Word was out early on that the latest Marvel film, MADAME WEB, was one of the worst films ever made.
But…in watching the first 1/2 of this film, that was not the case. Sure, the set-up (pre-credits) scene was pretty hokey (with a villain played by Tahar Rahim that did everything but twirl his mustache to show that he is the bad guy), but once we got to the pre-origin of Madame Web, the interplay between Dakota Johnson (Cassandra Web) and Adam Scott (Ben) as two paramedics was pretty fun. And, while the film is terribly written, these two made the best out of flimsy material.
And then, in came the 3 twenty-somethings playing teenagers who were written to look and sound like pre-teens and the “emotional core” of the film that pushed Cassandra Web to become MADAME WEB.
And that’s were things fell apart pretty severely.
Blame for this tone deaf SuperHero film falls right at the feet of veteran televison Director/Writer S.J. Clarkson who turned her T.V. abilities to a “Major Motion Picture” that she drove down to T.V. standards.
In the lead role, Dakota Johnson is a perfectly adequate screen presence and when she is paired with someone like Adam Scott (who is, probably, the best thing in this film), she can rise to a level above adequate. But when she was given some VERY clunky dialogue during her big “emotional/turning point” scene, she just doesn’t have the skill to raise bad dialogue to something better. What she DOES have the skill to do is to EMPHASIZE just how bad the dialogue is.
And…don’t get me started about the 3 “teenagers” who are in peril (played by Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced and Celeste O’Connor). They were not believable as teenagers, characters or future SuperHeroes for a moment. It did not help that they were costumed as some extras from an ‘80’s musical video about high school.
And…why was Emma Roberts in this film? Was she promised something bigger in MADAME WEB 2?
As with all SuperHero films, the action scenes are vital to the success of the film, and these (at least) were competently shot - though one must care about the peril that the hero’s are in (this time at a conveniently located fireworks factory), and that just was not the case.
Fortunately, the misfire of this film will spare us from suffering through MADAME WEB 2, so we have that to be thankful for.
Letter Grade: C+ (Did I mention that the Adam Scott/Dakota Johnson scenes at the beginning are actually pretty good)?
5 stars (out of 10)…and you can take that to the Bank (ofMarquis)
Comments