Madame Web (12A)

Thirty-something paramedic Cassandra "Cassie" Webb witnesses many strange things from the back of an ambulance but her life in Manhattan is about to spin off its axis. Following an accident, Cassie struggles to control psychic abilities which allow her to glimpse future events and subtly alter the course of history. This magical clairvoyance pinpoints Ezekiel Sims before he attempts to kill three young women, Julia Cornwall, Mattie Franklin and Anya Corazon.

LondonNet Film Review

Madame Web (12A) Film Review from LondonNet

If you were blessed with the ability to glimpse the future, sufficiently in advance to have a positive impact, would you actively create ripples through time – with potentially devastating consequences – or resignedly trudge down a predestined path? Dakota Johnson chooses wilful intervention as the bewildered heroine of director SJ Clarkson’s muscular origin story torn from the pages of Marvel Comics. Adapted for the screen by Clarkson and three co-writers, Madame Web tumbles through a Spider-Verse already inhabited by numerous spandex-clad Peter Parkers, voracious alien symbiote Venom and vampiric doctor Morbius. Aaron Taylor-Johnson will join the fold in late August as merciless warrior Kraven The Hunter…

The reluctant heroine of Clarkson’s solidly entertaining chase thriller is bound to the Parker family’s tragic mythology by chance, living in 2003 New York where production design doffs a nostalgic cap to the distinctive blue and yellow livery of Blockbuster Video and a billboard for Beyonce’s debut studio album Dangerously In Love on a parking garage wall. The soundtrack boogies to female-powered pop and rock courtesy of Britney Spears, Mis-Teeq, Meredith Brooks, 4 Non Blondes and The Cranberries as frenetic visuals ping pong between reality and the title character’s imaginings, allowing us to share her dizziness and confusion. Action sequences rely on digital effects but technical wizardry doesn’t completely outmuscle the sisterly solidarity.

Thirty years after her scientist mother (Kerry Bishe) died whilst giving birth in the Peruvian Amazon, New York paramedic Cassandra “Cassie” Webb (Johnson) coolly saves lives without forming any emotional attachments besides her level-headed work partner, Ben (Adam Scott). A routine call-out almost ends in tragedy and Cassie’s solitary life in Manhattan spins off its axis. She experiences disorienting visions, initially passed off as déjà vu, which suggest she is predisposed to glimpse the future and subtly alter the course of history through her actions.

This magical clairvoyance pinpoints Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) before he attempts to kill three young women, Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney), Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor) and Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced). Ezekiel possesses similar powers of prediction to Cassie and he has foreseen the trio will unlock extraordinary abilities and collectively end his reign of terror. Aided by technical expert Amaria (Zosia Mamet), Ezekiel enacts his callous plan of self-preservation, targeting everybody who stands in his path… including Cassie.

Madame Web joins Captain Marvel and Black Widow in proactively addressing the gender imbalance in a lucrative, action-oriented genre dominated by testosterone-heavy, white male fantasies. Johnson isn’t afraid to let her protagonist be unsympathetic, even unlikeable, in the eye of a computer-generated storm. As Cassie masters her abilities, tension dissipates because we know she can outflank Ezekiel and always stay one step ahead of him. She doesn’t play fair but he’s the villain.

– Jo Planter