Rated PG-13

MADAME WEB stars Dakota Johnson as an ambulance driver who discovers she has mystical spider powers because her mother was bitten by an Amazonian spider while giving birth.

Just go with it…

She uses her precognition… wait, is that something spiders have? Anyway, she can see the deaths of three teenage girls and tries to save them. And you thought that radioactive spider bit was hogwash.

The film takes place in 2003, and it feels like it was made then, in the era of Ben Affleck’s DAREDEVIL and Nicolas Cage’s GHOST RIDER, complete with goopy CGI and pulpy dialogue.

Spider-Man is a box office juggernaut, so naturally, Sony wants to retain the rights to the characters.

The problem is that without Spider-Man himself, we are left with bizarre secondary characters. And without the oversight of Marvel Studios, we get nonsensical plots with cringe-worthy dialogue. Remember this was the studio that brought you MORBIUS.

MADAME WEB gets two spider webs out of five. I’m Kevin Carr, and that’s the way I see it.

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