The first red flag in Sony's fourth entry into its Spider-Man universe without a Spider-Man comes two scenes in. After a fairly dull EMT rescue by paramedics Cassie Web (Dakota Johnson) and Ben (Adam Scott), Web turns to a grateful child and says “this” turning to Scott “is Ben Parker”. It's a reference to Spider-Man that will become the trademark of this film. Later, after another CGI-fueled action sequence, there's news of Ben's nephew being born. “He's born to be an uncle, all the fun, none of the responsibility” one character states. “That's what he thinks,” another says, and all credit to the performer for not turning to look directly into the camera and winking.
The issue is that much of this film feels very unenthusiastic. For some unknown reason the film is set in 2003, and it appears to have been made then too, replete with ropey CGI and overly-explained storytelling. It doesn't help that while there's something admirable about Tom Hardy's manic performances in Venom, Dakota Johnson seems ill-suited to both blockbusters and leading roles. She flourishes in indie dramas like A Bigger Splash or Cha Cha Real Smooth, but here she looks as bored as ever, flatly delivering her lines like a woman on the clock.
Similarly, Tahar Rahim, so powerful in The Mauritanian and A Prophet is given a role so devoid of character that he looks annoyed to be there. His villain, Ezekiel Sims, has no motivation, just that he sees visions (we never really know why) of three spider-women killing him, and he decides to kill them first. His dialogue ADR is also poorly done, sounding so out of sync with his performance you wonder what went wrong in the edit.
All the Spider-Man guff with Scott's Ben is groan-worthy, not least Emma Roberts as Mary Parker, pregnant with a boy who will possibly become the famous Peter Parker yet refusing to say his name. “You'll know when the time is right”. What she forgets is we've all been alive since the sixties when Spider-Man debuted and therefore know she's calling that kid Peter and he's getting bitten by a spider. They've made twenty-three films with him in them.
The three young women thrust into this spider-centic-web-of-bullshit are Celeste O'Connor's neglected rich kid Mattie, illegal immigrant Anya (Isabela Merced) and a woefully miscast Sydney Sweeney as shy girl Julia. What works about the three is that they're basically The PowerPuff Girls. (O'Connor is Buttercup, Merced is Blossom and Sweeney is Bubbles if you're asking). The issue is, despite Sweeney's efforts, she's so clearly a confident adult woman and not a timid teen. The film goes to laughable lengths to cover up her beauty – pigtails and dungarees, and when that fails it's big nerd glasses and an Oops I Did It Again era outfit of short skirt and unbuttoned shirt. Sweeney deserves better than this “hello fellow teenager” guff, and it distracts from the brilliant banter between Merced and O'Connor whose growing sisterhood is the backbone of the film.
There is some fun to be had elsewhere though. Some of the time loopiness is well done, the Deja Vu all-over-again scenes work, and some of the violence is pleasingly brutal. There's a promise of a better, more action-packed girl-group film that's frustratingly being left for a sequel that might (probably not) ever happen.
Once you untangle the web of mysteries you end up going “oh… that's it?”
Madame Web is in cinemas now
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