Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

 

Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.

Nearly 5 years ago, I reviewed Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse, which this movie has the biggest game-changer for not just having Spider-Verse on the big screen but also for the animation, while I love The Incredibles 2 in the same year, but looking back, I think I might considering it as the second best for the new level of animation and memorable characters, I guess its no wonder this movie earned the Oscar for Best Animated Feature for its innovation. And as always, with the success of Spider-Verse on the big screen, its not hard to know that they brought as the sequel to bring us to a trip.

“Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse” is a 2023 animated superhero movie that was directed by Joaquim Dos Santsos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson, produce/written by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, co-produced by Avi Arad, Amy Pascal and Cristina Steinberg, and co-written by David Callahan.

After the success of Into the Spider-Verse, its no stranger that Sony, along with Phil Lord and Chris Miller are planning to developing a sequel of Spider-Verse to bring another journey of Miles Morales, with originally planned to make a romantic relation with Spider-Gwen, but changed to while Gwen still be in the sequel but more focusing into traveling in Spider-Verse, while they make a spin-off project involving Gwen and other female related Spider-Man (along with Spider-Ham, but I digress). I should also point out that not only this film will be the longest length of 140 minutes (which is about 2 in a half hours), but also has the amount of employees, which il get to that subject later.

So, with all that said, is traveling into Spider-Verse will be a fun ride, or should be stay in Earth to never see this verse ever again?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

In previous film where Miles has to accept to have a responsibility with his great power without other Spider-Men in order to bring them back where they belong, this one, while its the same, but with exploration of Spider-Verse.

It begins in Earth-65 where we re-introduce Gwen Stacy (aka Spider-Woman or Spider-Gwen) who’s struggled from the past that, while she misses Miles Morales after the Alchemax incident (the big machine for the experiment of Multiverse since Into the Spider-Verse), but also struggled from her origin like how she lost Peter Parker from mutation of Lizard and being polarized from everyone’s reaction, including her father. But while facing against Da Vinci themed Vulture which revealing to be another transferring from universe, two Spider-People, Miguel O’Hara (aka Spider-Man 2099) and Jess Drew (this time, black version of Jessica Drew) come to helping her they brought her to different universe called “Earth-928”. Meanwhile we have Miles Morales, who started well on his life both school student to Spider-Man to fighting against crimes. But one day, he’s facing against a new villain named “The Spot”, who uses the ability using black dots to creating various portals. Soon, after his struggling relationship with his family for celebration or how to connect together, he’s reunited by none other than Gwen Stacy, while they hanging out, Miles notices she’s looking for The Spot thanks to creating portal to jumping different universes, as well as find out when Miles Morales as Spider-Man isn’t supposed to happen. Its up to Miles to not only finding The Spot, but questions what happen to himself and getting his first taste of traveling in various Spider-Verse.

This one is a pretty tough tale for Miles, which I find the writing is pretty complex for get-go. In fact, the main factor of this movie is the origin gone wrong. Remember when Miles was bitten by a radioactive spider in “Into the Spider-Verse”, well, it turns out, its an origin gone wrong that the spider isn’t belong to Miles’s home (Ohh boy, that can’t be good), leaving a problem for not just his origin, but also to connect to the Spider-Verse, especially Miles wanted to clear that point if he isn’t similar to Spider-Man, he wanted to be different as independent. The latter of which bring us to another element of this movie, is the social commentary element of canons or unfit the canon for who’s perfectly fit to be one of the Spider-People, this is especially the case of Miles likes to be on his own instead of being treated as a bad outcast for being unfit for the canon of various reasons. Even though we like to see Spider-Verse, we can all agree its the focus on Miles that we can related how we like to be on our own than being forced to be in the main rule or such. Not to mention, not only it has a fascinating social commentary when it comes to independent people, but it also has a heart how Miles wants to get a respect with his family or even a chemistry with Gwen Stacy. Plus, the movie also has a very fun humor of this movie from either self-aware or my personal favorite, referencing the internet meme, mainly the good’ol Spider-Men pointing each others, heh, it never gets old…!

However, the downside of this movie is that we expecting to having a typical hero who’s trying to dealing with The Spot in first and second act, but they decided to changed the subject to learning about Spider-Verse, I know that I heard its the first of 2 part movies that we start the first part, but I feel like facing against The Spot is pretty much forgotten, but again, it focuses about Spider-Verse and Miles being either fit or unfit with the rule of Spider-Verse, but facing against The Spot is more like an afterthought until we’ll get him back for Beyond the Spider-Verse. Another issue of this movie is the tone and the length, like I said before, this is the longest animated movie that it lasted 2 hours and 20 minutes, while I appreciated for a long plot development, but with a changing tone of heart, humors and action, but after reaching in third act, I feel like im in eternity that im kinda burnt out. Again, I get its a first part of 2 part movies, but I feel like I we’ve seen the same action and stuff. Yeah I know, I’ve been watching long movies before like Avengers Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home, since they both lasted 3 hours, either that or I’d rather watching and review Snyder’s cut version of Justice League that lasted 4 HOURS…! But im getting ahead of myself.

