An insufferably clunky, over-expository and rudderless origin story of a fringe character from the Marvel multiverse, Madame Web spins a yarn so insubstantial that it snaps in no time and is all over the place. Not a pretty sight, to say the least.
Barely 10 to 20 minutes in, it is easy to see the bleak future of the two-hour movie – and the franchise that might be on the anvil over at Sony. It goes nowhere. The dialogue is ham-fisted, the action amateurish, the visual effects rudimentary and the final outcome disastrous.
Marvel fatigue is one thing, sheer ineptitude is quite another. The two mingle in Madame Web, directed and co-written (with three other writers) by S.J. Clarkson. Their toil yields an utterly unwarranted movie that should have been better off nixed at the drafting stage.
As for the acting, the less said the better. And that certainly isn’t for want of effort. The actors strive very hard indeed. The strain shows. With an overload of inanities to deal with and tide over, the cast – besides Dakota Johnson, it includes Sydney Sweeney and Tahar Rahim – is hard-pressed to pull the proceedings out of the fire.
There is little humour going around. Most of the film’s attempts at being funny fall flat and the bursts of energy that peppers Madame Web are too overly affected to be effective. Dakota Johnson, she of the three 50 Shades films, is saddled with a role that approximates the character’s arc in the film – until the very end, she struggles to figure out who and/or what she can be if she were to put her mind to it.
In her original comic-book avatar, Madame Web is an aged, sightless wheelchair user endowed with powers that help her see the future …read more
Disclaimer : This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by FilmyFriday. Source:: NDTV.com
