Madame Web

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Not suitable under 12; parental guidance to 14 (violence, scary scenes, themes, language)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Madame Web
  • a review of Madame Web completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 20 February 2024.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 12 Not suitable due to violence, scary scenes, themes, and language.
Children aged 12–14 Parental guidance recommended due to violence, scary scenes, themes and language.
Children aged 15 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Madame Web
Classification: M
Consumer advice lines: Violence
Length: 116 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Paramedic Cassie (Dakota Johnson) has a near-fatal incident while trying to rescue a man from a car accident. After being resuscitated by her partner Ben Parker (Adam Scott), she discovers that she can glimpse the future. While on a train, Cassie sees the brutal murder of three vulnerable, teenage girls and, before the gruesome events can take place, she helps them to escape. Julia (Sydney Sweeney), Mattie (Celeste O’Connor) and Anya (Isabela Merced) have no idea what is happening or why an evil man with spider-like superpowers is determined to kill them. When Cassie discovers a photo of Ezekiel (Tahar Rahim), the man who is hunting them, in her mother’s things, she realises that somehow she is the thread that is connecting them all. In order to get answers, she returns to Peru, to the jungle where she was born and it is here that she discovers the truth of her past and also the potential of her future. Here Cassie learns that Ezekiel was cursed the moment he killed her mother and that the girls she is protecting are destined to take Ezekiel’s life, unless he kills them first. Returning to the US, Cassie must use her newfound knowledge and find the strength within herself to stop Ezekiel and save the girls.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Abandonment; Revenge; Family dysfunction and breakdown; Greed and the lust for power.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

  • Ezekiel shoots and kills three people.
  • Cassie helps rescue a man who is in an overturned car. She is trapped inside when it falls off a bridge into the water. She is unconscious and clinically dead for a few minutes before Ben can save her.
  • Cassie hallucinates and sees blood all over her hands as she tries to save someone. She realises this is a glimpse of the future when those same events soon take place.
  • A girl with spider powers attacks Ezekiel in a dream. She is joined by two others who help in the attack. Ezekiel is hit, kicked and punched repeatedly until he is pushed through a glass window and plummets to his death.
  • Ezekiel tells a woman that he has this same dream every night. He also tells her that he will find the girls and kill them first.
  • Ezekiel grabs a woman roughly by the arm and poisons her with his touch. A deadly venom races through her veins and quickly kills her as he won’t let her go.
  • Cassie catches glimpses of her boss’s violent death moments before the ambulance is hit by a speeding truck. She drags her boss out of the wreckage and tries to resuscitate him but it is too late.
  • Many people are injured in a fireworks explosion and ambulance officers attempt to save them.
  • A bird flies into Cassie’s window and dies. When it happens again, she is able to save its life.
  • Ezekiel strangles a young girl.
  • Ezekiel breaks the neck of one young girl and then attacks another.
  • Ezekiel, dressed as a spider creature, attacks a group of police officers. Some are strangled or knocked unconscious, and all are incapacitated.
  • Ezekiel climbs up walls and dodges bullets as he pursues the girls.
  • Ezekiel attacks Julia (in a vision). He slams her neck into a table and strangles her.
  • In another vision Ezekial poisons Mattie and stabs Cassie in the chest.
  • Cassie drives a taxi into a restaurant and slams it into Ezekiel. Ezekiel tries to poison her by grabbing hold of her wrist, but she kicks him away.
  • Cassie steals an ambulance and drives into Ezekiel with it.
  • Ezekiel is electrocuted after walking through fire.
  • Cassie drives an ambulance into a row of parked cars to throw Ezekiel off of the roof of the vehicle.
  • Cassie and the girls put flares in a fireworks factory. An explosion rocks Ezekiel to the side and blows up a wall.
  • Multiple fireworks explode, nearly hitting Ezekiel.
  • A helicopter is damaged and explodes.
  • Ezekiel tries to strangle and kill Cassie.
  • Julia, Mattie and Anya dangle above a raging fire, holding onto a beam.
  • Cassie manages to save all three girls while Ezekiel punches her in the stomach.
  • Ezekiel falls from a bridge and is crushed by a sign.
  • Cassie falls from a bridge as balls of fire shoot after her. Her face is burned, and her eyes are blinded.
  • The girls are in a potential future fight scene involving a man with a gun.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • Some children are likely to be scared by the images of creepy, spider-like people in the trees of the Peruvian jungle, or of Ezekiel when he looks like a sinister Spider-Man and poisons or attacks people.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • Cassie’s mum dies during childbirth. She reaches out to touch her newborn daughter but dies before she can make contact with her.
  • The scenes in which Cassie witnesses the girls being violently killed may be very distressing to some children.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

  • Nothing further noted.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

  • Pepsi is shown and consumed on several occasions and a large Pepsi sign is seen.
  • Calvin Klein.

Sexual references

  • None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • Ezekiel and a woman kiss passionately. They are later shown in bed together.
  • The girls dance on a tabletop at a restaurant and flirt with a bunch of guys.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • Cassie asks for a beer at a baby shower but is given a soda instead. Others hold beer in their hands.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Crazy-ass
  • Bitch
  • Asshole
  • God damn it
  • Shit
  • “God” and “Jesus” are used as exclamations.
  • A teenager gives Cassie the middle finger.

In a nutshell

Madame Web is an action adventure from Sony Pictures. It is a stand-alone film with some subtle tie-ins to Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise. The plot is fast paced, although somewhat disjointed. The film has a diverse cast as well as strong, female role models and positive messages about standing up for what you believe in and discovering that you are more powerful than you ever imagined you could be. The film is best suited to teens and adult audiences.

The main messages from this movie are that the mind has infinite potential; that no matter what path we are on, we have the power to change the future; and that the past is part of who we are – if we are able to embrace it, understand it and heal the wounds we carry, we become far stronger as a result.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Teamwork
  • Compassion
  • Forgiveness
  • Courage
  • Responsibility.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Neglecting one child in favour of another or because you are too busy to care what they are doing.
  • Using violence to get what you want.
  • Believing something about someone before you know the truth of the whole situation.