Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (’18 review)

5 outta 5

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a truly exuberant celebration of all things Spider-Man and showcasing innovative ways the animated format can collide with sequential comic art to make something really new and different. For all of the extradimensional bells and whistles and the cavalcade of deep cut Spider-Man continuity references it actually has a nicely simple story about a kid trying to figure out his place in a world. A world that has totally exploded all around him. This has a lot of classic Spider-Man movie tropes and then proceeds to flip them on their heads in a colourful, crazy ride.

Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is a high school student who is bitten by a super-powered spider which gives him incredible arachnid powers like the big time superhero, Spider-Man (Chris Pine). But one night, after a dimensional crossing super-conductor explodes, Miles sees Spider-Man killed by the Kingpin of Crime, Wilson Fisk (Liev Schreiber). Miles tries to honour Spider-Man by buying a Halloween costume (from Stan Lee! No refunds!) and protecting the city. Then he runs into an older, bitter Spider-Man, Peter B. Parker, (Jake Johnson) who was shunted to Miles’ dimension. And then Miles and the alternate Spider-Man meet Spider-people from across the multiverse; the plucky Spider-Woman aka Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), the brooding Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), the anime girl Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn) and her giant robot SP/dr, and the animated pig, Spider-Ham (John Mulaney). With the Kingpin unleashing villains to restart his dimensional portal, Miles tries to learn to be Spider-Man from his fellow Spider-people. But he also has to worry about his cop dad, Jefferson (Brain Tyree Henry) and his shifty Uncle Davis (Mahershala Ali), getting caught up in the tangled web of crime and Spider-folks. And save the entire universe too.

The kid in high school who gets Spider-powers seems like a redux of the classic Spider-Man origin story and then it literally explodes, first with the death of Peter Parker and then the arrival of the conflux of Spider-people. Miles origin is intertwined with the death of Peter Parker but since there’s Spider-folks jumping worlds, he is only without Peter Parker for about five minutes. The Pine version of Spider-Man that opens the film is the classic hero, he even has a Christmas album (that plays over the end credits!). His Spider-Man is contrasted with the schlub older Spider-Man Johnson voices. He has the classic Spider-Man wit and speed but he is emotionally worn out. This distanced him from his wife, Mary Jane Watson, and there is a fantastically awkward scene where the older Peter Parker pours his heart out to a different version of Mary Jane as his buddies literally facepalm in the background.

Even with all the different dimensional Spider-folks the movie remains focused by keeping on Miles reacting to the craziness. The relationship he has with his Uncle gets more complicated as the movie goes on and their final scene together is really emotionally resonant. There’s a bunch of cool bits throughout, like a big meeting scene where Miles and the alternate universe Peter walk up and down walls while trading barbs that is a joy to watch. Spider-Gwen is the one who has it all together and Steinfeld gives the character pep. Schreiber’s Kingpin is like a goon from the Bronx with an unstoppable rage complex. It’s simply awesome to see Spider-Man fight Kingpin since he was originally a Spider-Man bad guy but the character in live action was shunted off to Daredevil. Happily there is great Kingpin versus Spider-Man moments here. Kingpin employs multiple super-powered baddies and one is a classic Spider-Man villain given an unexpected twist. When it’s revealed who the revamped villain is, it’s great.

Visually, this movie is astonishing, if a different style from the Pixar-style 3D CGI animation that has been the prevalent for decades. This looks like a moving 2D comic book and looks especially astounding in a 3D presentation. There are bunch of different things like comic book panels and covers that show the history of the characters. When reality starts to fragment, the visuals go haywire and the characters have red and blue lines around them like crummy old 3D versions used to look.

There are a lot of bright comic book flourishes that pop up like word balloons or zip lines. The design of each Spider-person is in the style of their genre as Spider-Man Noir, voiced with excessive angst by Cage, looks like he stepped out of newspaper with blotchy black and white printing pattern. Peni Parker is basically an anime character with big eyes and her robot has an expressive LED face to convey its emotions. Spider-Ham looks like an exaggerated cartoon character and Mulaney’s vocal performance is really hilarious. The best joke animation style is saved for a post-credits scene that is amazing for Spider-Man nerds.

There is a lot of fantastic stuff constantly in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It pushes animation boundaries in surprising ways, it has a core protagonist to relate to and tosses together all bits of Spider-Man continuity. The sheer variety shows how Spider-Man has had many different takes. And this is one of the best.