There was a time, not so long ago, when Marvel looked as invincible as their roster of superheroes. But that tide appears to be turning, with a number of recent releases not meeting expectations. And then there’s Madame Web.

This film, although produced through Sony, features a Marvel character, whose name even suggests a thin thread connected to a certain web-slinging hero – and there is a connection – and is therefore a part of Sony’s growing Spider-Man universe, which has so far included Morbius, The Venom films, and the upcoming Kraven the Hunter.

But even a tenuous link to Peter Parker wasn’t enough to save Madame Web from an apathetic global audience.

Working in New York City as a paramedic is Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson). She’s pretty focused on her work, as she has no family with her mother dying in child birth with her.

She’s on the job one day, with her partner Ben Parker (Adam Scott), trying to save a victim in a car hanging off the side of a bridge. She manages to get the guy out, but only to find herself trapped in the vehicle as it plunges into the water. It’s while enduring this near death incident that she experiences strange flashbacks. Thankfully she manages to get out alive, but the accident appears to have woken a new sense in her.

She continues to have these flashbacks, but they come on heavy during a train ride, where three other passengers, young girls in their teens, end up losing their life to a man in a spider-like costume. She manages to save them, but the man spider shows no signs of letting up on his search for them. But what does it all mean, and does it have anything to do with her mother’s death?

So there’s no way that you haven’t already been made aware of how bad this film is, because much like Cassandra’s mom, it died at birth. But how bad is it?

Well the bad news is most definitely for its British director S.J. Clarkson, who certainly made an impact with her directorial debut. For the majority of her career she has been directing episodes of various TV shows – everything from EastEnders and Casualty, before moving on to US shows like Dexter, Jessica Jones and even Succession. But this project was seemingly too big for her to manage.

There were clues from the off however, which should have been obvious red flags, namely the script. Not only does the story lack any cohesion, but there is some woefully janky dialogue. All of which she should have picked up on. But then there are some scenes, which as a director are completely her fault, with the ones at the diner when they are on the run particularly horrific.

You can tell that Johnson, and the rest of their cast, are doing their utmost best, but they are fighting an uphill battle with a script that is just simply a bigger foe than the spider wimp in the film. Johnson was quick to change her talent agency only a week after the first trailer dropped, which is fair enough as they should have seen how bad it was on the page from the off. But no doubt there was a certain allure of joining the lucrative superhero collection that probably had more to do with her signing up for the role more than anything else.

And even the tenuous link to the Spider-verse will go over most of the heads of its audience except its geekiest of members, as it actually features the birth of our spider hero Peter Parker.

But despite it being bad – and it’s by no means the worst film ever made – it’s actually still worth a look, especially if you’re a fan of superhero flicks, as it’s fairly entertaining in a rubbernecking kind of way.

We would love to think that it signals the death knoll to the superhero genre, but that’s sadly not going to be the case – not yet, at least. What it may do however is force Marvel and company to improve quality control before releasing any further films in an under baked state. Audiences are starting to prove that they really aren’t the mugs it feels the studios have been taking them for of late, and are prepared to show their disapproval if standards drop, which is something.

It’s ironic then that a film about a psychic babysitter, which is what the film amounts to, that for those involved in it, despite the obvious signs, didn’t see what was coming. They only have themselves to blame.