I should preface this by saying that I've been fond of the Madame Web character since the 90s Spider-Man cartoon, because I always found her kind of weird and fascinating, and I've enjoyed watching Julia Carpenter take on the mantle.

Also, this movie was VERY MUCH specifically geared to delight me by way of using Madame Web, Julia Carpenter Cornwall, Mattie Franklin, and Anya Corazon. If you know me, you know I'm weak for a superheroine team-up!

I will say that a lot of the criticisms towards this film are fair. The ADR is very noticeable in places - especially when it comes to Ezekial Sims - and this movie does Tahar Rahim absolutely no favours.

There's also some missed opportunity in a place to further tie things to Spider-lore, but I wonder if that was more a studio/character rights issue than an issue of what the writers did/didn't do.

(Namely, the scene where Sims gets information on the NSA's sinister surveillance program, I think it would have been interesting if they'd set it up differently and had him get the information from Richard Parker, but then maybe they didn't want Peter's tragedies to start before he's even born?)

There are some narmy moments that really pulled me out of the film, but at the same time, the scenes where Cassandra is trying to save the girls from Ezekiel held my attention pretty well.

(I should note that this is one of the few films I've seen lately where I didn't really glance at my phone much. Not saying this has anything to do with the quality of the film, but the film did keep my attention pretty well.)

I've always been a bigger fan of Dakota Johnson the person than Dakota Johnson the actress - it's fun watching her interact with tv hosts because she is a little weird and bonkers, like the time she took down Ellen over the party invite

or the time she was giving a tour of her home and lied about loving limes because there was a bowl of them on her counter. (Or was it lemons? Oranges? I forget. It was a citrus fruit.)

That said, she is kind of fun as the snarky, awkward, I-want-nothing-to-do-with-any-of-this Cassandra Webb. Her scenes with Adam Scott are especially great, and I think a lot of that is because of how absolutely earnest Scott is in his performance as Ben Parker.

Julia, Mattie, and Anya are maybe not as fleshed out as they could have been, but I came to like their interactions and how they functioned as a team. It's true that they don't get their powers or costumes in the movie, but you can see who they are, and who they might be, and I'm a little sad that we don't be getting a sequel to live up to that potential.

Tonally, there's a lot here that reminds me of the Birds of Prey tv series, which came out about a year before when the bulk of this movie is set. Cassandra's new home at the end of the film - and the fact that she's now blinded and in a wheelchair - definitely helped play up some of those Oracle-similarities, as did the teen girls in her apartment with her.

The thing is, ultimately, there are a lot of good ideas here, and there could have been a solid movie, but for whatever reason, that simply didn't happen and it's a bummer. It needed some rewrites, sure, and maybe it needed someone who really liked these characters to make it work more than it does.

While this movie is definitely the Catwoman (2004) of the Spider-Films, I also don't think it warrants as much hate as it's gotten. It's not great, but the reviews made this film seem like it'd be totally unwatchable, and there are some redeeming factors here.

Do I recommend this? Probably not, I'm not sure this is really geared towards anyone who isn't me, frankly. But I walked away having enjoyed it, while feeling robbed that we could have had something so good that it could have built its own little franchise, and what a missed opportunity that is.