Madame Web Is Streaming Now, but Should You Watch It?

Do you see Madame Web in your future? Sony’s Spider-Man Universe spinoff starring Dakota Johnson (the Fifty Shades films) as the clairvoyant Marvel character Cassandra Webb is now available to watch online, arriving on streaming three months after audiences showed the superhero movie little love on Valentine’s Day. Madame Web bombed at the box office with just $100 million worldwide, and the scathing reviews gave potential moviegoers a sense of comic book movie déjà vu. It received a C+ CinemaScore — on par with the widely-panned Jonah Hex, the campy Batman & Robin, and Sony’s own Morbius — with critics deeming Madame Web one of the worst comic book movies ever. 

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Madame Web is among the lowest-rated superhero movies with an 11 percent rating. Few films have fared worse: 1984’s Supergirl, 1997’s Steel, and 2004’s Catwoman all sit at just 8 percent approval from critics, while 2015’s Fantastic Four reboot is the worst-rated of the modern era at 9 percent. Madame Web‘s Rotten Tomatoes score is on par with 2005’s Elektra at 11 percent, but it’s even lower than other comic book movies that also received a C+ CinemaScore from audiences: Batman & Robin (12 percent), Jonah Hex (12 percent), R.I.P.D. (12 percent), The Spirit (14 percent), Spawn (17 percent), and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (19 percent).

After getting smoked by biopic Bob Marley: One Love, Madame Web was the first Marvel-based movie since 2019’s X-Men: Dark Phoenix to fail to open at No. 1 at the box office. (The previous record holder was Fant4stic, which opened at No. 2 in 2015 after being similarly clobbered by critics and audiences.) Its negative critical reception didn’t help. Reviewers pulled no punches as they skewered Sony’s latest Spider-Man spinoff as a “Marvel knock-off,” calling it “a new low for superhero debacles” and “a genuine Chernobyl-level disaster.”

The movie follows psychic paramedic Cassandra “Cassie” Webb (Johnson), who has troubling premonitions about a trio of young women — Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney), Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor), and Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced) — and the mysterious, spider-like killer (Tahar Rahim) fated to be defeated by the future Spider-Women.

So, should you watch Madame Web? Here’s what critics had to say, pulled from reviews around the web:

ComicBook: “While Madame Web might not contain the heart-pumpingtension, massive franchise connections, or painfully authenticverisimilitude of many of its modern contemporaries, it makes aconvincing argument that an entertaining-enough story can still be foundoutside of those traits. The charisma of its lead heroines and thespecificity of its premiseprevent it from being too boring, too goofy,or too irredeemable toignore. For better or for worse, Madame Web further illustrates that Sony’s Spider-Man Universehas potential when not trying to be a modern cinematic universe atall,and instead being a springboard for the most niche genre storiesimaginable.”

Variety: “A hollow Sony-made Spider-Man spinoff with none of the charm you expectfrom even the most basic superhero movie … Madame Webwas never going to touch the relatively high-concept,Disney-made Avengers movies. The script is confusing, the action staleand thevisual effects cheap. A recurring device that places Cassie atthecenter of what looks like a giant plasma ball, surrounded by statictendrils, is downright embarrassing. But guess what? Tickets still costjust as much as they would for a more canonical Marvel movie. So whysettle for the knock-off?”

The Hollywood Reporter:”There’s something so demoralizing about lambastinganotherunderwhelming Marvel offering. What is there left to really sayaboutthe disappointments and ocean-floor-level expectations created bythemining of this intellectual property? Every year, studio executivesdigup minor characters, dress them in a fog of hype and leavemoviegoersto debate, defend or discard the finished product. Madame Web is one of these recently exhumed efforts.” 

Inverse:”[Sony] is so determined to revivethe specific kind of superheroB-movie you’d find buried in the Walmartdollar bin that it simply setsits latest film in 2003 (complete withlaughably on-the-nose 2003needle drops and shoehorned pop culturereferences about how Cassiereally wants to go home to “watch Idol“). But Madame Web doesn’t have the same early aughts go-for-broke charm as Venom does, nor does it have the self-awareness to even lampshade its particular brand of corniness. Madame Webis just about the worst movie you’d find at the bottom of that Walmartdollar bin — doomed to be forgotten as soon as it’s seen.”

IndieWire:”Dakota Johnson does her best to save a hilariously retrogradesuperhero movie that feels like it was made in 2003 … From its lack ofstakes to its absence of style, and from its laughableCGI to itspalpable discomfort with the rhythms and tropes of its genre, Madame Web is a superhero movie that feels like it was made by andfor people who have never seen a modern superhero movie.”

UPI: “A new low for superhero debacles. At least Catwoman and Batman & Robin believed in what they were doing. They were wrong, but Madame Web just feels like a cynical copy of the bare minimum to qualify as a comic book movie.”

RogerEbert.com: “Madame Webis not the unmitigated disaster that its clunky trailer or its calendarspot in February would suggest. It’s a low-stakes superhero originstory with a thoroughly amusing Dakota Johnson performance at its center… within these oversaturated times for comic book movies, Madame Webisblissfully breezy in its pacing, which helps make it a moreenjoyablewatch than some of the super-serious, end-of-the-world farewe oftensee.”

Rolling Stone: “Madame Web isn’t as bad as its somewhat botched promotionalcampaign might suggest. It is, in fact, way worse. A genuineChernobyl-level disaster that seems to get exponentially moreradioactive as it goes along, this detour to one of the dustier cornersof Marvel’s content farm is a dead-end from start to finish. It is the Cats: The Movieof superhero movies. Not a single decision seems of sound mind. Not asingle performance feels in sync with the material. Not a single linereading feels as if it hasn’t somehow been magically auto-tuned tosubtract emotion and/or inflection. The sole amazing factor of thisSpider-spinoff is that someone, somewhere signed off on actuallyreleasing it … a Showgirls of comic-book cinema.”

Madame Web is now streaming on Netflix.