How can I even describe just how baffling Madame Web is? Sony is attempting to continue to make Spider-Man-adjacent features but without its own Spider-Man, with the character on loan to the MCU. There have been talks about MCU integration with Holland showing up or even bringing back someone like Andrew Garfield as the universe’s Spider-Man, but none of that has manifested. So instead we’re getting projects like Madame Web, where Sony clearly has no idea what to do in this world at this point.
Madame Web, played by Dakota Johnson who very much seems in on the joke here, is granted Spider-powers by her mother who was bitten by a magic spider in the Amazon that has previously given powers to a native race of Spider-people there. Yes, seriously.But her powers are not terribly useful. She is not strong or fast and cannot shoot webs, she instead has a modified version of Spider-sense where she can rewind time for a minute or two to try to change the outcome of something.
The film tasks her with protecting three future Spider-Women from a Spider-powered villain, Ezekiel Sims, who believes they will kill him in the future because he had a dream about it. He is the only one in the whole film with actual Spider-powers, but he’s just strong and sticky and does not actually shoot webs.
