4 min to read
Madame Web
Was this movie as a disaster as people think?
The Good: One of the only good things about this movie is the cinematography. While the story was all over the place, those filming seemed to have done a great job. There were some shots that had wide takes; some with long, drawn out sequences; and others that just had great angles. Sadly, some of the good technicals cannot save the movie from being a complete mess.
The Meh: While there were some good ideas for action scenes, I think there was definitely a lot of missed opportunities with this movie. The fact that someone can see the future can be a really difficult thing to navigate in a movie. If you can see the future and know exactly what to do, there is no inherent struggle for that character. In the case of this movie, Cassie Web literally does most things wrong and keeps getting them wrong until she just randomly knows exactly what to do. While seeing someone who can see the future make a lot of mistakes makes for a more interesting experience, the action and story associated with seeing the future was a little bland.
There were a few good ideas in the movie, (having us think Cassie was failing at saving the girls but finding out later that she actually was seeing a vision) but after those scenarios, it was as if she knew what to do along and just does everything successfully. They should have been able to show us visually what it looks like to navigate through the infinite decisions of what may happen. What if a failure we are seeing actually took place in the movie wasn’t actually in her head, but an actuality, and she was able to have that failure lead to the best outcome of them all? Ideas like this should have been explored, but they weren’t. What makes it worse is that most of the “seeing the future” scenes were shown in the trailers, so they weren’t even a surprise to movie goers.
I also think that some of the story overall was a little undercooked. Within the film itself, I think there are a lot of great ideas in there, but they were spliced together in a really bad movie. The idea of someone being able to see the future, this can be an awesome movie idea. Having someone reconnect with their dead parent, this is an awesome idea for a movie. The idea of someone struggling to find joy and purpose in life to eventually finding said joy and purpose is a great movie idea. All of these crammed into this movie were very underwhelming.
The Bad: One of the main detractors of the film is that it seemed that nobody wanted to actually be in the movie. Because of this, the performances by the actors were extremely bland and didn’t capture any emotion. Cassie Webb basically kidnaps 3 girls to try to protect them, and the girls don’t really show any fear or terror at all. They are just mad they were taken and don’t care there is a guy trying to hunt them down and kill them.
The other terrible part of the film was the audio overlay. For nearly every line Ezekiel Sims had, his lips did not match the words that were being said and it was painfully obvious. There was no attempt by the studio to try and fix any of it. Because of that, not only was the viewing experience worse, the voice work that was overlaid also lacked significant fluctuation in tone, so everything the villain said seemed extremely monotone and generic. Being monotone and generic is generally what you don’t want your characters to be. They are supposed to feel like the pages of comic books have come to life, being full of energy and color. That was not what this movie was.
Overall: While the movie is not good, I don’t think it’s as terrible as some people say. To me it was almost so bad it was good. I thought all of the ridiculous story beats, the terrible ADR, and the bad acting made this movie so funny to watch. Because of that, I think some people (like me) will love seeing how bad a movie can be and find the fun in that, but I know the majority of people who will watch this will just want to walk out and not finish the movie.
Rating: 2.5/5
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