Yep, we're talking about Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. But before that, there's going to be SOMEBODY who doesn't know who Spider-Man is, so let me explain. Long story short, a lovable nerd named Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider, granting him a wide assortment of spider-themed super powers (namely walking on walls and shooting webs out of his wrists). Initially he used the power for profit, but when his greed and "not my problem" attitude gets his beloved Uncle Ben murdered, he became overwhelmed with guilt. But rather than become a brooding agent of revengeance (like Batman), Peter took his uncle's motto, "With Great Power comes Great Responsibility" to heart and vowed to protect the innocents of New York from the same pain he went through, using his powers to become the Spectacular Spider-Man.
Got all that? Good! Now completely forget about it because Peter Parker isn't the main protagonist of this specific movie! Instead we got Miles Morales, also known as the Second Spider-Man. Because the first law of enjoying comic books, it's that Marvel loves alternate timelines and parallel dimensions. Anyway, Miles Morales is similar to Peter, since he too feels it's his responsibility to help people and stop bad guys. Only problem is that in Miles's timeline, Peter Parker dies young, filling a spider-shaped hole in the spider-shaped heart of New Yorkers everywhere. Which is a shame, because this is like one of three (official) timelines where Peter's post-superhero life doesn't suck (considering he's got a loving wife and family, is a very rich and very successful chemist, and is genuinely loved by the citizens of New York both in and out of costume, I guess you could say that this version of Peter Parker is the ULTIMATE Spider-Man!). But don't worry, the Peter we all know and love is still in the movie.
| This is the most beautifully animated movie ever, and I love the more artistic presentation choices they've done, like this upside-down shot of Miles in free-fall. |
STORY!
The general premise of this film is relatively simple. Miles is just a regular teen with a loving family, a friendly neighborhood (eyy), and recently enrolled in a big name high-school. But one day, after what seemed to be a simple spider bite started causing weird things to happen to him, he walks in on Peter Parker fighting his eternal arch-nemesis, the Green Goblin... Who is not actually the main antagonist of this film and is just the actual Big Bad's hired help. Kind of a waste of Spidey's most iconic villain, but okay. Anyway, upon witnessing Peter's surprisingly brutal murder at the hands of the Kingpin (who is the actual main antagonist of this film) Miles meets...
Peter B. Parker, who I shall refer to as Hobo!Peter, for the remainder of the review Hobo!Peter is from a timeline where Spider-Man fought crime for over 25 years, and is now a retired senior having a mid-life crisis thanks to going bankrupt AND breaking up with his lover, Mary Jane Watson. But hey! He took it like a champ! And by that I mean he cried in the shower, let himself go with comfort food, and started watching Animal Planet style documentaries, all while making it clear he's still hung up on Mary Jane. ...Okay he doesn't take it that well, but seeing Hobo!Peter go on a massive rant about how seahorses mate for life and then using a seahorse analogy for his own relationship is the best thing I never knew I wanted in a comic book superhero film. But how did Hobo!Peter come into the Miles Morales timeline? Simple! Kingpin's experimental superweapon opened a hole in the space-time continuum, pulling in several different versions of Spider-Man, each from a different timeline where things played out a little bit differently than the main timeline, but every alternate Spider still has the core ideals of the Spider-Man we know and love. Anyway, Hobo!Peter (reluctantly) agrees to teach Miles how to actually be good at Spider-Manning, as long as Miles helps him get back home. Anyway, as for Hobo!Peter himself, he might be one of my favorite characters in the whole film, partly because something I always wanted to see in a mainstream medium is an older interpretation of iconic heroes, since superheroes are rarely allowed to age because of an arbitrary status quo. So Lord-Miller grant my wish of seeing an older Peter in a film. But I also love just how burnt-out on superheroing Hobo!Peter is. Instead of giving flowery, conceptual advice like the other Spiders, he gives Miles tips on how to clean his suit out. Instead of web-swinging from place to place, he takes a bus because he lacks the stamina to web-swing for long periods of time. It's not that he doesn't want to be Spider-Man anymore, but his 25 years worth of experience has left him, for lack of a better term, bored of the superhero lifestyle.
