Into the Spider-Verse is directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman,
and tells the origin story of Miles Morales becoming Spider-Man while simultaneously
dealing with the collision of different dimensions where he is joined by numerous other spider-
people.
I initially had next to no interest in this film. After the recent bruising experience that was
Venom’ a preeminent ‘SONY-OWNED’ Spider-Man movie of any kind was off the table
for me. I had no excitement, I barely watched any of the trailers, I simply lost my
enthusiasm for the character in film after nearly a decade worth of unsatisfying stand-
alone films.
My enthusiasm effusively returned after Into the Spider-Verse. This movie was nothing short of exceptional. It was a composite of gels that seamlessly blended to create a spider-man movie that was able to appeal to both kids and adults.
Here is a Spider-Man movie that feels like it’s impelled by a sense of creativity, fun and
heart. Through its mature story and its kaleidoscopically inventive animation style, there
is barely a dull moment to be felt with Into the Spider-Verse. The colourful cast of
characters are all uniquely memorable both aesthetically and tonally through the strong
voice acting, Nicolas Cage as ‘Spider-Man Noir’ being a personal stand out.
What this movie proves is that a Spider-Man movie not led by Peter Parker can be just as engaging, because Miles is also dealing with various struggles in his personal life, it’s watching him recovering from getting knocked down is what’s important. This is a motif that is elementally entrenched in spider-man’s character, it’s something that this movie beautifully understands in Miles’s story but the addition of these spider-people who’ve suffered severe struggles gives the story a nimble, universal quality. Spider-Man isn’t just one person, it could be anyone.
In addition to having a potent story. Into the Spider-Verse has an effectively pertinent
sense of humour. This movie is hilarious. There are great one-liners, there is some great
physical comedy, great bits of meta humour too. This movie was flying with its comedy.
I can’t stress enough how incredible the animation for this movie is. It varies so much but it
keeps in spirit with the original comic book art form. It enjoyably fuses different art styles
such as anime, noir and pop art together. That pitch sounds like it will give my eyes a
hard time, but this is not the case at all.
The only blemish this movie is accosted with is the portrayal of Kingpin. The character is very two dimensional, substandard and surface level. Thankfully the heroes were so interesting that this blemish isn’t so heavily apparent.
Into the Spider-Verse is the best Spidey flick to be released since Spider-Man 2. This
movie is so much fun, it’s so creative, it had a gusto for mature storytelling and it’s my
favourite animated film of this year. Congratulations for not screwing up, Sony!
Written by Seán Mac G.
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