--- title: "Madame Web" year: 2024 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/madame-web" fi1m_score: 38 critics_score: 36 critics_reviews: 23 published: "2026-09-16T15:32:27.297502+00:00" updated: "2026-09-16T15:32:39.160681+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Madame Web (2024) Directed by SJ Clarkson · 1h 57m · MPA PG-13 · Action, Fantasy **Fi1m score: 38** · Critics 36 from 23 reviews *In a sentence:* Dakota Johnson gets psychic powers and the expression of someone being asked to cover an extra shift > Dakota Johnson’s awkward humour gives *Madame Web* a few welcome laughs. SJ Clarkson’s superhero origin story is otherwise sluggish and over-explained, with fractured action and too little attention paid to the women at its centre. ## Synopsis In 2003, paramedic Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson) begins experiencing visions of the future. A baby shower finds her struggling with ordinary social obligations; her new ability brings less familiar responsibilities. She becomes involved with Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney), Anya Corazón (Isabela Merced) and Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor), three young women who are not inclined to agree with her or one another. She tries to understand what her visions mean while dealing with companions who have their own ideas about being told what to do. Taking charge of them is a responsibility she is reluctant to accept. ## Review A paramedic who can glimpse danger before it arrives is a sensible starting point for a superhero thriller. There is a job to do and a reason to be frightened. *Madame Web*, directed by SJ Clarkson, keeps this premise small enough for individual people to matter. Yet the explanations keep interrupting their attempts to get to know one another, and the danger seldom becomes urgent. We found it a poor, wearying film, despite a lead performance that supplies some welcome humour. Dakota Johnson plays Cassandra Webb with a social awkwardness that is more interesting than the details of her origin story. We laughed at her discomfort during the baby shower, because she makes polite participation look like a task for which she has received no training. Her flat delivery allows an ungracious response to remain funny without making her seem cruel. The performance sometimes becomes so withdrawn that it is difficult to care what happens to her, but she has enough awkward charm to hold our attention between explanations. Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced and Celeste O’Connor bring some life to the exchanges between the younger women and Cassandra Webb. Their bickering offers a reason to spend time with the group beyond waiting for another explanation of the plot. But the screenplay gives them too little individuality for that friction to develop into relationships we care about. Tahar Rahim has even less room as Ezekiel Sims, whose menace is repeatedly explained and seldom felt. The screenplay, credited to Burk Sharpless, Claire Parker, Matt Sazama and SJ Clarkson, gives explanation far more space than behaviour. It keeps checking that we understand the premise, without giving the characters enough worthwhile things to do with it. That is particularly damaging in a story built around anticipating danger, where each pause to clarify matters lets the suspense drain away. At 117 minutes, it takes a modest amount of story a long time to tell. Leigh Folsom Boyd’s editing has one useful device: the glitches that accompany Cassandra Webb’s visions briefly make her uncertainty ours. For those moments, the film lets us experience her difficulty instead of having somebody describe it. Elsewhere, the cuts leave the action disjointed rather than tense, and following the immediate danger takes more effort than it should. Mauro Fiore’s cinematography keeps the ordinary surroundings clean and legible, but does little to make them feel threatening when the cutting fails to build suspense. Ethan Tobman’s production design helps establish the 2003 setting, and the attention to period detail is welcome. The conspicuous branding becomes distracting, though, and it is hard to enjoy those details when products keep demanding notice. Johan Söderqvist’s score supplies urgency that the scenes themselves too often lack. The music is trying to sustain a threat that Tahar Rahim has not been given enough material to establish. The film’s restrained scale is worth defending in a genre that can make every problem a global emergency. There is room for a superhero story about an unwilling adult and younger women learning to tolerate one another, and this cast occasionally finds it. But the humour is intermittent, and the lifeless stretches are too long to make a persuasive evening of accidental comedy. Only committed admirers of Dakota Johnson’s dry humour should make time for this. *Fi1m score 38, published 16 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics find Madame Web a weak superhero origin story, with occasional pleasures that do little to offset its problems. Praise centres on Dakota Johnson’s dry humour and awkward charm: even several negative reviews credit her with making poor dialogue briefly amusing. The more sympathetic reviews also enjoy the fractious rapport between the women, finding a lightly engaging story about their relationships beneath the exposition and preparations for a larger saga. The main complaints concern confused plotting, flat characters and action that rarely generates much excitement, though Johnson’s detachment also strikes some critics as disengagement. The spread runs from qualified affection to outright dismissal, with little agreement on whether the absurdity is enjoyable. Sight and Sound finds the ensemble lightly likeable, while the Los Angeles Times enjoys the unintentional camp; The Ringer explicitly rejects the idea that the film offers that sort of bad-film pleasure. ### Reviews we read (23) - **Sight and Sound**, Kim Newman (70/100, inferred): The critic views the film as an unnecessary but lightly likeable Spider-Man spin-off that offers fun with its team of fractious female characters. It stands out for its irreverent take and the appealing rapport among the leads despite its overstuffed nature. