![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Madame-Web-PIC.jpg?resize=620%2C348&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Madame Web<\/strong> (2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 117 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (violence\/action, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: S.J. Clarkson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, Claire Parker and S.J. Clarkson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Johan Soderqvist\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Mauro Fiore\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 14, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O\u2019Connor, Tahar Rahim, Adam Scott, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, Zosia Mamet, Jose Maria Yazpik, Jill Hennessy.<\/p>\n Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n \u00a0They say any praise is good praise so with that in mind, let me say that Madame Web<\/strong> isn\u2019t the stink bomb everybody\u2019s making it out to be. Like the rest of you, I heard all the negative buzz surrounding this latest entry in the SSU (Sony\u2019s Spider-Man Universe) and went in with knives sharpened, ready to cut it to shreds. Much to my shock, it didn\u2019t suck. That is to say, it\u2019s nowhere near as bad as Morbius. At the same time, it\u2019s a long way from the best of the MCU and MCU-adjacent films. The narrative is a mess, the acting isn\u2019t particularly good and the screenplay is littered with gargantuan plot holes. Yet there\u2019s something compelling about it all. It\u2019s like a terrible train wreck; I can\u2019t not look.<\/p>\n \u00a0I suppose a little background info is in order here. Myself, I never even heard of Madame Web until I saw the trailer for Madame Web<\/strong>. Here\u2019s all you need to know. Her real name is Cassandra Webb. She\u2019s a clairvoyant who sometimes helps Spider-Man. She was in the comic books. This is her origin story. Now that we\u2019ve got that out of the way, let\u2019s proceed.<\/p>\n \u00a0Her story begins in 1973 in a Peruvian jungle where her very pregnant mother (Bishe, Halt and Catch Fire) is searching for a rare species of spider whose venom has healing powers. She intends to use it to cure incurable diseases. Her guide and protector Ezekiel (Rahim, The Past) has other ideas. He steals the spider and leaves her for dead. Fortunately, she\u2019s found by a tribe of spider-people who keep her alive long enough to give birth to Cassandra.<\/p>\n \u00a0The story jumps ahead to 2003 where we find Cassie Webb (Johnson, Fifty Shades of Grey) living alone and working as a paramedic in Queens, NY. Socially awkward to the max, she\u2019s better at saving people\u2019s lives than relating to them. Cassie ends up needing to be saved after she nearly drowns at the scene of a car accident. One near-death experience later, her partner and friend Ben Parker* (Scott, Krampus) brings her back to the land of the living. Shortly thereafter, Cassie starts having visions of things yet to happen. She slowly realizes she can see into the future; the only problem is she doesn\u2019t know how to control it.<\/p>\n \u00a0Meanwhile, our old pal Ezekiel is quite possibly the most powerful man in NYC. Not only does he have enhanced physical abilities, he can also see into the future. That\u2019s how he knows his death is imminent and will come at the hands of three women (or should I say Spider-Women). He decides to head fate off at the pass and kill the girls- shy Julia Cornwall (Sweeney, Anyone But You), fiercely independent Anya Corazon (Merced, The Last of Us) and rebellious rich girl Mattie Franklin (O\u2019Connor, Ghostbusters: Afterlife)- while they\u2019re still teens. Lucky for them, Cassie sees their deaths and intervenes. Now their protector, she must stay one step ahead of Ezekiel and the authorities (they think she kidnapped the girls) while she figures out what\u2019s happening and how to stop it. Oh, and how to use her powers too.<\/p>\n \u00a0It\u2019d be totally redundant for me to engage in superhero movie bashing yet again. I think I covered my thoughts on the genre in multiple previous reviews. Instead, I\u2019m going to focus solely on Madame Web<\/strong>. Like I said before, I didn\u2019t hate it. It\u2019s not the worst of its ilk. It\u2019s actually kind of entertaining albeit for all the wrong reasons. The notion of casting Dakota Johnson as a superhero alone is funnier than any given scene in the recent spy misfire Argylle. That is some serious, high-level miscasting.<\/p>\n \u00a0None of the acting in Madame Web<\/strong> is any good, but it stands to reason that would be the case with barely developed characters like the ones presented here. It\u2019s not for lack of exposition though. There\u2019s a whole lot of that going on and it all amounts to nothing. I\u2019ll say this for Johnson. She\u2019s a charming, endearing sort. She\u2019s ideal for comedic roles in rom-coms and the like (e.g. How to Be Single). She\u2019s less successful in more serious roles. She is definitely NOT an action hero. However, I do like the awkward quality she brings to the part of Cassie. Her interactions with her three young charges are one of the film\u2019s stronger points. The problem lies with the girls. They\u2019re very thinly drawn, reduced to character types rather than characters. In one scene, each girl gets roughly a minute of less to tell their story- one is ignored at home, one has absent parents and the other left on her own- and that\u2019s it. It\u2019s a shame because they\u2019re played by good actresses whose talents go untapped here. Rahim, another talented actor, is wasted as the villain, one of the most unmemorable I\u2019ve seen in these comic book movies.<\/p>\n \u00a0Let\u2019s talk about the script here. I\u2019m wondering if the gaping plot holes and lack of cohesiveness is the result of bad writing or post-production tinkering. Either way, Madame Web <\/strong>is a mess. I have so many questions. For example, how is it Cassie is able to drive around the city in a stolen taxi for days and not get stopped by the cops? They must have an APB out on the vehicle. Okay, how about this? How is it she\u2019s able to travel to Peru when she\u2019s wanted for kidnapping? I know there\u2019s an APB out for her and it\u2019s right after 9\/11. How lax is security at that airport? Maybe it\u2019s best NOT to apply logic (or even common sense) while watching Madame Web<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u00a0The fight scenes are about what you\u2019d expect in a superhero movie. All CGI, haphazardly edited and not all that exciting. The flashback and flash-forward scenes are poorly handled too. Director S.J. Clarkson (Anatomy of a Scandal) delivers her feature film debut with a clumsiness one rarely sees outside a Chevy Chase fan club meeting. Again, this could be the result of post-production tampering. I\u2019ll never understand what makes studio execs think they know more about filmmaking than the actual filmmakers. Guys and girls, stay in your lane!<\/p>\n \u00a0Even with all its flaws, I couldn\u2019t help but enjoy Madame Web<\/strong>. It didn\u2019t leave me with a massive headache. It didn\u2019t make me curse the state of film today. It didn\u2019t make me regret losing the time I spent watching it. It did make me shake my head and laugh on more than one occasion. I realize this is back-handed praise, but it\u2019s better than none at all.<\/p>\n P.S. No need to stick around for the credits. There are NO bonus scenes.<\/p>\n \u00a0*= Yes, THAT Ben Parker!<\/p>\n Madame Web (2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 117 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (violence\/action, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: S.J. Clarkson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, Claire Parker and S.J. Clarkson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Johan Soderqvist\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Mauro Fiore\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 14, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O\u2019Connor, Tahar Rahim, Adam Scott, Mike Epps, Emma Roberts, Zosia Mamet, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure","category-guilty-pleasures"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Madame-Web-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1208"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1212,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208\/revisions\/1212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Madame-Web-POSTER.jpg?resize=620%2C918&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"