“Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse” Review
Miles Morales (Shamiek Moore) returns as Spider-Man in “Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse” which is undoubtedly the best Spider-Man film I’ve ever seen.
When “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse” was released in 2018, I wasn’t eagerly anticipating it. After making and destroying two Spider-Man franchises, lending out the character to Disney for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and making an underwhelming film based on “Venom,” I thought that this would be another attempt by Sony to milk this property with little value. Fortunately, I was wrong. “Into The Spider-Verse” was not only a great film, it is the greatest Spider-Man film ever made. Now, five years later, a sequel has come out and it’s even better than the first film which makes “Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse” the best film ever made about the webslinger.
Set over a year after the first film. Miles Morales (Shamiek Moore) is continuing to defend Brooklyn as Spider-Man after saving the multiverse. However, Miles finds it difficult balancing the responsibilities he has towards his school and family with the pressures of being a superhero. After being attacked by a mysterious villain known as The Spot (Jason Schwartzman), Miles finds himself reunited with Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), who is the crime-fighting Spider-Woman from another dimension. Since Gwen helped Miles in the last film, she has joined a secret society of Spider-people from many different dimensions led by Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Issac). When The Spot proves to be a much greater threat to all Spider-people and their dimensions, Miles joins up with the Spider-Society to help. But Miles soon learns that the plans this society has differ wildly from his own.
Like most good sequels, “Across The Spider-Verse” is so much bigger than the previous film and you can tell that the filmmakers and animators worked so hard these past five years to make something that will truly blow the minds of the audience. As a lifelong fan of Spider-Man, I get very analytical whenever a film based on these characters is made and I was shocked at just how well this film sucked me in. “Across The Spider-Verse” understands why Spider-Man is such an important idea, no matter who dons the mask, and celebrates everything about all of the web slingers in comics, films, television series, video games and whatever else you can think of.
After finally accepting the responsibility of Spider-Man in the last film, Miles Morales has become a popular superhero but is beginning to understand how draining this double life is. So often, Spider-Man is tested between what he wants and what others need and this film is not different. While Miles may be doing more heroic things compared to the first film, which was an origin story, “Across The Spider-Verse” still manages to keep things grounded by focusing on the relationship with his family. That's why all Spider-people are so relatable compared to characters like Batman or Iron Man, they have so many personal problems and they have to balance that with a greater calling.
As Miles, Shameik Moore gives this sensitivity to his performance while also making the traditional Spider-Man quips seem cool. Gwen Stacy is also a compelling character in this film and is given much more to do than in the previous film. While she was a tremendous player in the “Into The Spider-Verse,” not much was known about her before she got zapped into Miles’ universe. Now, we learn more about her backstory and she basically becomes the secondary main character of the film with Hailee Steinfeld knocking it out of the park as her character deals with the harsh consequences of being a vigilante.
Swinging alongside Miles and Gwen are a gigantic cast of Spider-people from many, many dimensions. If you look in the background, there are enough Spider-people to easily take down the cast of Avengers from the final battle in “Avengers: Endgame.” Not only do we get to see the return of characters like Gwen and Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), an older version of Spider-Man who mentored Miles in the previous film, but there’s an assortment of new characters to keep things fresh. They include a British punk rocker Spider-Man (Daniel Kaluuya), an Indian Spider-Man from Mumbattan (Karan Soni), a motorcycle riding Spider-Woman (Issa Rae) and Spider-Man 2099, the futuristic leader of this society. The lattermost is exceptionally intense with O’Hara wanting to preserve the multiverse no matter who gets hurt which causes strong conflict between him and Miles.
With a strong visual style and exciting fight sequences, this is one of the most action-packed superhero films made in a while.
Throughout the entire film, you get to see a wide array of artistic styles. Since all of these heroes are from different dimensions with different backstories and different identities, they have all been assigned a unique style of animation. Some Spider-people are designed to look like comic book panels, others look more like they’re from anime or video games and there are even Spider-animals like cats, horses and dinosaurs.
If you thought that having a Spider-pig, a girl with a Spider-robot and Nicolas Cage in the first film was weird, you know nothing. This film has such a beautifully chaotic animation style that takes advantage of as many different designs as possible to both celebrate and satirize the world of Spider-Man. While I plan on seeing this film again in theaters multiple times, I can’t wait for this film to come out on Blu-Ray so I can pause it a million times and experience every single Easter Egg, hidden joke and background character.
Screenwriters Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and David Callaham have injected their love of comic lore into every moment of this film. If you aren’t a big comic book reader, you’re still going to enjoy this film but if you’ve been a lifelong reader of Spider-Man who’s well-versed in the lore, you’re going to explode. What this story does is show how similar all of these Spider-people are in terms of backstory but also how they’re all subjected to hard choices. The choices that Miles has to make in this film are some of the most challenging I’ve seen in a Spider-Man film and it’s why “Across The Spider-Verse” is so good.
Alongside incredible characters and fantastic visuals, the action is so intense with so much happening in every second. But you can still follow it with no confusion. Directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson have found the right balance of adrenaline-pounding speed and knowing when to slow things down to allow for some character growth. If only a film like “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” had this kind of frenetic direction.
The only character who didn’t have much to do was the villain. Nevertheless, The Spot manages to be an interesting villain because of how the story uses him to play with a cliché of comic books and superhero films. Oftentimes, a superhero story will have the hero take out an insignificant villain to establish how cool they are. However, “Across The Spider-Verse” sets up The Spot to be a “villain of the week” only for him to reject this label and to vow vengeance as Miles’ nemesis. This is where the intrigue comes in.
Not only is The Spot being set up to become a devious mastermind in the next film but you’re having such a fun time with all of the Spider-people and their dilemmas that you don’t care that The Spot isn’t around much. As of now, we have a firm foundation for the hard choices to come. The choices that will test Miles and push him to the breaking point.
Speaking of which, it should be noted that “Across The Spider-Verse” is a part one to a larger story, a middle chapter in a trilogy. However, this isn’t a bad thing. Unlike “Fast X,” which sidelined several characters and potentially incredible action sequences to set up a second part, “Across the Spider-Verse” earns the “To Be Continued…” that appears at the end. It throws everything at the wall and never holds back in showing the audience a good time.
After seeing this second film, I grew even more anxious and excited for the third film, “Spider-Man: Beyond The Spider-Verse,” which is set to be released next March. If this series sticks the landing with its third entry, then I have a feeling that this could be the greatest superhero trilogy since Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” films.
