Madame Web

The second movie in my double feature yesterday was Madame Web and, after reading some horrible reviews, I really wanted to give it a chance but it is just so bad.  Cassandra "Cassie" Webb (Dakota Johnson) is an antisocial paramedic who gains the ability to see into the future after a near death experience.  While on a train she has a vision of an attack on three girls, Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney), Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced), and Mattie Franklin (Celeste O'Connor), by a man with spider-like abilities.  She rescues them before the attack can happen and then recognizes the man as Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), an explorer who was in the Amazon with her mother when she was researching spiders right before she died (this meme-able line from the trailer is not actually in the movie).  It seems that he stole a rare spider with healing properties from Cassie's pregnant mother and he can see his death at the hands of the three aforementioned girls in the future and wants to kill them before they can do the deed.  After another attack on the girls, Cassie reluctantly takes responsibility for them, learns her backstory and why she has this strange ability, and finally faces Sims in a fiery confrontation.  Much like the Venom movies (which I disliked) and Morbius (which I didn't even bother to see), this is another attempt by Sony to create a full-fledged narrative about a side character in the Spider-Man universe and it doesn't really work on any level.  The story is often nonsensical even though there are plenty of clunky exposition dumps in the dialogue.  The action sequences are not very interesting because the writers and the director have no idea what to do with a character whose power is mental rather than physical (she tells the girls to get down a lot) and the editing is so disjointed that it is hard to even see what is going on.  The villain is not very compelling or well developed (I have so many questions) and Rahim's ADR is some of the worst I have ever seen or heard.  Johnson can be a great actress (I love her in Cha Cha Real Smooth and The Lost Daughter) but she needs good material to elevate her performance and, in this mess, she seems completely disengaged from what is happening.  Sweeney gets the most screen time out of the three girls (I have lots of questions about them and their powers, as well) but she is incredibly bland.  Ugh!  The best part of this movie, in my opinion, is Cassie's partner Ben Parker (Adam Scott) who becomes an uncle (wink wink) during the final confrontation.  Even with very low expectations I was still disappointed with this movie and I highly recommend giving this a miss.

Note:  Don't even get me started on the product placement...