Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Starring: Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali

Director: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman

Based on characters Spider-Man created by Steve Ditko and Stan Lee and Miles Morales by Brian Michael Bendis and Sarah Pichelli

Here’s some advice that I know I would have trouble taking: go into this film knowing nothing. I realize that I’m about to ruin your chances at this, so I will be as non-spoilery as possible.

Young teen Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is struggling. His police officer father sends him to an “elitist” (Miles’ words) middle school where he is having trouble making friends. The only friend he appears to have is his Uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali), who no longer is on good terms with Miles’ father after making some “bad decisions.” He encourages Miles’ passion for street art and takes him to the underground of a train station to give him a space to tag. While leaving, Miles is bitten by a fateful, radioactive spider. Miles soon realizes that he has become the next Spider-Man. After a chance meeting with the pre-existing Spider-Man, Miles stumbles on a plot by Kingpin to open up a portal to alternate dimensions. After an accident with the portal, Miles learns of the existence/meets alternate Spider people (an impressive cast that I think is more fun to not know ahead of time). They all must work together to close this portal and send the other Spider people back to their own dimensions.

While ostensibly a bit hard to follow at first, with the whole alternate universe plot, this film was so much fun. The humor was spot on. Funny when needed, but didn’t rely solely on humor. There were long stretches when I found that we weren’t laughing, but we didn’t need to. The story was compelling and kept the audience’s attention. It also had heart and emotional scenes, which felt true to the plot. I am glad that I had not known that the film was written by Phil Lord before watching. As someone who did not like THE LEGO MOVIE, I feel like I wouldn’t have been as open to it as I was, which would have been a shame, as this film was wonderful. Interestingly, I still found myself comparing this film to THE LEGO MOVIE and even WRECK IT RALPH as I found it a possibly more successful merging of properties (albeit, these all took place in the Spider-Man universe, so the properties were not too different from each other.)

Visually, the film is absolutely stunning. Switching seamlessly through a variety of animation styles, this film was truly captivating. The constant change worked with the nature of the film and continued to remind you of the multiple dimensions, not letting anything feel too set in reality. I really enjoyed the artistic choice at times of making it feel like an actual comic book, come to life. It was so much more interesting than a regular animated film or a live action film would have been. As someone who is admittedly not overly visual, I cannot say enough about how impressed I was with the animation.

I liked the choices made in this film. The dynamics between characters, especially relatives, felt real. Nothing felt overly cliche (which is not an easy task when making a Spider-Man film after it has just been rebooted for the third time in the last 16 years). While there were many references to other Spider-Man properties, nothing felt out of place and it was fun to have a little nostalgia.

I know a little bit about Spider-Man, but my knowledge base could be wider. I remember the excitement when the Miles Morales comic came out. This film keeps his Afro-Puerto Rican heritage and had a couple of moments that I had never seen in an American film before. There were times when characters spoke to each other in Spanish and it was not subtitled. You either understood what they were saying (which was simple enough to get with context) or you didn’t. While a minor detail, this spoke volumes to the respect that the filmmakers had for his character.

If you are going to see a superhero film this month, let this be the one. You won’t be disappointed. Also, be sure to stay after the credits for an extra scene that opens the film up to a sequel.