‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ Lives Up the Web-Slinging Hype | Review
Following the critical success of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which swung into theaters in 2018, ripping a hole in the multiverse with its awe-inspiring animation and heartfelt storytelling, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is here to do all that and more. Not only have Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and David Callaham penned a script that delivers a healthy dose of humor and heart, but they have crafted a story that is leagues beyond its Marvel peers.
Roughly a year after the events of Into the Spider-Verse, Across the Spider-Verse reunites audiences with Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) and Gwen Stacey (Hailee Steinfeld) as they both struggle with living dual lives in their respective universes. The film opens in Gwen’s universe, where Spider-Woman is wanted for the murder of Peter Parker, who was Gwen’s best friend. But Gwen’s situation is worse than just being blamed for her best friend’s death—her father is the police officer leading the investigation into Spider-Woman. Miles’ situation is only slightly better. While he hasn’t been pinned for any murders, his parents, Rio (Luna Lauren Vélez) and Jefferson Davis (Brian Tyree Henry), are growing impatient with his distant attitude and class-skipping, and with his father primed to become police captain, things are getting serious. While his interpersonal relationship with his parents is on the fritz, there’s also an interdimensional crisis on the horizon, when his villain of the week foe The Spot (Jason Schwartzman) decides to become a full-blown supervillain.
Image via Sony Animation
Marvel’s various live-action Spider-Men may be beloved for a myriad of reasons, but Miles Morales is the best Spider-Man that has ever been seen on screen. It’s a combination of his personality, the events he went through in Into the Spider-Verse, and the emotional journey he embarks on in Across the Spider-Verse. What’s so brilliant about the film series securing his spot as the best, is the fact that the story at play in Across the Spider-Verse is in direct opposition with that notion—and it’s for the best. The third act delivers a pretty sharp blow for Miles when it is revealed that he was never meant to be Spider-Man. He only became the web-slinger because a radioactive spider from another universe bit him, robbing a Spider-Man in another universe of his heroic fate. It’s a sort of weirdly meta plot as well because these films have proved that Miles is the best thing to come out of the modern era of Marvel.
Across the Spider-Verse also makes a deliciously meta joke about Doctor Strange’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) multiversal mishaps in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and it’s hard to avoid comparing the two journeys into the multiverse and how much better Across the Spider-Verse uses the world of potential in that story. As with Into the Spider-Verse, the sequel showcases how wild and wonderful all of the different universes are, with their rich cultures, glorious animation styles, and the variants that have lived similar, yet starkly different stories. In addition, Across the Spider-Verse smartly introduces the concept of “canon events,” which are not dissimilar from what Doctor Who refers to as “fixed points in time.” This adds a very interesting plot point for Miles—one that is clearly going to be explored in full in the highly-anticipated Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse.
It’s this exploration of the multiverse that brings Miles eagerly to the doorsteps of the Spider-Society led to the decidedly anti-heroic Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac) and his elite team of Spider-Men (and Women) who are holding the Spider-Verse together, including Gwen’s mentor Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman (Issa Rae), British bad-boy Hobie Brown/Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya), the too-cool Pavitr Prabhakar/Spider-Man India (Karan Soni), and of course the new dad Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson). Somehow, Across the Spider-Verse manages to have a robust ensemble cast that never feels underappreciated.
Image via Sony Animation
Into the Spider-Verse’s animation was already impressive in 2018, but Across the Spider-Verse manages to blow its own predecessor out of the water with the expressive, immersive, and ever-changing blend of animation that takes every scene to the next level. Whether it's through the inventive comic book stylings or the beautiful and rich color schemes, Across the Spider-Verse never fails to deliver visual intrigue. While the animation is the film’s defining attribute, it’s the human heart at the center of the story that allows everything else to fall into place. At a certain point, you forget you’re watching beautifully crafted characters because they feel real, and their emotions bleed into reality. For Miles, it isn’t quite a coming-of-age story that he goes through, because it’s more than just a 15-year-old boy learning what it means to be a superhero. What he is primed to face in Beyond the Spider-Verse is a moral dilemma that no one, old or young, should have to face, but it’s one that every Spider-Man must face.
Across the Spider-Verse is one of the most ambitious animated features to date and it excels at that ambition. From the character growth and exploration to the new introductions and dazzling universes, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has something for everyone. But more importantly, it has the best Spider-Man to date, and Beyond the Spider-Verse has him primed and ready to pull off even more awe-inspiring web-slinging action.
FINAL VERDICT: A+
