When I left the theater after watching Madame Web wasn’t necessarily “why?”, but instead “how?”. How did Columbia Pictures create such a mess? How did Marvel and Sony sign off on it for distribution? How did director S.J. Clarkson and writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless create such a disaster for a film? There are so many questions that need answers for what can only be stated as “incredibly disappointing”.
Madame Web stars Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb, an orphaned EMT whose mother, unbeknownst to her, was murdered prior to her birth by Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim). After an accident in which she very nearly dies, Webb unlocks some incredible powers to be able to see the future before it happens. She then encounters three girls on the subway, Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney), Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor) and Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced).
When she envisions their deaths at the hands of Ezekiel, Webb saves them from certain doom. Ezekiel hunts the three girls down as he has visions of his death at their hands further into the future as superheroes, but the girls are just normal through the events of the film.
Above all the bad things that Madame Web does, one thing stands out for certain. The ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) in this film is rampant and horrifically done. Now, ADR is a pretty common practice in the film industry, and when done well should be seamless, so that the audience can’t tell. Here, though, its pretty horrific. Almost every scene has some form of ADR, and it’s incredibly obvious from the get-go. Like the cast was dubbing over the English with English.
Unsynced lines to lips, lines being said when no actor is talking, and even more can be seen through the film. The worst offender is Tahar Rahim, who plays Ezekiel. It seemed that almost every single line of his is put through ADR and it’s bad.
Rahim’s performance is equally as bad. He’s not memorable as a villain, gives a stale performance that’s devoid of any emotion, and it’s incredibly boring. I’m not really sure how he got cast in the role above everyone else who must have auditioned. No one in the film gives an especially strong performance, but this one rises above the rest.
It doesn’t help that the script is completely lifeless. At times, it felt like it was written by AI. At best, it’s directionless and emotionless. It’s a first draft that never got a second look. My favorite line in the film is when Johnson’s Webb is feeding her cat some milk and says “Wow someone must be hungry.” is it’s drinking milk. It’s simple errors like the omission of “thirsty” that don’t look good for anyone. It’s no surprise that the screenwriting duo of Sazama and Sharpless are responsible, given that they wrote the unanimously panned Morbius, Gods of Egypt, Dracula Untold, and The Last Witch Hunter.
The story, however, is even worse. Barely any motivation for the villain, one dimensional characters with no development, sections where nothing is happening when things needed to happen to keep the story going. Beyond that, there’s blatant product placement all over the place, including an awful Pepsi ad.
On the flip side, I will say I enjoyed the dynamic between Sweeney, O’Connor and Merced. They do their best to save a sinking ship, and I appreciate their efforts.
Final Thoughts
Pick what bad aspect of filmmaking you want and it’s sure to be present in Madame Web. Bad acting, a bad story, a bad script, a bad villain, bad cinematography with too many jump cuts, bad fight choreography and bad CGI leave little to be desired anywhere else. It’s no doubt that Madame Web is a bad movie, one that you can skip out on even for the most die-hard of Marvel movie fans.