Joining our intrepid mentor-student duo is Gwen Stacy, aka Spider-Woman. Gwen is from a timeline where Peter never got bitten by the spider at all, and instead it was a young woman with a knack for drumming and ballet who got bitten instead. Also, side note: Can we all just agree that Gwen's costume is the coolest one in the whole movie? It's black, white, purple, blue, and has a hoodie! It's fashion perfection! Anyway, Gwen's main motivation for superheroing came from the time she failed to save the Peter of her timeline (the Peter in that timeline mutated into a horrific monster, and Gwen killed the monster, unaware of who the monster really was until after the fact). So yeah, this film manages to kill off Peter Parker, not once, but TWICE. Eat your heart out, Infinity War. Anyway, I like her character, since she serves as the perfect middle ground of a Spider-Person. She's been at the superhero scene for two years, so she's more experienced than Miles, but she's still in her prime, unlike Hobo!Peter.
Together, Gwen and Hobo!Peter have to teach Miles how to not suck at superheroing, find a way to send all the Spider-People back home, and stop the Kingpin's plan to open ANOTHER hole in the space-time continuum, so he can... Reunite with his deceased family? Huh. Wasn't expecting the Kingpin, who is literally the most viscous crime boss in the history of comic books, to have a sympathetic motivation. And then you learn how his family died, and how he blames Spider-Man for their deaths... When the entire reason they died in the first place was because of the Kingpin's own actions. Kind of fitting, a hero who was created to teach kids about responsibility faces down against a villain who adamantly refuses to take responsibility for his misdeeds.
Oh, and there are another three Spider-People to talk about, and sadly they don't get nearly as much screen-time or development as Gwen, Miles and Hobo!Peter, but they are still cool, so let's talk about them. First up, Peni Parker. Also known as SP//DR, Spider-Girl, or as I like to call her, Japanese Spider-Person Done Right! Anyway, Peni Parker is a little Asian girl from the year 3145, where Spider-Man's descendants form psychic links with spiders. Peni's spider also drives a robot that reminds me of Baymax from Big Hero 6. But she can hop inside the robot alongside the spider and use it as armor. Like you know that moment in Kung Fu Panda 3 when Po's dads wear the same suit of armor and they shout "Double Dad Defence!" and combine to make a four-armed samurai? Just imagine that but with a cute-as-a-button schoolgirl and a psychic spider robot instead. Anyway, she's actually pretty fun to watch, seeing as she's actually a walking parody of various anime tropes, and is animated in the style of anime, complete with exaggerated poses, luminescent blushes, . I will say that one aspect I initially disliked about Peni's character was (minor spoiler!) when her robot got destroyed. Her spider survived, and she's clearly a prodigy when it comes to robotics and engineering, but her emotional breakdown over the robot's destruction didn't strike me as genuine, since I was under the assumption that the robot could be replaced. And after some research into her comics, it turns out that robot was a memento from her deceased father, and the only thing she owns to remember him by. So her shedding tears at the robot's destruction retroactively makes sense. But this info wasn't stated at all in the film proper (as far as I know, they play the recap of her origin story alongside the other two supporting Spiders' recaps, so maybe they did say so and I just missed it).
Next up is Spider-Man Noir, who for simplicity's sake I'll just call Noir for short. Noir is from a timeline where everything in the main timeline played out pretty much how it did originally... Except for the fact that it's still the 30's, the Nazi's are at the height of their power, and instead of being a crime fighting vigilante like every other Spider-Person, Noir is a private eye detective. Also random fun fact! He's the only version of Peter Parker ever to use a gun. Because the main difference between Noir and every other Spider is that he has no qualms with killing bad guys. To be fair he doesn't use a gun in this film and fights more like a traditional Spider-Person. But anyway, out of the three supporting Spiders, I like Noir the best, though that may be because out of the alternate Spiders, he's the one I am personally most familiar with (thanks, Shattered Dimensions). But the fact that Nicolas Cage (Noir's voice actor) managed to turn a version of a character meant to be a more serious and mature alternative to kiddie appeal superheroes into a genuinely hilarious parody of dark, edgy anti-heroes is impressive.
And now it's time for the man, the myth, the legend; The Spectacular Spider-Ham. Spider-Ham was created all the way back in 1983, mostly as a prank by Marvel themselves. Spider-Ham's comics are notorious for the overabundance of word-play and puns, most of which are animal themed. So no, he was not created as a reference to Spider-Pig from The Simpsons. He predates Spider-Pig by two decades (more or less). In case you haven't realized it by now, but comic books, especially Marvel comics, can get pretty freaking weird. Anyway, Spider-Ham is the films main comic relief, lightening the mood with a pun or some good old Looney Toons slapstick. And then John Mulaney (Spider-Ham's voice actor) delivers a genuinely touching and emotional line (the line contains spoilers, hence I am not going to quote it), proving there's more to Spider-Ham than just being a walking meme generator.
