Sony has been hopelessly trying to get fans to care about its live-action Spider-Man cinematic universe, but it’s come to no avail. Although the first Venom film had landmark success, its underwhelming sequel poured cold water on the franchise’s hot momentum. Morbius is rightfully regarded as a flop across the board and, even worse, represents an embarrassing moment for Sony as internet trolls gaslit them into believing that they wanted the film to return to theaters.

Now, Madame Web acts as the culmination of Sony’s failures – and it’s honestly a damn shame. Despite the film’s trailers never instilling confidence and there being a persisting negative perception, there was a lot of potential for it to be special for fans. The story concept of Cassandra Webb/Madame Web (Dakota Johnson) trying to keep three future Spider-Women safe from a spider-powered man named Ezekiel (Tahar Rahim) is honestly pretty awesome in theory. There’s some cool story potential for Cassandra’s psychic/premonition abilities to create standout storytelling and action. Most of the Spider-characters shown make their film debut, so fans of those characters can truly rejoice. Plus, Ezekiel’s motivations are intriguing and unique because of their more personal nature.

There’s so much that could’ve gone right for Madame Web and that potential for something good is definitely present when watching the film. To be honest, even the Final Destination vibes of Cassandra foreseeing death and danger presents the possibility for a horror-esque Spider-Man story. Unfortunately, Madame Web clearly didn’t have the care or attention it needs and ends up being a total mess in every facet.

First and foremost, it’s baffling as to how Sony let the film release in this condition as the final cut has some glaring oversights. There are these terrible-looking camera zooms that turn tense exchanges into something laughable. Dialogue is often not synced correctly for certain characters – mainly Ezekiel – so the film resembles one of those poor English dubs for an old anime like Speed Racer from time to time. Not to mention, Ezekiel’s voice is so cartoony to the point where you can’t take him seriously. There’s even added voiceover lines that genuinely take you out of the moment because of how noticeable they are. This film is so poorly executed on a technical level, and it truly embodies the lack of awareness that went by the making of this film. Even worse, that absence of refinement seeps into the performances.

Although the cast is filled with notable talent, no one rises to the occasion to deliver a solid performance. Everyone looks uncomfortable with the lines and scenes they’re performing in, and the chemistry is completely off with all the characters. The relationships – both established and formed – feel totally forced and the writing for these characters is so generic. Cassandra is constantly a snarky buzzkill who’s tough to like and difficult to connect with. The three future Spider-women have backstories that are wildly undercooked, and the film utterly fails to make their arc meaningful or remotely coherent. They basically go from being at each other’s throats with cheap insults being tossed around to feeling like they could be something together – and it’s not satisfying or deep in the slightest.

The dialogue writing is honestly terrible too as the jokes deliver more disgruntled sighs than laughs and lines that are meant to result in strong turns for characters ultimately come out weak. Instead of the performances uplifting the material, they completely buckle, and it results in an experience that no one feels they want to be a part of. What’s most disappointing though is that Madame Web completely drops the ball with introducing interesting and new elements to Sony’s Spider-Man universe.

Frankly, it’s hard to wonder why Sony decided to make this a Spider-Man story at all because every connection to that world doesn’t fit with this story in the slightest. The elements focused on Cassandra’s mother being in the jungle with mythical spider-people is just bizarre and creates messy storytelling from the start. There are barely any moments where we get to see the three future heroes actually in costume – which is super frustrating because the costumes look great. The addition of Ben Parker (Adam Scott) and the connections to Peter Parker are pointless and serve virtually no purpose in the plot. Plus, there are no wider connections to the other films in this universe – so, the hints at a future story or impact have no weight or meaning to them. This film didn’t need to be a Spider-Man related experience at all, and what it does have is vastly underwhelming.

Madame Web is an unfortunate error that’s Sony’s cinematic Spider-Man universe is going to struggle to live down. It’s an utter disappointment in every way imaginable and easily the most poorly conceived and made film in the series thus far. Sony’s finally hit rock-bottom with this universe and Madame Web is a sign that they desperately need to course correct before things come to an end.

Watch the Trailer Here: