After a mess of a development and seemingly just one trailer that made waves online for all the wrong reasons, Madame Web has finally hit theatres. The latest in Sony's "Spider-Man side character movies without Spider-Man" franchise is just as many expected; a big dud. It's a bit of a shame as this does have a lot of potential, but there's so much bogging it down.
Dakota Johnson plays Cassandra Webb, a New York paramedic who after an accident on the job develops the ability to see into the future. When she has a vision of a man (who is barefoot for some reason) killing three teenagers on the train, she is thrust into a tangled web of potential futures as she tries to protect the three. Oh and also the weird evil man is essentially a Spider-Man and the three teenagers are also basically going to turn into Spider-People one day. Fun!
I'm going to get the positives out first. The dynamic between the three girls; played by Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O'Connor, is really great. I love the way the three play off of each other, and the middle act of the film where most of the time is spent with them and Dakota Johnson is the best part of the movie in my opinion. There are points where Dakota Johnson is kinda sleepwalking through this but the middle act is where she's at her best and that's the point where I was honestly liking it. In that middle bit the way her character uses her powers is also the most interesting. Adam Scott is also pretty fun in a limited role, although the way his character is tied to Spider-Man does feel kind of annoying with Spider-Man absent. This may also seem like a dig, but there are moments where the movie is kinda so bad it's good, with goofy choices that actually work in a campy way. Unfortunately a lot of it is so bad it's just plain bad.
In discussing this film's many flaws I'll start with the one that bothered me the most without question: the villain. I hate to speak in hyperboles but Tahar Rahim as Ezekiel Sims (aka the evil Spider-Guy) is possibly the worst villain I've ever seen in a movie. I know Rahim got buzz for The Mauritanian so maybe he isn't a bad actor, but this performance is awful. Granted, his lines are really bad, but every moment he was on screen just made me mad as he took weak dialogue and made it even more cringe worthy. As I noted to earlier, he's also just randomly bare foot all the time?? which I really hated. Many have also pointed out the awful ADR, and those complaints rein true as his lines are not just phoned in but also don't match up with his mouth. From the moment he appears on screen he pissed me off and that never ends, as on top of the bad dialogue and bad performance, the character itself has genuinely no motivations.
He is certainly not the only problem though. The writers Matt Sazana and Burk Sharpless have been discussed a lot online as to how they keep getting work, and there's some valid points in there. None of the films the two have written have garnered any critical acclaim. and their filmography includes absolute trainwrecks like Morbius and Gods of Egypt. Maybe they'll improve but this is yet another rough script, with cringe worthy dialogue from start to finish and little to no temporal logic. The film also isn't shot or edited very well, with action scenes and "future vision" scenes that are genuinely hard to watch due to the framing and weird editing. Early on there's also a scene between Ezekiel and Cassandra's mother where it cuts back and forth as they speak and does a weird crash zoom every time it cuts, and it is almost cartoonishly jarring.
All in all, it's a film that starts really weak, finds some footing in the middle, and then completely fumbles the final act leading to a brutally cringe worthy final moment. From nearly every element this is a misfire, albeit an entertaining one at times, but that entertainment is often ruined by a truly dreadful villain. I hate to be overly negative towards a movie but this was just a big miss.
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