Sony’s latest Spider-Man Universe movie has been released, and while Madame Web isn’t receiving the most positive attention from critics, some Spider-Man and Marvel fans have been trying to shed light on particularly confusing moments from the latest live-action foray into the different cinematic worlds based on Marvel Comics.

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The Dakota Johnson-starring film made its big debut on Valentine’s Day after an uneven marketing campaign. With several plot threads going on throughout the movie, there are some strange smaller details that fans might have missed, or they might have found themselves scratching their heads in confusion at different moments because of these seeming plot holes which have led to some poor critic reviews.

Spoilers ahead for Madame Web!

9 Her Mother’s Amazon Trip

Visiting The Most Dangerous Place On Earth While Pregnant

Many things can be easy to overlook for people who are really into their work. But one completely baffling one is taking an excursion to the Amazon Rainforest while in the latter stages of pregnancy. In the opening scene of the film, Constance Webb, mother of lead character Cassandra Webb, is seen deep in the reaches of the most dangerous place on Earth on an excursion while heavily pregnant.

The Amazon is unbelievably dangerous at the best of times. Risking one's life and the life of an unborn baby by entering the jungle in such a situation is bizarre. Usually, women are advised not even to fly during the third trimester, and the film seems to show her giving successful birth to her daughter before dying very shortly afterward, meaning she must have been at least eight months pregnant while on this dangerous research trip, an absurd undertaking even though she was doing it to try and help her daughter.

8 Ezekiel Attacking All The Cops

He Knew Where They Were At All Times

One of the most confusing moments in Madame Web is the first time that Cassie helps the three girls she decides to protect escape from Ezekiel by getting them off a subway. While this scene is one of the most fast-paced in the movie, it also doesn’t make a lot of sense. After Cassie gets the girls off the train, Ezekiel chases them, having donned his suit, which is given a similar style to Spider-Man’s black suit.

Instead of chasing them, Ezekiel could have been patient and caught up with them, since they had no way of knowing that he had access to the security cameras all over the city, allowing him to find them wherever they went. Instead, he attacks a huge number of police officers, which is a completely senseless act from a villain who appears to be very calculating up to that point in the film. Additionally, he later manages to seemingly get Cassie blamed for the attack on the police officers, meaning he must have enough influence to never have to resort to such drastic and random measures.

7 The Girls Disobeying Cassie

They’d Seen The Danger

Admittedly, Cassie isn’t really on top of things when she orders the three girls to stay hidden in the woods. They don’t have any reason to think that Ezekiel would be able to find them so easily, but still, after Cassie had saved their lives from a terrifying threat that managed to find them once, staying in the woods hungry for a few hours seems like the least they could have done in return.

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Instead, they head after a short wait to a café, where they are inevitably found by Ezekiel and are almost killed. This mistake is obvious and everyone in the audience was desperately hoping they wouldn’t be foolish enough to get caught out doing something so obviously stupid. According to one rumor, they weren't even going to be in the film, which was supposed to be more Spider-Man-centric.

6 Ezekiel’s Poison

How Does He Do That?

Ezekiel has much stronger powers than simply being able to see the future. He has super strength, similar spider-climbing abilities to Peter Parker himself, and can poison people simply by touching them. However, it is never explained how this aspect of his powers works, and it gets even more confusing.

Rather than simply just having to touch them, Ezekiel seems to have to hold on for an elongated time to kill, as shown by Cassie surviving brief contact with him at the diner. But Ezekiel can deliver the poison through his suit, something which is never explained, and which goes against rules that similar superpowers, such as Rogue’s, have set in Marvel canon before regarding the need for direct contact. Ezekiel isn't one of the most major Spider-Man villains, but this strange ability still caught the attention of fans.

5 Why Does Ben Believe Her?

Instant, Unexplained Understanding

Ben Parker is a great guy and is depicted as being so in Madame Web. He jumps into the water to save Cassie when she nearly drowns. He comforts her and even keeps the girls while Cassie jets off to Peru. However, if there was a scene that showed her explaining and making him believe what was happening to her, it was cut from the film.

This means that after Cassie explains to the girls that she must leave, it cuts straight to her saying goodbye to Ben as he vows to look after them. He seems to be filled in on the entire situation, but as a paramedic who brought Cassie back from death only days earlier, he’d surely have a much harder time believing this, especially after it was on the radio that Cassie had kidnapped three girls. His instant belief in everything she says about seeing the future, and needing to go to the Amazon Rainforest is baffling.

4 Traffic Cameras

Inconsistent Tracking Method

Early in the film, Ezekiel seduces an NSA agent and uses her code to hack into their surveillance of the city. He then uses this to find Cassie or the girls at various points throughout the film. However, there are many times when Cassie drives the girls somewhere, while Ezekiel wants to find them, and is unable to do so, even though they are always driving in the same taxi and there should be traffic cameras everywhere.

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In the finale of the film, he finds them using a traffic camera even though they are now in a different car. This bizarre moment makes the film feel wildly inconsistent about his use of the surveillance systems around the city.

3 Hypocrisy Of Changing The Future

Everyone Seems To Have The Power Of Foresight

When Cassie travels to Peru and meets with the tribal chief who rescued her mother, he tells her many things, including that only she can see and change the future. But this is incorrect, as it seems he must have had some level of foresight to know she was coming. Additionally, the man she is chasing, Ezekiel, has some level of foresight.

For a long time, Ezekiel says he has been dreaming about the three girls killing him, after gaining their Spider-related powers, and has been attempting to hunt them down for years to stop this from happening. As much as it doesn’t work out well for him, he does change the future by chasing them, leading him to Cassie. The quote has a nice ring to it but doesn’t make any sense.

2 Cassie’s Powers

The Web Of Life Is Confusing

The tribal chief tries to give Cassie a lot of exposition quickly, much of it focused on showing her that her mother didn’t abandon her or not care about her. But he also talks briefly about her powers, telling her that with “the web of life” she can learn to be in multiple places at once, something she uses to save the three girls from Ezekiel later during the finale.

However, this idea goes unexplained, as Cassie doesn’t seem capable of anything except seeing the future until she sends out versions of herself to save the girls. This cloning power is used only once, and nothing about how it works is ever explained. With her being blinded and paralyzed in the finale, it also seems unlikely that she’ll ever use this power again if this version of the character returns within the larger Sony Spider-Man Universe, making it a true head-scratcher to include it at all.

1 The Significance of The Letter 'S'

The Movie Alludes To An S With No Pay-Off

When Cassie develops her powers, one of the first things she sees in the water is a giant letter 's'. At first glance, it doesn't make much sense, and that's to be expected, considering she is seeing multiple variations of time itself, and so on. Yet, things get wrapped up in the climax of the film where the 'S' she sees belongs to a neon sign saying 'Pepsi Cola'. Cassie keeps looking at the sign, the camera keeps looking at the sign, and the 'S' begins to fall... so is the pay-off to this villain going to involve being crushed by the letter 'S'?

No, the big pay-off is that he is crushed by the letter 'P'. It's such an odd choice to keep mention of this 'S', just for a completely different letter to be used to end the threat of the villain. Was it a subtle act of subversion to showcase the changing of fate with Cassie's powers, or just a bizarre oversight?

Madame Web is in theaters now.

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