IR Film Review: MADAME WEB [Sony]
The motivation of "Madame Web" has a good idea behind it but ultimately the delivery fails in many ways to achieve the aspect at all of its potential. Most of this has to do with the lack of consequence and a large amount of plot holes that plague the movie. Dakota Johnson as Cassie has a effective basis but her screen presence is muted either by her own approach or the constriction of the story. The progression involves her possibility as a mentor even though she doesn't seem to have any interest in human beings as character. The story wants you to care but never quite achieves this. This, of course, is moved out of a basis of her own upbringing depending on herself after a traumatic experience with her mother (Kerry Bishe of "Penny Dreadful: City Of Angels" note). The baddie Ezekiel (played by Tahar Rahim) doesn't have an adequte motivation beyond power. And the power of the spiders is elusive and mystical. In many ways, this is the same fault that plagued "Morbius".
The characters are fine, even the three teenagers destined to be superheroes. The actresses that play them especially Isabella Merced (who will next be the lead in the "Alien: Romulus" series) have a gravitas that is interesting but not explored enough. Sydney Sweeney as Julia goes completely against type as Julia after her outlay in "Anyone But You". Celeste O'Connor rounds out the trio as "Maddie". She will also be seen in the upcoming "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire". It seems that Sony is trying to build their talent roster but "Madame Web" is just too scattershot in its narrative. Cassie commits all sorts of crimes, steals cars, kidnaps people (in a way) but you never feel she is under the gun or that that element is any real threat. Ezekiel seems to be the only one coming after her.
The sixth sense element is sort of cool and clearly defined but doesn't quite deliver to what it might be. This film wants to set up a bigger universe. But like "Morbius", it is much bigger in its mind than its actual britches and collapses under its own weight. When it moves towards the ending, the actual reckoniing is almost so full of itself that it doesn't take any sort of reality in tow. As a result, a story with some decent characters falters because the story itself just doesn't allow itself to be anything more than a incomplete collection of scenes that, because of their lack of real world consequence, create something fairly empty. C
By Tim Wassberg
