Cassandra Webb is a New York City paramedic who starts to show signs of clairvoyance. Forced to confront revelations about her past, she must protect three young women from a mysterious adversary who wants them dead.
Director: S.J. Clarkson
Madame Web arrives onscreen barely registering a pulse thanks to a bland script and a cast that's as disinterested as the audience. S.J. Clarkson does her best to give this low rent version of Edge of Tomorrow some life early on but using inventive angles and shots during some of the action sequences. There are small slivers of energy, especially early, but once the film goes into an endless cycle of repetition which kills any sense of momentum or entertainment. Those hoping for some mindless superhero action will be sorely disappointed since the majority of that occurs in a flash forward which the film never occurs in the actual film, leaving this film as nothing more than set up for a future installment. Instead, the film follows Dakota Johnson's Cassandra Webb kidnap/rescue the trio of Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O'Connor and Isabela Merced and chaperon them around before abandoning them for an impromptu day trip to Peru. It’s all rather nonsensical and illogical which might be goofy if any of the cast put any sort of effort into their performances. Johnson leads the cast with one of the more uninspired performances in a big budget film in recent memory. Her consistently monotone line delivery makes it feel like we are watching rehearsal footage instead of the final cut. That energy runs across her supporting cast who are saddled with the most generic clichés of early 2000's teenage girls. It’s so painfully bad that you wouldn't be surprised if they randomly started singing Spice Girls song just to drive the point home about the live action Brats dolls assembled. Tahar Rahim doesn't fair much better as the film's sort of evil Spider-man from the dollar store with his stilted delivery that makes Johnson look inspired in comparison. Madame Web is a mess of a film that commits a variety of sins which would be forgivable if it wasn't so incredibly boring.
D-
