Madame Web

It is the template for superhero profiles. They are young orphans. They are troubled. They are called to a higher purpose outside themselves but don’t know how to go about achieving it.

Such is Cassie, the protagonist from Madame Webb. She is a New York paramedic who begins having visions of things that may or may not happen. There is no mentor to guide her through the experience. No sidekick or butler. And thus, she must figure things out on her own

The beginning shows how Cassie was born in Peru, in a Cave pool, where her mother passes away upon her birth. It was conducted in the ceremony of a mysterious tribe who set a spider on her mother’s chest which lands a bite that transfers an ability to baby Cassie. It is later discovered to be the power of clairvoyance.

What’s interesting is how Cassie, played by Dakota Johnson, comes into terms with her gift. The screenplay allows time for her to experience clairvoyance and fail to act on it. This allows the story to have humanity. And Johnson is particularly good in looking uncertain about how to realize and handle her new ability.

Alas the movie suffers from a mediocre villain named Ezekiel (Tahar Rahim). He too was in Peru at the beginning. But his goal later shifts from obtaining the same power to resolving dreams that have been haunting him – of three female superheroes (Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O’Connor) who are out to get him. Ezekiel has a clear vision of what they look like and employs an assistant to hack into all NSA devices to locate the three women. This assistant (Zosia Mamet) is on the computer throughout the movie, usually in the dark.

Madame Web, directed by S. J. Clarkson, has action sequences that are startling and done with good special effects.  The climax in particular works in how it doesn’t have impossible feats and instead uses the old fashion sequence of having people dangle high up from the ground, while the villain tries to get to each of them.

Dakota Johnson is a credible actor and she’s effective in scenes where Cassie tries to understand her power. If only Ezekiel had been reimagined. He spends the movie with two looks, either a classy outfit with bare feet or a thick black rubber suit that looks like it was randomly picked from a costume rack. This is a mixed bag movie that might work if the villain could be ignored, which in itself may require a superpower.