After 40 years of Spider-man movies, it’s hard to imagine a Spider-man film that could completely reinvent the universe and offer an entirely new experience for fans of the franchise. Enter “Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse.”
The eighth cinematic film featuring everybody’s favorite web-slinger manages to do the impossible...it creates a world that is entertaining, familiar, and nostalgic while still feeling interesting, fresh, and original. Weird, I know, but true. Here’s how it was done.
Summary
The movie begins with the origin story of the main character, Mile Morales. Miles is a Brooklyn teenager that suffers a bite from a radioactive spider that imbues him with super powers (bet you didn’t see that coming). Miles is scared and uncertain about his new abilities, and ends up unwittingly sucked into a plot by the ruthless Kingpin to try and find his lost family in a parallel dimension. The device Kingpin uses ends up opening a dimensional rift that draws other “Spider-people” into Miles’ universe. As you might guess, the rest of the film is spent trying to figure out how to stop Kingpin and return the Spider-people to their own universes while Miles embarks on a personal journey to learn about his powers and carve out his own unique identity as “Spider-man.”
What You’re Going to Like
Visual Style - You’ve literally NEVER seen a film that looks this one. It’s like a 3-D comic book converted to HD, cranked up the contract to 110%, then jumped on the screen and smacked you in the face. The animation looks great and there is fantastic attention to detail. Each Spider-person is stylized to match the universe they come from, the action is creative, well-choreographed, and entertaining, and there are some absolutely breathtaking shots (like the one in the thumbnail and the final battle) that just burn themselves into your retina.
Miles is the Man - Miles' character is similar to Tom Holland’s Peter Parker in “Spider-man: Homecoming. He’s as charming, endearing, and likable as any Spider-man we’ve ever seen, and you leave the movie dying to see more of him.
Mid-life Crisis Spider-man - Peter B. Parker is the movie’s scene-stealer as a grumpy, cynical, quasi-over-the-hill Spider-man. His interactions with Miles are hilarious and make for some of the most entertaining scenes in the movie.
Self-Awareness - This film goes out of it’s way to make fun of itself and the Spider-man mythology. It includes multiple easter eggs and references to past Spider-man works, makes fun of plot points that have been recycled in numerous films, and generally seems to know what the audience expects and how to manipulate those expectations.
Originality - While the plot of this movie feels unquestionably familiar, it manages to avoid “retread” territory. There are certainly some predictable twists and turns, but they are well executed, and some predictable parts of the film are made more enjoyable by the fact that the movie actually makes fun of its own predictability -- totally manipulating the audience expectations. The end result is a film that feels fresh, clever, and as original as it possibly can be.
Sound Design - “Into the Spider-verse” follows the trend of films like “Creed II” and “Black Panther,” in seamlessly blending traditional classical scoring with original contemporary music. The result is intimate & emotional scenes that have intimate and emotional music, and upbeats scenes with toe-tapping, bass-rich sounds that provide a tangible kinetic boost to the story.
Humor - There is a great mixture of slapstick visual gags, clever dialogue, and fan-service inside jokes that makes this movie absolutely hilarious.
What You Might Not Like
Kingpin Looks Weird - Yes, I just got done praising the visual style, but I couldn’t get over the look they chose for Kingpin. His body has the large bulky appearance fans are accustomed to, but the placement of his head near the middle of his torso made him look way too much like Humpty-Dumpty. He was still intimidating and believable, he just didn’t look nearly as realistic as the other characters. This is a minor complaint, and if you haven’t seen the movie yet I sincerely hope I didn’t just ruin every Kingpin scene for you.
Pacing -- The movie begins at a breakneck speed and rapidly covers a lot of ground in setting up Miles’ universe. It takes a good 20 minutes or so to figure out where the film is going and which characters it will focus on, and someone unfamiliar with the Spider-man world could easily get lost as the characters, jokes, and settings whiz by during the first act. (Just ask my wife.)
Fan Service - The movie is littered with fan service and inside jokes, so if you’re not deep into Spider-man mythology a lot of one-liners and visuals will zip right over your head. It’s not really a criticism, but the uninitiated will have more than a few “What is everyone laughing at” moments.
Spider-people - The movie focuses on Miles, Peter B. Parker, and Gwen Stacy at the expense of neglecting Spider-noir, Spider-Ham, and Peni Parker. The latter are only given a few one-liners and gags and feel largely under-utilized. At certain points they just feel kind of thrown into the story arc of the other three characters. The audience is never given much reason to care about them or even a compelling reason to find them interesting.
Movie Rating
Plot/Story - 8/10 - The story is simple, but incredibly well executed.
Dialogue - 8.5/10 - Miles’ carries most of the film’s dialogue, and his lines are both realistic and humorous. His interactions with Peter B. Parker are nothing short of awesome.
Characters - 8.5/10 - While the film fails to flesh out ALL of the side characters, Peter B. Parker, Jefferson (Miles’ dad), Aaron Davis (Miles’ Uncle), and Gwen Stacy all made legitimately intriguing additions to Miles’ extremely lovable Spider-man.
Music/Score - 7.5/7.5 - Excellent. See above.
Visuals - 7.5/7.5 - Mind-blowing.
Emotion - 6/7.5 - The movie sacrifices drama for humor, but its handful of touching moments are legitimately moving. But what it lacks in drama it makes up for in sheer wonder.
Originality - 5/5 - It takes the familiar Spider-man universe and gives it entertaining and refreshing updates.
"It" Factor - 10/10 - This film has "it." Between the visuals, the humor, and the originality this film left me feeling blown away. It looks and feels epic from the first frame all the way through the end credits.
Final Score: 61.25/67.5 = 91% (A-)
The Final Verdict
“Into the Spider-verse” is in a heated competition with “Spider-man 2” for the title of “Best Spider-man Movie Ever.” While “Spider-man 2” had unmatched emotional gravity and a superior villain, “Into the Spider-verse” is unmatched in its striking visual style, its humor and its originality. It’s an absolute must-see if you’re a Spider-man fan and one of the most entertaining movies you’ll see all year.
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