Madame Web – REVIEW

What were they thinking? A wannabe Spiderman spinoff about a female paramedic named Cassie Web who has clairvoyant abilities after a near death experience and is somehow connected to Spiderman?

Cassie assigns herself the task of protecting a trio of future spider women from an enemy that is trying to kill them. Why is Cassie having visions of the future? Why is a strange character dressed in a black spiderman outfit attempting to kill these sweet young defenseless women? And who are the spider people? The only question that needs to be asked after watching a mere thirty minutes of this dribble is, does anybody really care?

Dakota Johnson, who starred in the steamy and silliest commercially successful Fifty Shades trilogy portrays Madame Web. The real mystery is why an actress who can’t act with her clothes on, or off for that matter, was cast in the titular role.

Sydney Sweeney, who also underwhelmed in the inexplicably successful summer box office hit, Anyone But You, was dressed as a nerdy teenager, laughably one of the spider women of the future who will save the world from evil.

This movie is riddled with problems. The dialogue doesn’t flow naturally or spontaneously. Many of the scenes feel contrived and very rehearsed – audiences seemed to laugh in all the wrong places.

The first half was exhausting to watch owing to the setting up of a new superhero which fans of the genre really aren’t interested in. Too much talking and minimal superhero action until the last act — which was unfortunately too little too late — resulted in a dreary, dull, and unexciting cinematic experience.

With the exception of an atmospheric musical score and beautifully shot scenes in Peru (but were they shot in Peru?) this latest cringeworthy superhero flick felt like a ‘straight to streaming’ feature which had very little to offer.

Studios are blaming ‘Superhero fatigue’ for the decline in global box office revenues. However, quality, or lack of quality is also obviously a contributing factor. It’s stressful watching this movie, as it starts off badly and only seems to get worse.

This genre is on a downhill slide and scraping the bottom of the barrel with this convoluted and frightful mess, which hysterically is an inadvertent parody of the superhero genre.

Madame Web is slated to be a new Marvel franchise with several sequels. But with the predictable failure of this latest embarrassing cinematic offering will there be a sequel? Not likely….

★ 1/2

In cinemas now