Madame Web (2024) review

NYC paramedic Cassie Webb (Dakota Johnson), who grew up an orphan because her scientist mother Constance (Kerry Bishé) was killed in Peru while conducting research on exceptionally rare spiders, starts to notice she can predict when things are going to happen ... and then has to save herself and three teenagers, Julia (Sydney Sweeney), Anya (Isabela Merced) and Mattie (Celeste O'Connor), from a persistent lunatic (dressed up in a Spider-Man get-up) named Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim) who wants to wipe them out.  This seems to have drawn the ire of almost every 'professional movie critic' out there (it was also mocked at the Academy Awards ceremony by both host Jimmy Kimmel and presenter John Mulaney) and although it isn't even close to good, it's no worse than many other Marvel offerings out there that truly received a lot of backlash (most recently: Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom).  The "storyline" is ludicrous - one example: hacker Amaria (Zosia Mamet), with "tools" from the NSA, has to monitor all data from the entire East Coast - and, until the finale, is missing virtually any action ... but the cast is cute and there are several unintentional laughs to be had, like driving an ambulance through a Calvin Klein ad.  Johnson's been somewhat disparaging of it since it came out (she claimed the final result was "unrecognizable" from the original screenplay) so there's no guarantee she'll return for possible sequels, but that surely won't stop the studio from trying....