Madame Web is based on the Marvel comic book character created by Denny O’Neil and John Romita Jr. that first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #210. She was able to predict the future and helped Spider-man in his adventures. A few decades later the character was updated to a modern-day context. Now she has gotten the big screen treatment which I’m sure will tie into the greater Sony Spider-Man shared Universe of Characters

Cassandra  Webb (Dakota Johnson) is an EMT in New York City. While she’s at an accident scene she sees her life flash before her eyes. After this, she starts being able to see glimpses of the future. She ends up helping three teenage girls on a train who are in jeopardy with a man who is after them. She learns he has ties to her deceased mother. Her past that she didn’t know anything about.

Somehow Johnson’s character has a connection to these three young ladies, Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor), Ariana Corazan (Isabelle Merced), and Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney). As she delves deeper into her past it allows her to see the future and how the man, Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) is trying to kill them. The four women have to team up to try and stop this man. There are some unexpected consequences though.

With flashbacks and dream sequences, the director SJ Clarkson tries to give viewers who aren’t familiar with this character a backstory. Various scenes are set in Peru, one in 1973 and the other in 2003. When this film is set it shows special spiders who have given those that are bitten by them get abilities. Smims wants these abilities not to go to these girls so they can’t threaten his future.

Sony is trying to start their own shared Spider-man Universe of Characters and Madame Web is one of the cogs in the wheel of connecting their films to the MCU in some strange way. Not that they haven’t already done so with Spider-Man No Way Home. It just seems to me like this film is setting something up down the line but I just can’t put my finger on it.

Dakota Johnson is a good actress but she hasn’t found that big role that will put her over the top as a great actress like her mother, Melanie Griffiths. I don’t think the role of Anastasia Steele in the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise is that character either. She’s fine in this role but the story is all over the place. Most of the acting from the entire cast is pretty subpar. She is the best of the bunch though.

The biggest flaw this movie has is it’s a bit convoluted despite efforts to make it make sense from a script point of view. Scenes of characters in Superhero garb are a bit misleading and don’t have anything to do with the main plot of the film. There are a couple of contrivances as well. Things have to happen a certain way so other things can happen.

Madame Web is a situation that introduces a character a lot of people don’t know about, unless you read the comic books. It gives a backstory using flashbacks and dream sequences. These are what they try to use to support the main plot of the film. The acting isn’t bad but it’s also not that great. Johnson does the best she can with the material she’s given. I just don’t know who’s going to understand or watch this who aren’t comic book fans.

2 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen