Madame Web Movie Review: A superhero origin story, written by a Chatbot

A few weeks ago, Dakota Johnson, during her Saturday Night Live Monologue, delivered a punchline on her upcoming film Madame Web. “It also stars Sydney Sweeney. It’s like AI created your boyfriend’s perfect movie.” Every joke has a grain of truth. What if ChatGPT or any of those other AI chatbots your techie friend can’t stop gushing about, did actually write this film?

The conversation below is totally fictional. Any resemblance to anyone living, dead or awaiting sentience is completely coincidental.

Starring: Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O'Connor, Isabela Merced, Adam Scott, Emma Roberts and Tahir Rahim

Directed by: SJ Clarkson

Ok, AI chatbot, we need a Marvel movie.

Chatbot: Sure, here's a brief excerpt from a hypothetical Marvel movie script:

Title: Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Convergence…

No, no, a ‘female-led’ Marvel movie.

Chatbot: Certainly! Here it is:

Title: Marvel’s Captain Marvel: Cosmic Crisis…

Cut, cut! This character is still a property of Disney. Let’s think of something out of the box. Let’s have a female Spiderman movie.

Chatbot: Absolutely! Here it is:

Title: Spider-Woman: Arachnid Awakenings…

Wait. Decent, but we need to go back. I need something period. I need an unexplored superheroine. I don’t want the words ‘spider’ or ‘woman’ in the title. What else do spiders have? Spider-tentacles? Spider-legs? Spider-thread? Web! But web-woman sounds strange. No, Madame! Web-Madame!

Chatbot: You mean, Madame Web? Because there is a Marvel character by the name. First appearing in the Amazing Spider Man No. 210 published in 1980, Cassandra Webb is Madame Web, a clairvoyant mutant with myasthenia gravis…

A clair- what?

Chatbot: She can see the future.

Ok, interesting. Cool, give me a scene.

Chatbot: Definitely! Here it is:

INT. Ancient Sanctum-Night

A young Cassandra Web, with a veil over her eyes, is in deep meditation. She is sitting on a wheelchair…

Wait, our superheroine is specially-abled?

Chatbot: Yes, she is! She can see the future.

No, no, you idiot bot! We are in talks with Dakota Johnson for this. I can’t have her sitting on a wheelchair for the entirety of the film. I need her to move, I need her to run.

Chatbot: Ok, she is not on a wheelchair.

Better. What does she do? She needs to be in a saviour profession.

Chatbot: She is a…cop?

Nah, too political. Something more neutral

Chatbot: A firefighter?

No, more caregiving

Chatbot: A paramedic?

Works, go on

Chatbot: Cassandra, “Cassie”, Webb is a paramedic who suddenly develops the power to see the future.

Yes, but more pathos.

Chatbot: Cassandra, “Cassie”, Webb is an orphan paramedic who suddenly develops the power to see the future.

Yes, but how? How did she get these powers?

Chatbot: They were given to her by…by… the spider people. An ancient tribe in the…Amazon rainforests.

Splendid! But we need a different name for these spider people. How about “The spiders” or something more exotic. The Las Aranas!

Chatbot: Genius! And her mother died during childbirth. She was in the forests in 1973 to research spiders whose peptides can give superhuman abilities to people. The Las Aranas tried to save her, but could only save the child.

Amazing! Now, we need a villain.

Chatbot: How about somebody who betrayed her mother?

A good old revenge tale. I like this.

Chatbot: He was her guide in the forests. He betrayed her and ran away with the spider she was searching for. Now, 30 years later he has used the spider to attain superhuman powers. He can climb on walls. He wants to kill the daughter too.

No, no. We need some female bonding and a sense of feminine unity. Who kicks ass? Girls! We need more girls.

Chatbot: Ok. How about the villain who wants to kill three teenage girls but now it is up to Madame Web to save them?

Yes! And these girls hold the strings of the future. They are future spider-women! But how will Madame Webb save these girls? She can’t have any other superpowers. This needs to be only cerebral. She has to fight brawn with brains.

Chatbot: She rams a car into the villain.

Nice! That can be used in one action sequence. I need something different for another.

Chatbot: She rams an… ambulance into the villain?

Oh! Paramedic. Ambulance. I see what you did there! Now, we need an ally for her. Not a boyfriend, a platonic friend maybe.

Chatbot: How about somebody who works with her as a paramedic?

Ok, but he needs to be of significance. Somebody who is connected to this web of destinies. A vital part.

Chatbot: How about Peter Parker’s uncle?

A young Ben Parker?

Chatbot: Yes…

Marvellous!

This is the best explanation I can come up with for the plot of Madame Webb. The screenplay seems to be haphazardly assembled with elements from all Marvel movies. It seems like it was either written during the Hollywood Writers Strike or the idea was to make a parody. This origin tale is more embarrassing than Ryan Reynold’s mouth-sewn act in the climax of X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). There aren’t dialogues, just exposition and the scenes seem to be written either for or by Tommy Wiseau (The Room), maybe for his own entry into the Marvel Universe.

In an interview leading up to the film’s release, Dakota had said that the early version of the film was very different to the story that made it to the screen. “There were drastic changes,” she said. “And I can’t tell you what they were.” Guess we will never need to know.