with that by having a scene where Cassie visits Mary and is like, so what did that name end up being? And she's like, Peter, you know, and then the audience is like, Oh my God. You know, that would have been better. Right. Right. And the baby would have been played by Toby McGuire. Right. Exactly. I didn't see this would have flipped out.

51:13
Yeah, superimposed Toby McGuire's face on little baby's head. The costumes we saw at the end were not great. I feel like that was the best look we got at them. And I did not love Madame Webbs. It looked really cheap. I don't know if it was just like the lipstick or the glasses or I don't know. Just I didn't like it. I don't like any of them as much as I thought I would.

51:37
I liked the costumes, I did not like the headgear on any of them. Especially Madame Web's which looked like a plastic sleeping eye mask. Yes. The costume looked fine though. I didn't like Julia Cornwall's mask. That was weird. Oh, like the chin strap? Yeah. Very strange. But that was the end of the movie. There was no end credit scene or mid credit scene. I think I was half expecting Jared Leto to show up and say it's morbentime or something like that. But I'm kind of glad that there wasn't. Overall.

52:06
The movie did have some emotional moments and was competently directed, but I think a beautiful arc regarding motherhood can't save the film from its clunky dialogue, the lack of superhero action, subpar performances, and forgettable characters. I rate this film 2.5 stars out of 5, a rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Yeah, that sounds about right. I forget what we gave Morbius. We gave Morbius 3 stars? Yeesh.

52:34
But I actually think Morbius had a stronger story and a better villain. I actually think Madame Web was about the same quality as the Echo television series that we just reviewed, which we also gave two and a half stars. Yeah, maybe you're right when it comes down to the villain. This absolutely was one of the worst villains in superhero cinema history, hands down. So yeah, around 2.5 seems right to me. I'm not expecting much better in terms of quality for the next Sony Spider-Man Universe film that's coming out later this year.

53:03
which will be Craven the Hunter. Yeah, no, the whole radioactive lion blood just still freaking kills me. These Sony film writers need to read the comics. They would have made something we actually maybe would have wanted to see, like a Miles Morales movie or like Prowler, I don't know, something cool. I think a Prowler movie is a great idea. Just make it starring Donald Glover. I'd definitely see that. Oh, you weren't into Hypno Hustler? No, fuck that.

53:31
But that does it for the review guys, let us know what you thought about the movie by writing to us at dyna or by visiting us on Instagram, which you can find a link to on our show notes, or by visiting our website at dynamicduel.com. And on our site you can also find a link to our Patreon page, where you can join our dynamic 2.0 tier and chat with us and fellow listeners, our fantastic 4 tier, which gets you bonus content each month, our X-Force tier that makes you an executive producer of this podcast,

54:00
or our newest tier that lets you join our Dynamike Podcast Network. And please don't forget to rate the show guys on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podchaser, or on our website. In our next episode, we will be doing a duel between Metallo, the Superman villain, against Radioactive Man, the, I guess you could say, Avengers, Thor, Hulk villain. And that of course is a lead up to our big team duel episode where we will pit the Legion of Doom against the Masters of Evil.

54:29
But that does it for this episode, we want to give a big thanks to our executive producers Ken Johnson, John Storowski, Zachary Hepburn, Dustin Belcombe, Mickey Mathangian, Brandon Estergard, Nathaniel Wagner, Levi Yeaton, Nick Abonto, Austin Wazilowski, AJ Duckerley, Scott Camacho, Adam Spies, Andrew Schunk, and Dean Molesky for helping make this podcast possible. And we'll talk to you guys next week. Up up and away, true believers. When you take responsibility, great power will come.

54:56
and also great responsibility will come with the great power and the powerful responsibilities are responsibly empowered. Remember that kids.