This is a Dynamike Network podcast.
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. 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? 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. Why hello there. Do you love listening and chatting about Marvel and DC? Then become
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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. 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. 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. 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.
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- 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 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. 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. 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. 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... 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. 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 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... 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. 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. 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.
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- 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 was gonna be the case. And I think
that this mid-century logo proves that. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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. on Disney Plus. And speaking of the 90 series, that brings us to our question
of the week.
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. Be sure to answer before February 24th.
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.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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... 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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, 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. 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. 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... 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. 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.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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- 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. 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.
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. 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- 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Yeah, but that does it
for all the characters. Let's go ahead and move into our story highlights.
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. 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. 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? 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.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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. 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? 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. 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. 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. 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. 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- 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. 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. 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. And the baby would have been played by Toby McGuire. Right.
Exactly. I didn't see this would have flipped out. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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. 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
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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. 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.
and also great responsibility will come with the great power and the powerful responsibilities
are responsibly empowered. Remember that kids.