I feel this is best described as an elseworlds movie. In this world Constance Webb is searching for a spider she believes has healing properties that could help the unborn child she is carrying. Betrayed by a cohort in her expedition named Ezekiel who understands the spider can give him superhuman powers based on the legends of the Peruvian tribe Las Aranas. Jumping forward about 25 years Cassie Webb has grown up and is a paramedic in New York. A near death experience triggers the latent abilities in her blood infused in her when Las Aranas tried to save her mom and her.

Cassie begins seeing visions of the future that complicate the hell out of her life. At the same time Ezekiel reveals himself as a dark Spider-Man (much like Flash has Reverse Flash) that sees a future where he will be killed by three future heroes. This all sets the stage for the bulk of the movie. Cassie trying to save the teens who will become those heroes (although none of them know it) with Ezekiel using technology to track them so he can kill the teens before they get empowered and can destroy him.

Ezekiel is incredibly formidable as a villain, especially as there is no direct super hero to fight him. The three girls are nothing more than typical teens at this point and Cassie hasn’t tapped in to her power yet. And even still, her power of seeing the future seems pretty weak against a dark Spider-Man who is fine with wanton destruction and killing.

Don’t get me wrong, I could pick this movie apart. There are some moments where Cassie leaves the girls alone to go and find information leading to dumb teens doing dumb things and viewers wondering why the adult left them. But the core of this movie I found engaging. Our heroes to be trying to stay alive with just their wits in the face of a much greater threat is very different than Superman worrying about what Lex Luthor’s current nefarious plot will be. It felt like we couldn’t be sure this would end well, even though we know super hero movies usually end well.

I for one would absolutely love to see a follow up movie to this or a tv show exploring the three girls as they will somehow get spider powers. I worry though that the idea of super hero fatigue and the lackluster box office performance will mean that Madame Web never gets the chance to carry on the world it hoped to build. Much of that can be blamed on Sony I feel. This is the fourth excursion into their SpiderVerse following the much maligned Morbius and two Venom movies. In fairness I have not seen any of the others, it’s on my to do list.

I give this an 8 star review. The few little things that bothered me in the movie naturally brought it down a notch, but the realization that this will likely not get the chance to grow hurts the review as well. Which admittedly isn’t completely fair, but I feel like I am more generous to this movie than 95% of the world was.