The biggest franchise in the film industry, Marvel, released their newest movie, “Madame Web,” on Feb. 14. The main character, Madame Web, is a brand-new edition to the cinematic universe of Marvel. Although this movie is not typical of Marvel, it showcases the standalone origin of the hero Cassie Web, aka Madame Web, as she develops the power to see into the future and realizes she can use her power to help save others. 

Although the Marvel Cinematic Universe has many fans worldwide who support the movies unconditionally, with this film, there has been more criticism than praise. Sophomore Annie Nguyen, who has been a fan of the MCU for years, said she was disappointed with the outcome of the new movie.

“I won’t lie, I think a large portion of the negative feedback is due to the casting,” she said. “Marvel projects with a predominantly-female cast are notorious for their less-than-positive reception, with other examples being ‘The Marvels’ and ‘Black Widow.’ However, as much as I enjoyed the movie experience, I agree that the acting and overall production were lackluster, and from a purely cinematic perspective, it was very underwhelming compared to previous projects.”

The cast included people like Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb/Madame Web, Sydney Sweeney as Julia Carpenter/Spider-Woman, Celeste O’Connor as Mattie Franklin/Spider-Woman and Isabela Merced as Anya Corazón/Araña/Spider-Girl. 

“Out of the main cast, there were two names I was previously familiar with, that being Sydney Sweeney and Dakota Johnson,” Nguyen said. “I love Sydney as an actress, and her performance in other projects blew me away. She did not disappoint when it came to ‘Madame Web.’ On the other hand, I’m not as familiar with Dakota’s filmography. Before watching the movie, I did see her on [Saturday Night Live], and I thought she did a good job acting-wise. To my amusement and somewhat disappointment, however, her portrayal of Cassie Web was very underwhelming.”

Marvel often gives in-depth stories to their main superheroes, but with this movie, there were a lot of questions left unanswered, according to freshman Anais Herrera. 

“I wish they would expand on Madame Web learning to use her abilities and perfecting them,” Herrera said. “In this movie, you saw it takes a lot of effort for her to use them, and that’s just not efficient.”

Although this movie can be seen as similar to that of one of Marvel’s biggest heroes, Spiderman, it is a standalone universe that shows multiple spider people working together with different powers than the original Spiderman.

“I think ‘Madame Web’ has a deep exploration of different abilities [that] different spiders may have,” Herrera said. “Also, it may offer a backstory to the rest of them.”

By Leah NgSaye