The Movie Is Awful, but Dakota 'Transcends' It

The critics do not like Madame Web, the latest entry in the Spider-Man chronicles. This one stars Dakota Johnson as Cassie Web, a little-known character from the Marvel comics. The movie is getting an anemic 13% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes, though fans are more sympathetic at 55%. One point some critics are making is that while the movie is awful, Johnson herself is not.

• Pans: Lovia Gyarke at the Hollywood Reporter calls the film the latest example of how studio execs love to "dig up minor characters, dress them in a fog of hype and leave moviegoers to debate, defend or discard the finished product." Its "lack of imagination would be astounding if it wasn't so expected." David Fear at Rolling Stone calls it the "Cats: The Movie of superheroes movies," referring to the 2019 dud of an adaptation. At the Guardian, Benjamin Lee calls it "as dumb and schlocky as the worst of the genre."

• Silver lining: "The only real bummer ... isn't that it's bad, but that it never achieves memorably terrible status," writes Manohla Dargis at the New York Times. Johnson, however, has a "natural ability to appear wholly detached from the nonsense swirling around her. Most actors at least try to sell the shoddy goods; Johnson serenely floats above it all." By the time this "dud" of a movie is over, she "transcends" it.
• Go see it: Others think people should lighten up. "Is Madame Web a good movie? No. Is it hilariously delightful? Often," writes Katie Walsh of Tribune News Service, who thinks Johnson fans should see it. In a similar vein: "It's a travesty, a disaster, a blight on the history of superheroes and cinema itself," writes Sam Adams at Slate. "I enjoyed the hell out of it."

(More Dakota Johnson stories.)