Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

photo courtesy of comicbookmovie.com

SPOILER FREE REVIEW

     There’s no shortage of Spider-Man material on the big screen these days, between Marvel Studios’ Peter Parker (Tom Holland) and Sony’s nascent Venom-verse. Considering the previous two iterations of the character—the MCU version is the second reboot in 15 years—you could be forgiven for thinking that the studios have pretty much exhausted the character. Enter Miles Morales.

     He’s the half Puerto Rican/half-African American Spider-Man of an alternate dimension, and in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, he’s voiced by Shameik Moore. Into the Spider-Verse tells Morales’ origin story, which pits him against different versions of classic villains like Kingpin (Liev Schreiber), Doctor Octopus, and Green Goblin. But Miles doesn’t work alone; after Kingpin opens the doorway into the multiverse, Miles gets backup from new friends, including Peter Parker (Jake Johnson), Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn), and even Spider-Ham (John Mulaney).

photo courtesy of rollingstone.com

     Now, that sounds like a lot, but rest assured: Into the Spider-Verse can handle it. Spider-Verse is ambitious, imaginative, and freewheeling. In the crowded superhero/action market, it feels like a breath of fresh air, the product of a creative team with a distinct vision untainted by studio execs. It goes where it wants, it invests where it feels right, and it doesn’t apologize.

     Story-wise, Spider-Verse takes many of the Spider-Man elements we know (and by this point, we know them well), and works them cleverly into a new perspective. We recognize them as the story progresses, but they don’t feel recycled. They’re reimagined, repurposed, retooled in the way any worthy artist combines influences to create something new.

photo courtesy of usatoday.com

     In this case, that something new is Miles, a likeable new hero with strong character development, who comes from a very different background than Peter Parker. In a year already marked by major strides in representation, Spider-Verse leans into Miles’ point of view—not just as a superhero or a high schooler but as a black teenager. His identity informs and shapes the movie, so that even when the movie populates the screen with a variety of interesting (and often bizarre) Spider-heroes, Miles’s story forms the movie’s heart.

photo courtesy of variety.com

     From an animation standpoint, Spider-Verse is a genuine creative delight. It’s the first animated movie in a quite a while to really push the boundaries of technique and style, and as a result, it doesn’t look like any animated movie you’ve seen before. Inspired by the visual look and pace of its comic book source material, the animation offers another outlet for the filmmakers’ imagination, and, as a byproduct, allows the film to go places that wouldn’t probably be stomach-able in live action (looking at you, Peter Porker). It’s propulsive, inventive, vibrant, and in a few particularly mind-melting sequences, it’s downright stunning.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is rated PG.

TRAILER