Overall, this is a pretty solid cast. The fact that the supporting Spiders don't show up until over halfway into the movie is a bit of a bummer, but what little screen-time they do get, they bring their A-Game. Here's hoping they pull a LEGO Movie and make stand-alone films focusing on each Spider individually. Because having Noir star in a parody of murder-mystery/detective stories would be amazing. Or have Peni Parker star in a futuristic adventure film poking friendly fun at Magical Girl anime. Speaking of the LEGO Movie, something I will say about Into the Spider-Verse is it's very LEGO Movie-esque. What I mean by that is the pacing, humor, and some of the story beats share a similar style to LEGO Movie. Which is not surprising, since Into the Spider-Verse was handled by almost the exact same team. Also, considering LEGO Movie is one of my favorite films ever, more of that Lord-Miller magic is always a good thing.
But something that really surprised me was Jefferson Davis, Miles's father. Jefferson is, simply put, how father figures in popular culture should be handled. Into the Spider-Verse does a great job establishing that even though Jefferson is a little blunt, and has high expectations for his son, he still loves him unconditionally, and is always ready to lend a hand. Jefferson also has a dislike of Spider-Man, because Jefferson is a police officer and Spidey is a vigilante, but unlike J. Jonah Jameson, his dislike is less insurmountable, irrational hatred and more "I don't approve of your methods, but I do realize that you are the lesser of two evils". Which is a lot more tolerable (and believable) than JJJ's now infamous obsession with demonizing Spider-Man. Plus, when the Peter of Miles's timeline dies, I was expecting him to be like "That's what ya get, Spider-Man!", but even Jefferson, who tells his son straight to his face he doesn't like Spider-Man at all, is visibly shocked and even a little heartbroken over his death. Everyone's got standards, after all.
Aaron Davis (Miles's uncle, the one on the right in the above image) is also great. And before you ask why none of Miles's relatives share the last name Morales, keep in mind that Miles inherited the last name of his mother, and not his father. Anyway, Aaron Davis is almost the complete opposite of Jefferson, who instead of settling down and becoming an honest, hard-working police officer, Aaron instead lives the life of luxury all alone, his only real company being Miles himself, who respects and idolizes Aaron more than his own father, because both of them have a love for spray-paint art (otherwise known as graffiti). Also, Aaron teaching Miles how to flirt with cute girls literally slayed me. Especially because of how bad his flirting advice is. ...What? Do I know GOOD flirting advice? Don't ask me! Ask your parents for flirting advice!
Oh, and while we're at it, let's talk about the villains. First up, the Prowler. Shout out to people who know who Prowler is BEFORE watching this movie. Anyway, Prowler is basically a darker, more evil version of Black Panther. But I like his design. The purple hues, the super thick claws, and the vampire-style cape make him look menacing in a way most comic book villains fail to pull off. I also like how his personal leitmotif is techno music composed in such a way it sounds less like music and more like a demonic, primal roar. I usually save presentation for last when I review things, but Prowler's design and the aforementioned techno-roar are why I love this particular character. Also, as someone who never read Ultimate Spider-Man, the reveal of his identity was actually not spoiled for me! Because Into the Spider-Verse's plot twists kind of rely on the audience having not read the Ultimate Spider-Man comics (which this film draws most of it's inspiration from) before hand.
Oh, and Doc Ock is in this film! But this time, Doc Ock is a girl. Why is she a girl? Simple! In Miles's timeline, Otto Octavius (or Olivia Octavius, as she's called in this film) was born a woman instead of a dude. The result is the most over-the-top Doc Ock ever. Also, because Doc Ock never showed up in any promotional material at all, meant the fact she's even in Into the Spider-Verse was a pleasant surprise (it's not a spoiler though, she shows up very early into the movie, and is the first real threat Miles faces). Also, I like how Doc Ock's tendrils look less like robot arms and more like actual octopus tentacles. Anyway, she's also the most animated of the villains, and in every scene she's in, she's always doing something, whether it's giddily hyper-analyzing Hobo!Peter's body, or using her tendrils to crawl after the Spiders in a weirdly graceful and elegant fashion, almost as if she's just gliding rather than walking.
