Look, there's a certain level of suspension of disbelief we gamely surrender when watching superhero movies. You want me to believe that a superhero serum can transform a scrawny Brooklyn boy into a hulking super-soldier? Sure. You need me to accept that an alien from a far-off planet looks like an All-American farmboy, and no one recognizes him when he wears glasses? Okay. Spider bites lead to spider powers? Absolutely.
But there are some absurdities I just can't swallow. And in Madame Web, it's everything around the bad guy being barefoot.
Comic book devotees know the depiction of Ezekiel Sims in a dapper suit paired with no socks; no shoes is true to the source material. You see, his ability to scale walls like a spider is dependent on bare feet. To that I say: 1) The movie never makes that clear, and 2) Gross.
New York City is too gross to be barefoot.
Madame Web is not set in a jauntily animated New York City, where Miles Morales skips to school and multiverse mayhem turns street signs into public art. This Spidey spinoff takes place in live-action New York City in 2003. And as someone who lived there then (and ever since), I can tell you flat out, this city is disgusting.
Rats are so rampant here that pizza rat became a beloved icon, and we have a rat czar as a full-time government job. Broken glass and discarded gum are so prevalent that they've become an accepted part of the sidewalks, glittery and growing grey. And have you ever heard of hookworm, a parasite you can pick up through the soles of your feet? Google it and be haunted.
All that means that going open-toed in the subways is a risk. And yet Ezekiel Sims is strolling through the trains, bare feet blazing? Call me Dakota Johnson on Ellen, because I am putting my foot down.
Madame Web could have pulled an Avatar: The Last Airbender!
Props to Tahar Rahim, who plays Ezekiel in the film. He has the swagger and snarls of an espionage movie villain, down to his dapper attire and his high-tech gear, which is helmed by an amusing Zosia Mamet. But every time I see that he's barefoot around New York City, it takes me out of the movie. It's not just because it makes my feet cringe within their high-topped protection shield. It's because Ezekiel is supposed to be a villain who fits in SO well with the crowd that no one sees him as a threat until it's too late.
If today a handsome man in formal wear boarded the train without shoes, he'd be recorded and splashed across TikTok before he could even stand clear of the closing doors. That fashion statement stands out.
But hey, Madame Web is set in 2003, long before TikTok and Twitter made a meal out of public shaming. Still, we had cell phones. We had eyes. If the cops or reporters asked strap hangers if they saw something odd, you better believe someone would be telling a Daily Bugle reporter, "It looked like the women were running from a fancy guy with no shoes on — which tracks. That's hella sketchy." (Because 2003.)
I can reason that maybe Ezekiel's mythic spider powers not only allow him to scale walls but also to deter rats, cockroaches the size of wallets, and hookworms. Fine. But people would notice if the guy was flaunting naked feet in one of the greatest and grossest cities in the world. At the very least, he could wear a pair of easy-to-kick-off sandals, or Toms or even Crocs!
You want to be true to the comics, Sony? Fine. Then keep his soles bare, but take a page from Avatar: The Last Airbender, where Toph, a warrior who depends on bare feet to flex her earthbending, wears soleless shoes to blend in.
Sure, that's a wild idea in real life. One couple proved as much by setting TikTok aflame with their soleless exploits, claiming to have cut the bottoms out of $20,000 worth of footwear just to subvert stores' "no shirt, no shoes, no service" policies. (They should really google hookworm!) But the reveal of soleless shoes could have made Ezekiel seem more clever, more unnerving, more dangerous!
As it is, the barefoot business is a big red flag for anyone on NYC transit to steer clear. And with that being the case, did those chased-about teens really need Madame Web at all?
Madame Web opens in theaters Feb. 14.
Topics Film
