Dog’s Movie House: “Madame Web” A Trainwreck Of A Superhero Movie!

“Madame Web’s” plot is something of a mess. It has something to do with spiders in the Amazon with super healing powers, a murder in said jungle in 1973, and that murder victim’s daughter 30 years later. That daughter is Cassie Webb (Dakota Johnson) a paramedic who prefers the company of herself to anyone else. When a near death experience leaves her with the power to see events in the near future, she ends up reluctantly safeguarding three teens (Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, & Celeste O’Connor) from a man named Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim). He just happens to be the killer of Cassie’s mother and his exposure to the special spider has given him superpowers comparable to that of a. . .you know the rest.

Ezekiel has been having dreams (or visions) of these three teens who are all destined to become Spider-Women and kill Ezekiel. Taking these visions as the gospel truth, Ezekiel decides to kill the three before that vision becomes a reality. Enter Cassie, who’s prophetic visions provide her with the ability to keep these three from becoming Ezekiel’s victims. Choppy editing, subpar special effects, and uneven performances ensue.

Where to start with “Madame Web?” It’s as if first time feature director S.J. Clarkson and her writers (two of which worked on the underwhelming “Morbius” have know idea how to put together a compelling film, let alone a compelling superhero movie. The script is full of groaners and thinly written characters, the worst of which is Ezekiel, whose motives are so vanilla and vague that he’s hard to take seriously. The three teens aren’t much better, acting stupidly when they should know better. Johnson seems to be having a good time in a bad film as her dry line readings have “paycheck” written all over them. Her only real chemistry is with Adam Scott’s Ben Parker (yes, that Ben Parker, only a lot younger) Cassie’s paramedic partner. Their banter is the only believable dialogue in the whole damn film.

Clarkson adds stylistic flourishes to Cassie’s visions, which while novel at first, become more and more headache inducing as the film goes on. The action is shaky and the effects are right out of mid-nineties CGI. The Spider-Women aren’t Spider-Women for the most part and their costumed personas are only shown sporadically. Rahim’s Ezekiel suffers from not only an uninstering character arc, but bad dialogue and a goof in line dubbing that makes the dialogue and Rahim’s lip movement seem like they come from different sources. It’s truly headscratching as to how this film actually got made in the first place.

When folks talk about “superhero fatigue” crap like “Madame Web” is what they’re talking about! About as blatant a cash grab as you can get, “Madame Web” doesn’t even fall into the “so-bad-it’s-good” category. It’s just bad. . .bad storytelling, bad production, a bad idea all around. 1 Out Of 5 On Kendog’s Barkometer! So Sayeth The Kendog!

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