After seeing a good amount of trailers and promo for “Madame Web,” I was excited to head to the theaters and give it a watch. Released Feb. 14, unfortunately this movie did not exceed, or even meet my expectations.
The plot is centered around Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson), who is a New York paramedic who develops an ability to see the future — and hopefully change it. Webb faces many challenges throughout the story and needs to protect three young women from a villain who is after them.
I can definitely see what the writers were aiming for, but it was just poorly executed. This movie was supposed to be an action packed, superhero origin story, but it truly fell flat with the background details dragging on for so long in the script. The most intense action neared towards the end of the movie and only lasted a few minutes — the trailers did a better job at heightening the combat scenes.
The acting itself was very mediocre, and Johnson didn’t really seem to have her heart in her role, unlike in her other movies. Our villain Ezekiel (Tahar Rahim) was very stereotypical — he felt threatened and had to destroy anyone who made him feel that way.
The script was not written well. There were so many words, but with nothing said— I laughed at multiple lines that weren’t supposed to be funny. The editing was another thing that was poorly executed. A lot of the special effects came out looking cheesy and there was a really awkward ADR (automated dialogue replacement) that was delayed.
Aside from the negatives of this movie, I did really enjoy some of the on-screen chemistry. While the characters fell flat personality wise, Julia (Sydney Sweeney), Mattie (Celeste O’Connor) and Anya (Isabella Merced) had great flow and charm.
The soundtrack was also a notable positive that I can take away from watching this film. Hearing ‘Toxic’ by Britney Spears and ‘Dreams’ by The Cranberries made this movie a little bit more watchable.
If Disney or any other company fought for the rights to produce this movie, it would’ve been much better. Sony butchered the story of “Madame Web” and instead replaced it with a painfully long “filler episode.”
Overall, “Madame Web” had a lot of potential but it took a very downwards turn. I wouldn’t voluntarily watch this movie again and I wish another company would have taken over this production. Dakota Johnson didn’t attend much of the press for this movie, which makes me think she was warning us.
“Madame Web”: ★☆☆☆☆
