This clairvoyant superhero origin story starring Dakota Johnson is a failure in just about every way.

Johnson tries to evoke Cassandra’s inner turmoil, and the scenes between her and Scott offer glimpses of a more promising project. But any potential gets buried early, beneath clumsy exposition, clunky special effects, and disconnected editing.

But where the dialogue needed wit and spark, it has the kind of will-this-do one-liners ("Hope the spiders were worth it, Mom!") and tired backstories you get when the characters are too flat to flesh out with rounded personalities.

Madame Web‘s narrative is disorienting (packing origin stories on top of origin stories), its camerawork is panic-inducing (Zoom in! Zoom out! Zoom in! And again and again, from every angle!), and its choices scare me.