Madame Web

A paramedic (Dakota Johnson) discovers she has the power to see into the future, and act on it. She then must protect three girls (Sydney Sweeney, Celeste O’Connor, Isabela Merced) from a bad guy (Tahar Rahim) who wants them dead.

I went into this well aware of its reputation as a bit of a dud, but when a friend told me she’d seen it and it suffered from the most basic of technical difficulties and she wasn’t sure it was even finished, I had to see for myself.

Madame Web manages to destroy the illusion of cinema through poor effects, dodgy editing and, worst of all, excruciating ADR. Tahar Rahim in particular has scenes where he’s talking but his lips aren’t moving at all. Whole scenes just recorded in post then cut to show as little of his face as possible.

The script is stuck in a kind of first-draft stage, and it’s clear that everyone in the film isn’t entirely sure about what’s going on in each scene. In that regard Dakota Johnson is perfectly cast, she handles her nonsensical lines with a certain kind of quietly sarcastic nonchalance that she’s best at. She’s almost openly attacking the dialogue while acting it out in the film and it tickled me.

So are we in so bad it’s good territory here? I suspect this might become a cult film in the future but right now, like many films in this territory, its major crime is just being incredibly boring. It’s a weird, repetitive, directionless attempt to start a new franchise.