Madame Web
Okay, let me be perfectly clear when I say that I did NOT pay money to go see Madame Web in theaters because I simply did not want to support Sony and their sad, lifeless superhero films that they continue to churn out. I waited for it to come to streaming services and watched it there, and even though I waited and watched countless reviews and Tik Tok’s talking about how horrendous it was, I truly wasn’t prepared for how bad this movie really is. And before we go any further, let me set the tone by saying this is, by far, the WORST superhero movie I have ever seen, and I am putting that up against ice-skating Batman in Batman and Robin.
The story follows Cassandra Web (Dakota Johnson) who plays a paramedic who lacks any sort of emotion or feeling whatsoever. In fact, for lack of a better term, she’s basically a total asshole to everyone she meets or interacts with. Alongside her “friend” (I guess?) Ben Parker (Adam Scott), she slowly begins to realize that she can see the future, or at least small fractions of it and begins to live in this weird time-lapse that is a mixture of the past, present, and future. In one of her “moments” (I will not associate the coined term spider-sense with this garbage), she sees 3 teenage girls being murdered by a man in a black suit and decides to basically kidnap them to keep them safe. As it turns out, this wannabe symbiote-suited homeboy was in the Amazon with her late mother as they were in search of a mysterious spider with healing powers. The man, Ezekiel, ends up killing Cassie’s mother and the entirety of their camp to take the spider for himself, abandoning Cassie’s mother as she is dying. As she is taking her last breaths (check this shit out), a whole tribe appears who are apparently the “keepers” of this mystic spider, with faces painted and Tarzan-esque skills, to save her and deliver her baby before she passes. Yeah, I don’t know how this has anything to do with Spider-Man either.
So, you would think that through this plot there would be numerous fights and battles between Cassie and Ezekiel, as well as the 3 girls, who also eventually get powers. Right? Well, if that is what your expecting, you are sadly mistaken. There are hardly any actions scenes in this film aside from a few ten to fifteen second snippets of fighting in Cassie’s head before she reverts back to the present, then they avoid those moments entirely. How can you call this a superhero movie when there is hardly any action or any sort of correlation to what Spider-Man is or what Madam Web’s relationship is to him?
Aside from the terrible script and dialogue, the script isn’t the worst part of this whole thing. The acting and voiceovers are that of a sixth grader making a movie for his fine arts class. It is very clear that Tahar Rahim (Ezekiel) doesn’t speak very good English and has a heavy accent. Now, I am not clowning this man because of his accent or ethnicity, but it was clear that there were A LOT of issues with his dialogue given the amount of voiceovers and reshoots in his scenes, and you know what, sometimes those can help fix some problematic scenes or even fix some messy lines that may have not come out as clear as the director would have liked. The only thing is, the reshoots and voiceovers are done so poorly that in numerous occasions the sets of the reshoots are not the same as the original shoots, making it blatantly obvious that certain cuts are done in a whole other location. And even as bad as those look, the dialogue voiceovers for Ezekiel are worse. The words don’t match his lips, the emotion doesn’t fit the scene, and some dialogue is louder than everything else in the scene. It’s all so poorly done that you would think that a little kid with a tablet put those scenes together.
On top of this horrid performance, Dakota Johnson manages to top Rahim’s performance by making her character so unlikable that you could care less if she shows back up on screen or not. Bland lines, horrible acting mixed with a terrible script did not create a winning formula for her. Hell, there were times that it felt like Adam Scott was doing anything and everything he could to entice her give more emotion in their scenes and when Adam Scott is carrying you through scenes, you know you’re in trouble. I know Emma Roberts appears in a few scenes, but she has such few lines that it’s hard to give any comments on her performance. I’m sure after she saw the final product she was glad to have had such little involvement.
Sydney Sweeney, Isabel Merced, and Celeste O’Connor are the three other “superheroes” in this film, even though the audience only sees them do superhero stances in their suits for, I think, 20 seconds? Maybe less? I don’t even know. Anyway, Merced and O’Connor give half decent performances and keep their scenes afloat with their wit and punchlines, though they seem more like juvenile comic relief than anything. Sweeney, on the other hand, shows off exactly why she was cast in this garbage, or in anything for that matter – to smile and look pretty. I don’t say that to be rude or condescending, but her acting in this film is so laughably bad that I would put her performance right below Johnson’s. Her lack of chemistry with any of the cast, along with her terrible dialogue and acting were enough to make me cringe multiple times throughout this film. Also, she looks like she’s 25, but tries to act like a little schoolgirl in a uniform. C’mon Sony, we know EXACTLY what you were trying to accomplish there.
I was trying really hard to find any sort of silver lining in this film as I do for a lot of the movies that I watch and do not like because most times there are some positives that can come out of a bad movie like surprise performances, good concepts that were poorly executed, etc. But this abomination had nothing to write home about. Aside from the sup-par performance from Scott that was overpowered by Johnson’s attempt to act, there is hardly anything that I saw that made me think positively about this film, aside from the fact that it’s not very long and my eyes didn’t bleed.
So, does this film live up to the hype that it garnered when it came out? It absolutely does if you go in with the right mindset and with no expectations. I watched this with a few friends and after laughing through most of its scenes, we came to the conclusion that it is very much possible to enjoy this movie. My suggestion? Go into it with the mindset that you are watching a spoof or comedy. Then, and only then, this movie becomes enjoyable.
1/5