My first words as the end credits to Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse rolled were a loud “Holy FUCK”. EVERYONE in the theater heard me. Including the children. I cannot stress enough how ingenious this movie is. It makes me both giddy and extremely angry how almost inhumanly incredible every single aspect of this movie is. EVERY single aspect of this movie simultaneously justifies the entire mediums of motion pictures, animation, and comic books.
I realize I’m a full paragraph into this review and I haven’t even described the movie the plot, or anything about it because I’m too busy trying to describe this giddy, tingly feeling…this vibrant emotion about practically seeing entire abstract concepts and philosophies brought to motion. The only other movie that elicited a similar feeling was the equally multiversal Everything Everywhere All At Once.
I’ll keep the plot details to a minimum: after encountering a multiverse traversing villain calling himself the Spot (Jason Schwartzman), Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), with the help of Spider-Gwen (a never better Hailee Steinfeild) learns of the existence of the Spider Society. Led by Spider-Man 2099, Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac, who is doing his part to enter every single franchise in existence), the Spider Society is comprised of dedicated Spider People from multiple different universes, who work to try to undo the emergence of anomalous villains and characters being randomly plucked from one universe and winding up in another.
As Morales learns more about the spider-verse, and the effect his universe-hopping has on all of reality, the more he realizes his uniqueness amongst his spider-people, and how that uniqueness endangers them all, and how the Spot plans to use Miles’ own vulnerabilities to destroy all of reality.
That’s all the plot I’m going to get into, because really there are such rich themes and subtle symbolism at play here that getting too into any of it will ruin the film. Suffice to say that every single element that worked in Into The Spider-Verse to make that film a visual spectacle is augmented and expanded in this sequel. And even though there appear literally thousands — if not millions — of Spider-people in this movie, for each that is given a line or introduction, they are made distinct, unique, and — at times — a completely individual animation style. Case in point: Hobie Brown (Daniel Kaluuya), AKA Spider-Punk, a character who is apt to become a major fan favorite both as a cosplay, and for fans in general.
Kaluuya doesn’t so much steal the show as much as he helps it break free, as a member of the Spider-Society who (paradoxically) hates conformity and predictability (a paradox that is often the source of some of the best jokes, as well as crucial plot points), but Spider-Punk’s animation is utterly unique and so fascinating I wish I could just play it on loop in my eyes: a pastiche of torn-up newspaper and magazine pages forming a miasma of body parts, each animated at different frame rates and different hand-drawn styles: chaos, animated. I’d never even thought to imagine anything like it.
An entire essay can be written on this film, but, tempting as it is to do so, I will refrain. The Spot works well as a villain, but even better as a stand-in for the entire Spider-Verse series: on first meeting him, he is silly and the butt of many of Miles’ (and the film’s) jokes, much as how this series (and animated films more broadly) are often written off as “not serious”. As the film progresses and the Spot becomes more focused, he’s reassessed as a serious threat, at the exact same time that the audience has come to fully realize that the Spider-Verse films are much more adept at covering many of the same multiverse themes as its live-action counterparts (looking at YOU, Doctor Strange And The Multiverse Of Madness). The Spot being reassessed as a serious threat mirrors how this film series’ entire reception is reassessed, and whether the Spider-Verse series should even be considered “real”, in regards to the MCU (and, boy howdy, does this movie answer THAT question, as well.
There are so many smaller, quieter moments that resonated for much subtler reasons as well. The first scene with Miles finds him with his parents, talking to a school counselor about college, and how he should play up his disadvantages for acceptance as a mixed-race student; when Miles objects and says he didn’t have a hard upbringing, and that he and his parents are doing alright, he’s talked down, basically being told “it doesn’t matter, it’s just a better sell”.
As a Latino myself, I had nearly that exact same conversation more than once during my high school senior days, when my own merits were pushed aside in order to play up whatever small inconveniences I might have dealt with. In that one scene, I knew EXACTLY what Miles was thinking. And feeling. And there’s something telling about a scene near the end of the second act, when Miles is trying to outrun literally thousands of white-ish Spider-People telling him “what’s for his own good” that the only characters who immediately try to help him are also non-white. Maybe I’m reading too much into it than I should, but damn if I don’t love this movie for making me think there WAS something more to read into it.
Movies in general CAN be this good, and comic book/superhero movies specifically, if they tried and stopped being so damn lazy. Just tell a good, solid story, and do it in a unique and interesting way and make us invest in the characters. Cartoons can do it…why can’t the live-action stuff?
See this as many times as you can. See it in a crowd, on the biggest, brightest screen possible. The last time I remember an audience applauding a movie at its end was opening night of Return Of The King…and that was twenty years ago.
I can’t possibly write enough about this film, and can’t possibly recommend it enough. See it on the biggest, brightest, loudest (but most assuredly best-sound-mixed…early dialogue scenes here are…WAY off) screen, with as many people as you possibly can. Movies being told like this are the entire reason that the medium of film was invented. Martin Scorsese, eat your heart out.
4.75/5 Chai teas in cup cups with milk milk
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse is currently playing in theaters everywhere.