Rexcpectations: Madame Web

Recxpectations are my Recommended Expectations for where people’s heads should be when they go to see a movie. I believe that having the right expectations is key to enjoying the filmgoing experience. Expect greatness, and a good movie might seem disappointing. Go in expecting nothing and a hokey film can be entertaining enough. I try to keep these expectations as objective as possible; this isn’t a review, it’s a heads-up.

DON’T EXPECT: a good movie
Now I’m sure some people will see this and say, “So much for being objective!” but again, this is about setting expectations. I'm sure there are some people out there who’ll enjoy the movie but I think EVERYONE will be best served if they walk into the theater expecting a lousy flick. I don’t think there will be many people who go in with high hopes and walk out saying, “Mission accomplished!” Set your expectations at the lowest possible level and the odds of you having fun will be increased.

EXPECT: a Final Destination sequel
To best enjoy this movie, don’t go in expecting something comparable to Spider-Man or The Marvels or even Morbius. This movie is more like a straight-to-DVD Final Destination cash-grab sequel. The one caveat to this is that you shouldn’t expect any scares. Midway through the film, I thought, “This could actually have been a pretty good horror movie,” but, alas, they didn’t go that route. Still, in terms of quality, “Madame Web” feels surprisingly low-budget. The villain spends a good chunk of the film in his fairly empty apartment. His “guy in the chair” is Zosia Mamet, who probably filmed for one day and never got out of said chair. The main characters spend an inordinate amount of time in isolation - first in a car, then in the woods, and then in a hotel room. The amount of bad ADR (dialogue replacement) is embarrassing. The score is so generic that it feels like they blew the music budget getting Brittany Spears’s “Toxic.”

EXPECT: an impossibly hacky script
My prediction is that Sony will eventually reveal that they had AI rewrite the script. I honestly don’t think a human being could put together a screenplay this formulaic and dopey. (And only a robot being trained by movies from the 80s could come up with the Pepsi product placement.)
And, again, “dopey” here is objective. You have to prepare yourself for a film that features everyone’s favorite expository classics such as our hero: talking to her TV, talking to a stray cat, reading out loud, and - my all-time favorite - an overheard voicemail from a phone that clearly doesn’t have the kind of answering machine that would play messages out loud while they were being left.
The amount of ADR in the film does seem to point fingers at execs meddling in post-production and making demands for additional on-the-nose dialogue (and if anyone in the filmmaking process could be replaced by AI, it’s the execs) but, again, you have to go in expecting a script on par with low-budget horror films - all the way down to the girls, who are being actively stalked by a killer, deciding to take a break to dance all sexy for some random fellas.

DON’T EXPECT: a range of emotions
The acting in this film is weirdly muted. Detachment is kind of Dakota Johnson’s character’s main trait so it makes a little sense for her but everyone in the film undersells the threat level and tension. If there’s a word to describe the emotion of the movie, it’s “nonplussed”.

DON’T EXPECT: tears from Dakota
There are a couple of times when Dakota Johnson needs to get emotional and, well, let’s just say that it doesn’t look like crying on cue is in her acting arsenal.

DON’T EXPECT: good CGI
I will give the editor credit for trying to cut around as much CGI as possible. I wish there would be more creative shooting and editing to limit how many effects shots are needed because it’s become painfully obvious that mainstream films as asking for more than they can competently handle.

DON’T EXPECT: the meme line from the trailer
After the trailer came out, a clunky line about how the bad guy “was in the Amazon with my mother before she died” went viral. I’m not sure if it was just a line recorded for the trailer or if the ridicule made the studio switch things up but the line does not actually appear in the film.