And now for the one thing this film did wrong. Tombstone. Why is he here? Out of all the villains in the Marvel-verse, Tombstone is not really well-liked or well-known. Except for his appearance in Marvel's Spider-Man (the PS4 video game with a stand-alone story made by InsomniacGames), in which case he was actually pretty cool in that. But here? He's Kingpin's bodyguard... But Kingpin is 300+ pounds of raw muscle, a tactical genius, a surprisingly competentant swordsman (he doesn't use a sword in this film, but in several comics he's depicted with either a cane or a katana as his weapon of choice), and depending on the writer, he has superhuman strength and durability. Tombstone is an albino who only sometimes has super-human durability (again, depending on the writer). That's it. Just enhanced durability. He is stronger than the average man, but that's because his strength is equal to that of an Olympic athlete. So even though Tombstone is strong, his strength is still attainable by real life people (again, depending on the writer, sometimes his super-strength is genuinely super). Plus, he has only one spoken line in the whole movie (three if you count deleted scenes), and overall, he's a glorified elite mook. Like if you just swapped him out for a gun-for-hire who was a little bit bigger and beefier than the regular henchmen he would've fulfilled the same role more or less the same. And to give you an idea of how lame he is in this film, Aunt May manages to knock him out with a baseball bat. Think about that for a moment. Aunt May, who is a 70-year-old woman with no super-powers whatsoever, manages to knock out a dude with supposedly enhanced durability, with an ordinary wooden baseball bat.
Also, Scorpion is in this film! And he's sporting arguably his best design in years. I mean, yeah, he looks a little too much like Bane from The Dark Knight trilogy, but the stinger tail, extra legs, and armored claw hand make him stand out in a way that Scorpion should. Also, he's Spanish now. Wait, if he speaks Spanish, and he's the muscle of the bad guys (he takes Green Goblin's role as the muscle after Goblin's defeat in the opening)... Well dang, they just straight up turned Scorpion into Bane! I'm on to you, Lord-Miller. Also, holy crab-cakes, finding good images of Scorpion on Google is a nightmare. One third of them are pictures of a tie-in toy, another third has him out of focus, and the rest don't have Scorpion's defining characteristic (his stinger tail) in frame.
Also, Aunt May is in this film! Although, out of the supporting characters, she gets the least amount of screen-time. Though again, she brings her A-game despite how brief her role is. But rather than serve as a mentor to the Spiders, as she usually does, she is more akin to Alfred Pennyworth (that's Batman's butler, by the way), since she's the one that kept Ultimate!Peter's stuff working even after his death. But my favorite Aunt May scene in which she meets Hobo!Peter. It starts off sorrowful and melancholic, and you can tell by her facial expression alone that the thought of her deceased nephew coming home alive and well might be a reality. But then we get the finest case of my old friend, Mood Whiplash, where she pokes playful fun at just how much Hobo!Peter let himself go.
And last, but not least, we have Miles Morales himself. I like Miles. I think Miles is a great protagonist. I can't speak for his character in the comics, as I have never read them. Anyway, Miles is an aspiring graffiti artist who discovered the greatest loophole in the history of loopholes. It's illegal to spray-paint art on the side of buildings unless stated otherwise, but it's not illegal to make stickers and THEN put the stickers on the side of buildings. But aside from expressing himself through what amounts to be petty vandalism, he's actually a pretty chill, down-to-Earth fellow. He does have one major flaw, which he overcomes thanks to some kindly words from his father figure(s) and the power of CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT! That flaw, being his inability to act. It's shown throughout the film Miles doesn't know what he wants to do with his life. His father expects him to graduate a charter school and get an up-standing career using his education, his uncle encourages him to take the path of least resistance and just cover everything in the finest mural art the world as ever seen. And the Spiders expect him to be just as heroic as themselves. And in the end he becomes all of those things and more, but he adds his own flair to the Spider-Man mantle. And really, can you name one other Spider-Person with a graffiti motif? Also, I like how when he finally becomes The Second Spider-Man during the climax, his movement style is radically different from the other Spiders, as rather than swinging around like we always see Peter do in the live-action, Miles just runs. As in, running on everything. Walls, ceilings, cars, flying debris, etc. He mostly uses the webs to just pull himself in range of something to run on, and I think that's cool. And then you remember, on Mile's first real mission as a hero, when he and Hobo!Peter are being chased by Doc Ock, he stops swinging with Hobo!Peter and starts running, shouting, "I run better than I swing!". As his movement and fighting style show later on, he's definitely not wrong.
But now it's time to talk about the best thing about this movie hands down...
PRESENTATION!