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/madame-web-unnecessary-lightly-likeable-addition-spider-verse) - **Los Angeles Times**, Katie Walsh (60/100, inferred): The critic calls the film unintentionally campy and ridiculous rather than good, but often hilariously delightful for fans of camp. Dakota Johnson's weird, twinkling performance is singled out as the main appeal that makes it worth seeing. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2024-02-13/madame-web-review-dakota-johnson-sydney-sweeney-sony-marvel) - **RogerEbert.com**, Christy Lemire (60/100, inferred): The critic finds it a low-stakes origin story buoyed by Dakota Johnson's amusing, deadpan performance as the reluctant clairvoyant paramedic. Visual chaos in the finale and leaden exposition weigh it down, but breezy pacing makes it more enjoyable than many overwrought superhero films. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/madame-web-movie-review-2024) - **IndieWire**, David Ehrlich (C-): A hilariously retrograde superhero movie that feels like it was made in 2003 and seems created by people who have never seen a superhero film. Johnson does her best to save the project, but the film lacks any real vision or coherence. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/madame-web-review-dakota-johnson-1234953452/) - **Screen Daily** (50/100, inferred): The critic sees the film as a somewhat spirited superhero origin story that benefits from Dakota Johnson’s grounded humour and solid action but mostly serves as the unpromising first chapter of a larger saga. It is praised for its accessible plotting and the bratty rapport between the lead and the younger characters. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/madame-web-review/5190461.article) - **The New York Times**, Manohla Dargis (40/100, inferred): The critic finds the film bad but not memorably so, with an absurd story, risible dialogue and uninspired fights. Dakota Johnson's detached, natural awkwardness and charm are praised for humanizing the character and rising above the material. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/14/movies/madame-web-review-dakota-johnson.html) - **Empire**, Catherine Bray (30/100, inferred): The film manages to be both over-written and underwritten at once, with talented actors left with flat characters and will-this-do dialogue. Some hints of classical storytelling survive in its contained time-loop story and personal villain motivation, but it is not much better or worse than other entries in the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/madame-web/) - **The Guardian** (30/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a tangled, incoherent mess resulting from last-minute changes and a confused attempt to distance itself from Spider-Man. They single out the junky direction, shoddy writing, disengaged lead performance and egregious product placement for particular criticism. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/feb/13/madame-web-marvel-movie-review) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Lovia Gyarkye (30/100, inferred): The film is a depressingly inert and airless Spider-Man spinoff with a mechanical screenplay and little imagination. Johnson delivers some lines with effective deadpan humor, but the movie fails to develop its characters or action beyond stock elements, with the post-9/11 privacy theme as one rare point of interest. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/madame-web-review-dakota-johnson-1235823007/) - **Time Out**, Elizabeth Weitzman (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a misguided and committee-like origin story that traps its star in sub-par material with clumsy execution. It is singled out for its lack of a confident core and disconnected editing amid familiar Spider-Man universe tropes. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/madame-web-review-2024) - **Variety**, Peter Debruge (30/100, inferred): The critic views the film as a superfluous, hollow knockoff with confusing script, stale action and cheap effects that feels like an off-brand imitation of better superhero fare. Dakota Johnson's eccentric performance provides the only spark of irreverence. [Read](https://variety.com/2024/film/reviews/madame-web-review-dakota-johnson-1235909003/) - **Vulture**, Bilge Ebiri (30/100, inferred): Madame Web is bad in a boring, draggy way with no evident vision or reason for existing beyond milking IP. Johnson gamely works with poor material in places but ultimately conveys resignation; the film is inept and incoherent despite some unintentionally amusing elements. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/review-madame-web-is-bad-in-a-boring-way.html) - **Little White Lies**, Hannah Strong (1/1/1): The critic deems it a shoddy Spider-Man spin-off where no one seems to want to be there, with Dakota Johnson delivering a remarkably disinterested performance. They single out the cheap script, cinematography, and lazy worldbuilding for complaint. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/madame-web) - **The Telegraph** (20/100, inferred): The review deems the film hopelessly dull and stupid, a new low for the Spider-Man spin-off franchise. It singles out the borderline sleepwalking lead performance and overall failure to deliver any engagement or wit. