I may consider those that think Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is the best Spider-Man movie to be acting a fool, but it’s certainly a juggernaut in modern animation, that also breathed new life into what was becoming a repetitive Spider-Man franchise. I have avoided trailers for this movie, as I do, and somehow avoided them all. But I am super ready to see Oscar Isaac’s Miguel O’Hara, as I owned a Spider-Man 2099 comic back in the day, and I just think he’s cool. Furthermore, after pulling off so successfully the Spider-Man family / multiverse aspect in the previous movie, I have my fingers crossed that this continuation feels just as fresh and visually vibrant as its predecessor. If it does, we’ll have a winner.
The movie opens with a touching backstory for Gwen Stacey, while Miles Morales has now been Spider-Man for over a year, causing a rift between he and his parents, who believe he is irresponsible, never on time, neglecting his studies, and becoming distant. After a rough fight with a supposed ‘villain-of-the-week’, Gwen makes a surprise return to put a smile on his dial, but is coy about the scope of her new abilities to travel across the multiverse under the tutelage of other Spider-People; Jessica Drew and Miguel O’Hara. When push comes to shove, Miles has a split-second decision to follow Gwen into the unknown, leading to a vast landscape of other worlds and Spiders beyond his and our wildest imagination.
Mmm, it’s pretty big. If we wanted a fast-paced ambitious sequel to follow what came before, then we got it. The first thing that sticks out to me is that Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse amplifies some of the stuff that’s not traditionally Spider-Man, and that needs accepting. The teamwork and technological elements that make the previous movie possible are ramped up here to eleven, and in some ways, the Spider-Man brand is just the recognisable skin over what will be an epic sci-fi adventure. Don’t get me wrong, there’s always been science and scientific invention in Spider-Man, but it’s usually the means to an end, and not so far in the forefront. As a traditional Spider-Man fan, I’m most interested in the personal stories and character moments, and thankfully, they’re here too. In a completely opposite reaction to what I can remember of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the moments with the parental characters here are essential. The scene where Spider-Man and Lieutenant Morales have a heart-to-heart about Miles is excellent, and so is Rio explaining to Miles her uncertainty in watching her little boy grow up. You could argue that those emotional scenes are somewhat generic, but getting them wrong is detrimental to a movie, and those scenes hit hard for me. You mightn’t be able to do them in a Peter Parker storyline neither, with his inherent lack of parental oversight, and you certainly couldn’t capture the tension that comes of Captain Stacy hunting a Spider, and that Spider being a daughter, as it exists with Gwen Stacy 😮 I felt for both of them and realised if I was Captain Stacy, I would probably move to arrest Gwen in that moment of truth too, even knowing it’s wrong – what a tough spot.
For all that is happening, the movie is pretty great at balancing its elements. I think by halving the story in two it gives Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse more time to focus on those slower character moments I cherish that may’ve had to be left out otherwise. The villainous Spot also disappears from the movie for inordinate chunks of time but never feels neglected while we reconcile with other plot developments. I will say that the winding down and final pieces of the movie do seem to drag, as if the movie can’t decide at what point would be most thrilling to leave this story for the next chapter – I kind’ve think I would’ve experimented with revealing the identity of the new-world Prowler in a post-credit scene, as I think it was enough to know Miles was elsewhere and Gwen was coming for him, although I do approve of re-normalising a world with no essential post-credit scenes. The animation style(s) are fantastic again, and honestly worth the price of admission alone. I particularly loved visiting Mumbattan, and I was dazzled by the hand-drawn Vulture and the shifting watercolour pallet of Gwen’s home world. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Gwen’s world design come straight from her comics, which is pretty cool – what artist would’ve toiled away and ever imagined that their artistic rendition would one day be kept intact for a blockbuster movie? 🤔 Combining Spider-Woman’s style with what we see of her story, it makes me really want to investigate her origins, and read those comic books – Christmas presents, anyone?
Now, I have to consider biting back at the main plot that makes all this style possible. Miguel becomes antagonistic to Miles Morales because he prevents a canon event that will see Mumbattan rupture; and my first response to this is, new people add to canon all the time! These characters, and the Spider-Verse itself, is adding to canon. The canon is usually a conceptual meta-narrative that we as the audience like to argue about, so it seems dicey to need to care about it within the stakes of a Spider-Man movie. Miguel’s ultimate explanation as to what this movie is all about sort’ve sits on the outskirts of droll explanations, like that what is given by the Architect in The Matrix Reloaded 😬 Then when Gwen says, ‘we’re supposed to be the good guys”, she is completely right, and I was nodding in the darkened cinema for what felt as long as a usual Cannes Film Festival ovation – although I do like the detail exploring the anomaly that Miles Morales is the second Spider-Man in his known universe, and the ramifications of that being viewed as a mistake. I guess we can’t really tell how Miguel will ultimately be viewed in the cold light of day until this story’s complete, but I’m a bit disappointed in the direction he’s been written so far, as another ‘stressed-out leader of a misguided organisation’.
A couple more teeny-tiny nitpicks – I didn’t particularly like the way Miguel referenced the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, because since this movie makes such a big deal out of the Kingpin’s collider, referencing another multiverse breach just sort’ve undermines the significance of both, I reckon – but I can just ignore that. Miguel also believes he’s about to reveal his secret identity to his mother, but he’s wearing a purple hoodie and a green jacket – goblin (and Prowler) colours – indicating to me, and I’m sure many other people, that something in this universe is not right, and all is not what it seems; which is cool, a foreshadowing easter egg, but it undermined the experience of Miles’s most heartfelt moment for me, which was a disappointing trade-off. I don’t particularly understand how the paper Vulture is sent travelling through the Spider-Verse when the collider only affected Spider-Thems before 🤔 And the Spot reckons he lost his job as a scientist because he can open portals… um, what?! Doesn’t that make him a scientific marvel, and a fascination to his community? I’d instead say that his life’s work can no longer find funding ever since everyone associates him with working for a disgraced Kingpin, or that his peers want to perform invasive experiments on him, forcing him to flee into hiding – these are much more believable backstories to explain his turn to crime.
All in all, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse… it’s a must see. I can see this becoming a massive touchstone for years to come, and I’ve already seen headlines marking Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse as one of the best sequels of all time – let’s take a breath on that, but the movie is a bold statement, taking the much-earned goodwill from the first one and making a grand play on scale for something more epic. Not many movies get the privilege of telling a huge story across two movies, and I’m so keen to see how this story ends. But since I can only comment on the beginning and middle that we have so far, that’s what I’ll do – two thumbs up, and I’m on board. It’s not quite a Banksy but by golly it’s close.
4.5
P.S. Real-life Ms. Chen (Peggy Lu) and the real-life Prowler (Donald Glover) – dope.
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