This. Film. Is. GORGEOUS. I cannot state enough how I ADORE this film's art-style. Into the Spider-Verse is colorful, vibrant, and manages to mix an intentionally slow frame-rate (not unlike Hollow Knight) with a comic book flair to really sell the idea that the whole film is an actual comic book come to life. Like how every time one of the Spiders shoots out a web, you can see a text bubble reading "TWIP!" appear just above the line of webbing. Or how there are certain scenes that are framed in the same style as a comic panel. Or how when Miles is thinking to himself, you can see bright yellow narration boxes appear around his head. Or how when Scorpion speaks Spanish, instead of putting traditional captions at the bottom of the screen, they give him a speech bubble with the line written in English, but surrounding the sentence in arrow symbols, which, if you don't know, is how comic writers indicate a character is not speaking English without having to have the narrator explicitly state so. And even ignoring the comic book elements, the lighting, shading, and the art direction alone make this a winner for Best Animated Picture. And win that award it did! No really, I just checked the Wikipedia article, and it did in fact win an Oscar for Best Animated Picture. Which is good, because the last time Lord-Miller made a gorgeous film (LEGO Movie), it wasn't even nominated for an Oscar (for anything, really). Why? Heck if I know. Oh, and before anyone asks, I do like the films intentionally slow frame-rate, I know some folks are like "Where's my 60fps in 4K!?", but the slow frames (which I believe are 24fps, don't quote me on that though) add a lot of weight to the characters' movement and actions, which I find to be visually appealing. I will say though that the frame-rate is on par with a stop-motion film, and I personally enjoy that style greatly, so I may be biased.
The soundtrack is also a little unorthodox. Into the Spider-Verse is a film that while considered to be a family friendly experience, is not animated, written, or composed like a traditional kids' film. The soundtrack itself consists mostly of techno beats along with some very Spanish sounding tracks (I don't know if they are Spanish, someone with knowledge of Spanish music, enlighten me), and admittedly techno is a music genre that is an acquired taste. Some people love it, others hate it. As for myself, techno does have some great songs within it's genre, but techno can get a little bit repetitive, a problem Into the Spider-Verse manages to avoid for the most part. The voice acting is also great, managing to portray the cast with humor, heart, and in the case of Kingpin and Doc Ock, just the right amount of menace to be both intimidating and awe-inspiring.
The soundtrack is also a little unorthodox. Into the Spider-Verse is a film that while considered to be a family friendly experience, is not animated, written, or composed like a traditional kids' film. The soundtrack itself consists mostly of techno beats along with some very Spanish sounding tracks (I don't know if they are Spanish, someone with knowledge of Spanish music, enlighten me), and admittedly techno is a music genre that is an acquired taste. Some people love it, others hate it. As for myself, techno does have some great songs within it's genre, but techno can get a little bit repetitive, a problem Into the Spider-Verse manages to avoid for the most part. The voice acting is also great, managing to portray the cast with humor, heart, and in the case of Kingpin and Doc Ock, just the right amount of menace to be both intimidating and awe-inspiring.
| From left to right, Miles Morales, The Second Spider-Man , The original Spider-Man, Peter B. Parker, and Gwen Stacy, Spider-Woman. |
CONCLUSION!
Overall, this film is a fantastic coming-of-age story, with clever humor, tons of heart, lovable characters and a strong art direction. It's a love letter to not just Spider-Man fans, but comic book fans in general. That said, it's a decent jumping on point for those of you who don't read comics and only know about the movies (or even just passing knowledge of the franchise's existence). Would I say that it's the best Super Hero Movie EVER? Well... It's competing with Spider-Man 2, Avengers: Infinity War, Guardians of the Galaxy, the original X-Men trilogy, Big Hero 6 (which, in case you didn't know, is based off of an obscure 90's Marvel comic), and The Incredibles. I wouldn't say that Into the Spider-Verse is better than all of those films combined, but I will say it is of equal quality. So I give it 10 radioactive spiders out of 10.
P.S. I'm redoing my rating system slightly. Rather than just say 10/10 or whatever I include a silly thing to the rating system, that's relevant to the review.
P.P.S. So everyone was sick and tired of every Spider-Man film retreading the same origin story beat-for-beat without changing anything, but Into the Spider-Verse manages to cram in the origins of FIVE different Spiders, and the whole movie is Miles' coming-of-age story, which means this whole film could count as being one big origin story! Lord-Miller played us all. Played us all like a dang fiddle!
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