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/madame-web-review-dakota-johnson-spider-man/) - **Total Film**, Joel Harley (1/5): The story is bogged down by exposition and egregious product placement despite refreshingly clean and grounded visuals. Its genre aspirations as a slasher with Final Destination-style elements are admirable but undermined by the sense it is more interested in selling a fizzy-drinks brand. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/madame-web-review/) - **The Times**, Kevin Maher (★☆☆☆☆): The critic describes the film as a one-star mess of mind-boggling awfulness that burns the superhero genre to the ground. They single out the barely-there lead role and miscast villain for complaint. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/madame-web-film-review-the-latest-marvel-instalment-is-a-one-star-mess-hbzfsh58s) - **/Film**, Witney Seibold (6/10): The critic finds the film a clunky, earnest, and weirdly charming oddity that is more of a clairvoyance caper about young women forming bonds than a traditional superhero movie. They single out its focus on sororal relationships and hang-out vibe among the leads as a point of interest amid the messiness. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/1516331/madame-web-review/) - **Paste**, Jesse Hassenger (5.9/10): The critic sees the movie as a scattered but never dull 2003-era superhero throwback with strong period soundtrack and design details. Dakota Johnson’s dry, ambivalent performance is praised as the main asset amid otherwise clumsy execution. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/dakota-johnson/madame-web-movie-review) - **Collider**, Lisa Laman (3/10): The critic finds the film a tedious slog with drab visuals, awkward writing and directing, and a lack of consistent tension or authentic human emotion. One wryly humorous baby-shower scene with Dakota Johnson is singled out as the lone bright spot. [Read](https://collider.com/madame-web-review/) - **Deadline**, Valerie Complex (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the adaptation a missed opportunity that squanders the character's potential through clinical, formulaic storytelling driven by studio mandates. The sole redeeming feature singled out is the glitch-like editing depicting the protagonist's psychic visions. [Read](https://deadline.com/2024/02/madame-web-review-tangled-web-of-missed-opportunities-studio-misfires-1235823845/) - **The Wrap** (30/100, inferred): The critic deems the film a bland superhero entry lacking heart, emotional core or engaging elements, with stilted dialogue and threadbare plotting. Dakota Johnson's lead performance is singled out as aggressively fine but unremarkable, offering little to connect with. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/madame-web-review-dakota-johnson-sydney-sweeney/) - **Polygon**, Austen Goslin (20/100, inferred): The critic views the film as the most shameless and cynical superhero movie, essentially a two-hour post-credits teaser for future entries. Dakota Johnson’s sarcastic comedy and reactions are singled out as the only intermittently tolerable elements. [Read](https://www.polygon.com/reviews/24071362/madame-web-review-post-credits-scene-sequel-teaser-bad/) - **The Ringer** (20/100, inferred): The movie is a messy debacle with bad CGI, disconnected actors, and uncomfortable laughter, lacking fun or engagement despite its absurd premise; it fails to qualify as enjoyable 'good bad' cinema. [Read](https://www.theringer.com/2024/02/16/movies/madame-web-sony-spiderverse-bad-movie-review) ## Details - **Director:** SJ Clarkson - **Director:** SJ Clarkson - **Screenplay:** SJ Clarkson, Claire Parker, Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless - **Story:** Kerem Sanga, Burk Sharpless, Matt Sazama - **Cinematography:** Mauro Fiore - **Editor:** Leigh Folsom Boyd - **Music:** Johan Söderqvist - **Production design:** Ethan Tobman - **Costume design:** Ngila Dickson - **Producer:** Lorenzo di Bonaventura - **Cast:** Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb; Sydney Sweeney as Julia Cornwall; Isabela Merced as Anya Corazón; Celeste O'Connor as Mattie Franklin; Tahar Rahim as Ezekiel Sims; Mike Epps as O'Neil; Emma Roberts as Mary Parker; Adam Scott as Ben Parker - **Runtime:** 1h 57m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG-13 - **Release (the US):** 14 February 2024 - **Genres:** Action, Fantasy - **Budget:** $80 million - **Box office:** $100 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_76M4c4LTo ## Where to watch in the US - Disney+: streaming, uhd *Checked 2026-09-16.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, HR, IE, IN, IT, JP, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture 2024: Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture (won) ## If you liked this - *The Dead Zone* (1983), Fi1m 82: A reluctant clairvoyant faces harder choices, with room for the person making them. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-dead-zone.md) - *Thelma* (2017), Fi1m 85: A young woman’s frightening abilities receive patient attention and a growing sense of danger. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/thelma-and-louise.md) - *Fast Color* (2018): Women with extraordinary abilities get family lives worth caring about. - *Run Lola Run* (1998), Fi1m 82: Repeated possibilities become brisk, legible action rather than another round of explanations. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/run-lola-run.md) - *Attack the Block* (2011), Fi1m 84: Young people bicker through danger, with sharper jokes and a convincing shared purpose. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/attack-the-block.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/madame-web