The new Spider-Man movie without Spider-Man takes place in 2003. Paramedic Cassie Webb (Dakota Johnson) falls off a bridge, dies drowning, gets resuscitated, and declares: “I just wanna go home and watch Idol.” There are midriffs; the skatergirl bonds with the wallflower by teaching her how much boys love belly buttons. Beyoncé’s Maxim cover is production design. Teens table-dance to Britney’s “Toxic” right before the villain attacks with poison powers because he is himself toxic. Some missed opportunities, though. 2003 was Outkast, Sean Paul, neocons deplatforming the Dixie Chicks, The O.C. broadcasting emo. A terror age when people drank more and said whatever. Madame Web is merely an accidental gutbust comedy which begins when “mythical Spider-People” help a dying scientist give birth in an Amazonian cave. You feel a needle left undropped when the chief Arachno-Doula holds the newborn aloft. His gaze of momentous fate almost seems to say: Go, shorty, it’s your birthday.
The baby grows up to be Cassie, a hardboiled EMT whose near-death experience leaves her reeling with visions of the future. She’s not crazy. She’s just a little unwell. Elsewhere in New York, her mother’s killer sees his own impending death. Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) received inhuman abilities from the same Peruvian venom that saved Cassie’s life. His costume deserves a holographic trading card: Black fabric, red slashes, very Spidey But Heroin But Ninja. He dreams of three mysterious costumed women killing him. It’s a haunting premonition. He’s talking to himself at night because he can’t forget. One assailant has tarantula limbs. Another casts psionic brainwebs. The third does I forget, something spider-ish. Lil Jon predicted the trend. All these females crawl.
Ezekiel wants to stop tomorrow’s heroines today. He finds them on a train to Poughkeepsie. Every single one’s got a story to tell. Mattie (Celeste O’Connor) hates her rich parents. Julia (Sydney Sweeney) wears glasses. Anya (Isabela Merced) excels at math. They’ve never met and know nothing of their super-destiny. Cassie, also aboard by chance, uses her prophecies to rescue them from Ezekiel. The women go on the run. What follows would be a superteam origin, Sony’s Shevengers, except only one hero has powers. Their single move in CGI fights is ramming Ezekiel with a car. Madame Web looks cheap. The dialogue’s atrocious. I can’t recommend it, except I must, because I lost my mind laughing.
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