Starring: Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabella Merced, Celeste O’Connor, Tahar Rahim, Emma Roberts, Adam Scott, Mike Epps
Distributor: Sony Pictures
Runtime: 117 mins. Reviewed in Feb 2024
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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Cassandra Webb is a New York metropolis paramedic who begins to demonstrate signs of clairvoyance. Forced to challenge revelations about her past, she needs to safeguard three young women from a deadly adversary.
This tale is almost the exact opposite of the Marvel Universe adventures. It is the villain who has the powers while the lead, Johnson as Cassie Webb, has no superpowers except for some anticipatory glimpses of the future. As she says, she can see the future, ‘kind of…’
This film was produced by Sony which seems to have the rights to Marvel stories connected with spiders – all the Spiderman films, the Venom films as well as Morbius. And, at one stage, someone does a riff on the well-known statement, this time the great responsibility has power.
Here Marvel has given us something of a Girls Night Out show – not too much to appeal to macho Marvel fans.
This is the Tale of the Threatened Three – three initially annoying and self-preoccupied 16-or-so-year-olds targeted by a power-hungry maniac (Rahim, a long way away from his excellent roles in French films). It is he who is the Spiderman variation with costume, mask, ability to climb walls, walk upside down on roofs and leaping from vehicle to vehicle – but no web.
Cassie Webb is an efficient New York fire department paramedic, working alongside the nice Adam Scott whose sister-in-law, Emma Roberts, is pregnant and will provide an urgent setting for the climax. But Cassie has some strange hallucinatory moments, déjà vu as reality catches up with her glimpses. An accidental falling into the river in a locked ambulance leads to mysterious underwater lights and experiences. She doesn’t know why.
But, we do. We have seen the prologue to the film where in Peru, 30 years earlier, her pregnant mother is searching for an exotic spider with mysterious healing powers. She is betrayed by her partner, Ezekiel (Rahim) who makes off with the spider, but has visions of three teenagers who will threaten his life. He has amassed a city-wide super surveillance system and goes in pursuit.
At one stage, Cassie trains the girls in CPR. Seems a bit tame but, of course, it alludes to an upcoming plot point. Subtlety is not part of this movie experience. Nor is there any doubt about Sony and Pepsi’s extensive promotion contract and business partnership with a huge Pepsi Cola sign crashing into prominence.
Pregnant mothers and daughters, baby showers, teenagers flirting, female heroics… As Marvel Universe tales go it is a bit moderate.
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