2024   Sony Pictures

Rated:  PG-13

Length:  1 hr  56min

Action ~ Thriller

Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, Celeste O’Connor, Adam Scott, and Mike Epps.

“They’re teenagers now, but in the future they have powers and will try to destroy me.”

Dakota Johnson stars as Cassandra Webb, A New York paramedic who finds her singular life suddenly and inexplicably changed after an accident on an emergency call. Strange things begin to happen in her life she cannot explain. Then she is seemingly thrust into the role of protecting three random teenage girls from being harmed by a mysterious man with extraordinary powers.

I confess I looked at some reviews of this movie before I watched it to see what it was about. There are a lot of negative reviews, way more than good. I’m not really a Marvel Comic book fan (I read comic books as a kid but was never super into them) so I’m no expert on the story itself. I watched it to see for myself but I did go in knowing about all the negativity.

From the beginning scene where Cassandra’s Mom Mary Parker is pregnant in the Amazon with The Bad Actor (Pun intended) Ezekiel Sims searching for a spider, I had my doubts. What is she doing in the Amazon pregnant?  The answer to that question gets answered later as the story unfolds. Then Ezekiel quickly turns into a bad guy right as Mary Parker finds the elusive spider and proceeds to shoot everyone in sight including Mary and then steals the spider. It was kind of a hokey scene and Ezekiel is terrible in that scene (Voice included).

As the story unfolded I was drawn in by the characters and the relationship between Cassandra and Ben Parker (Adam Scott). I like Adam Scott and Mike Epps, and things started to pick up rather quickly. There is another scene early on that had me a little baffled. Mike Epps gets into an ambulance and Cassandra tries to talk him out of going because she has a vision of a crash. Seconds later as you see the ambulance drive off it gets hit by a dump truck. As they do an overhead shot of the scene you see the dump truck was headed at a high rate of speed towards the end of a commercial dock.?.

Another moment that made my ears perk up in a questioning way was when Ezekiel is poisoning a Federal Agent and as she’s dying says “Trust me…It’s a good thing you had no idea you were going to die today.” What?…and that voice…ughh..grating. That scene was really bad acting wise, just horrible.

I did like the story itself and I got drawn into the relationship between Cassandra and the three girls she was protecting. By the end of the movie I was wanting to see more of that Spider Sisterhood story and see how they developed into the Superhero girls that were haunting Ezekiel’s dreams. So in the end I am conflicted….

I liked Cassandra and The Spider Sisterhood story (I found myself rooting for all of them and thought they did a good job). But Tahar Rahim as the Bad Actor Ezekiel Sims (again pun intended) was horrible. Some of the scenes were really far fetched like Cassandra suddenly taking off for a quick trip to the Amazon while Ben watched the girls. “Ok, be right back.”

So yes and no……

One thumb up, the other down.