Movie Review – Madame Web

Obviously, no one involved with making this movie can see into the future. If they could, they wouldn’t have made this movie. It would have been more fitting to make this an animated movie aimed toward eight-year-olds. Sorry, not to insult eight-year-olds, but this is the level of maturity this movie contains. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about: when Cassy drives back to her apartment to look at her mother’s notebook she parks her stolen taxi and releases that since it’s stolen she should remove the license plates. As if a taxi parked in an alley without plates isn’t going to attract any attention.

Cop #1: There's a taxi parked in this alley. 
        Maybe it's the one that was reported stolen.
Cop #2: This can't be the stolen taxi. 
        That one had plates, but this one doesn't.

And how does Cassy get the plates off? Well of course there’s a crowbar laying on the ground near where she parked. Because, you know, there’s always a crowbar sitting around when you need one. Let’s not even get into how easily she popped the plates off, like she was taking the lid off a container of butter.

These are simple little details in a movie. It’s not the plot, or the dialog. It’s just a simple little scene, that honestly didn’t need to be included at all. But if you are going to include it then get it right.

What else? With about 30 minutes to go in the movie Cassy has to go discover the nature of her powers. So it’s off to the Peruvian jungle. And how exactly is she going to catch a plane when the cops are looking for her? Plus, the bad-guys hacker woman has access to every camera. At least the glossed over those details. I’m sure if they tried to account for them it would have been a disaster.

There Was Acting

There’s no way I’m going to criticize the three young women, Syndney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, or Celeste O’Conner, or Dakota Johnson for the lifeless acting. No one was going to pull a great performance out of the dialog they had. There were a handful of scenes the girls were in alone together. It would have been daring of the director to just describe what she wanted out of the scene and then let the young women act it out themselves and make up their own dialog. There’s no way they could have done worse than what they were handed in the script. Because what we got was obvious acting. It was like watching middle-aged women told to act like teenagers.

The Perfect Villain

The best thing about this movie is that the villain is a perfect example of how not to create a villain. First, zero sympathy for him. There’s a back story in there that could have possibly made him somewhat sympathetic, but we only learn about that in one line of dialog from the villain himself, so there’s little value in it. Aside from that, the villain has no grand scheme, or none that we’re aware of. He’s just living large in NYC. Apparently, he’s not using his powers for anything other than trying to kill three girls who kill him in his dream/vision.

Wait For Streaming

I could go on, but what’s the point? Remember, this isn’t the MCU. This is a SONY production/disaster. The MCU has gotten enough bad press over the last few movies. They don’t need to be blamed on this one that they had nothing to do with.

Just wait for this movie to stream, and then if you’re lucky you’ll get distracted by anything better and forget to ever watch this.

Grade: F

About The Peetimes: All of the Peetimes are pretty good, but I would recommend either the first or the second Peetime over the third one.

There are no extra scenes during, or after, the end credits of Madame Web.

Rated:	(PG-13) Violence/Action and Language
Genres:	Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Starring:	Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced
Director:	S.J. Clarkson
Writer(s):	Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, Claire Parker
Language:	English
Country:	United States

Plot
Cassandra Webb develops the power to see the future. Forced to confront revelations about her past, she forges a relationship with three young women bound for powerful destinies, if they can all survive a deadly present.