FILM
MADAME WEB
IN THE END, HER WEB DIDN’T QUITE CONNECT US ALL
Madame Web/Cassie (Dakota Johnson, second left) with her spidey mates.
★★
OUT NOW / CERT 12A / 116 MINS
DIRECTOR S.J. Clarkson
CAST Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Adam Scott, Zosia Mamet, Celeste O’Connor
PLOT Cassie Web (Johnson) is just an ordinary ambulance driver — until one day, a near-death experience awakens dormant psychic powers.
EARLY ON IN Madame Web —the latest superhero film to be based on a Spider-Man-adjacent comic series —Dakota Johnson’s Cassie Web rejects a thank-you gift from the child of a woman whose life she just saved. From this, you can probably surmise that firstly, she’s awkward around kids, and secondly, she will eventually end up having to protect some kids. Like many heavily telegraphed moments in this film, you won’t need psychic powers to figure that one out —even if Cassie herself does, in fact, shortly develop such powers.