One last thing, remember the build up of the amount of employees? Well, in the first one "Into the Spider-Verse", the amount of employees has about more than 800 of them, quite a lot, but in this movie's case, it has over One Thousands Employees involved from this, which im easily guessing for the work of many Spider-People in Spicer-Society and even other than Spider-People.

While its not perfect for the writing and the long time, but it does have a very complex story when it comes to being Spider-Man to be shared the same and exploring Spider-Verse.

The Animation

Sweet Christmas of Multiverse, the presentation of this animated movie is quite of new level, even with the budget costs $100M.

For starter, the location are pretty fascinating with various versions of New York, whether be a regular New York in Earth-1610, which looks normal, but beautifully done, specially in skyline view. Earth-65’s New York is, while looks the same, but pretty colorful of watercolor to probably fitting for her lifestyle, not to mention, whenever she talks with her father George, the background changed completely in trippy way,which my only guess is the meaning of feeling when they’re in conversation. There’s the Indian version of New York called Mumbattan to have its flashy colorful look in Indian style, which I will say, its pretty colorful. And then there’s Nueva York, which while it looks beautiful for neo-future look, even if I wish it would’ve been look with colorful with neon and others in order to be futuristic in the year of 2099.

As for the design, some like Miles, Gwen and some that we’ve seen before remains the same, but with an upgraded designs for new lives, which is an appreciation for some either remains the same, but with outfit upgraded, including Miles’s Spider-Man outfit. But of course, they also give us some new designs like many designs of various Spider-People, either the unique design or the animation styles. Like Pavitr looks pretty impressive for his decoration and costume design, easily fitting for his Indian land. Miguel O’Hara’s outfit of Spider-Man 2099 gives a technology look from his red neon part of his suit that makes him look perfectly fitting to his life in… Well, 2099, especially with his glowing red web. And there’s Spider-Punk who appears with more unique animation style, this time, his animation is based on punk-rock covers in emulation of Xerox print, which I will admit, he looks pretty cool. Finally, there’s The Spot appearance, while he’s just a simply walking white body with black dots all over, but the twist is it wasn’t just his ability to creating a portal, but rather the extra texture on his body that has an unfinished sketch with ink and rough drawing, which I will say, its creative for the execution.

Plus, it has some familiar Spider-Men if you recognized like me, there’s the easy Playstation Spider-Man (which I actually played it couple years ago in PS4), The Spectacular Spider-Man or the infamous Bagheaded Spider-Man (you know when Parker joins Fantastic 4 by wearing a paper bag on his head?). But some that if you’re a Spider-Nerd, you can easily found the forgettable Spider-Man Unlimited, the alternative Spider-UK, Web-Slinger (aka cowboy Spider-Man), Spider-Cat, Spider-Armors and even Spider-F(bleep)in’-Rex!!

The quality is all over the place with all kinds of the place, but in a trippy and colorful way, and also in a good way. Since they use the same animation style of a comic to life, as well as the aforementioned animation style from various like Spider-Punk, but they also went above and beyond like video quality from old school like Atari 2600 Green Goblin from Atari Spider-Man (“You’re running out the Fluiiid!!”) to modern quality like the aforementioned Playstation’s Spider-Man on PS4. They even done with stopmotion style with the use of Lego Spider-Man, even though back then, WB made their own The Lego Movie without Marvel, since WB still making DC contents to this day. And lastly, they even using live action from actor got into green screen to one moment where Spot pops out in Venom’s Universe, mainly due to recognizable convenience store owner Miss Chen.

As for the action scenes, they are pretty fun to see in various angles, creative fight, some pretty risky moments and even have some humors when they’re fighting, especially I like to see the fight between Miles’s Spider-Man vs The Spot.

The animation’s presentation is pretty outstanding for not only do the same thing as Into the Spider-Verse, but went above and beyond level.

The Characters

As always since the first, the characters in this movie are both memorable and relatable for the changes and and enjoy some new ones, for the most parts perhaps.

Lets start off with our main Ultimate Spider-Man, Miles Morales (reprised by Shameik Moore), as we all know, he’s the next Spider-Man following Parker’s death. Here, while he likes to taking care against crimes, but again, much like Peter Parker, Miles is having a hard time to live in double life. But once he found out what he is when entering Spider-Verse, he’s becoming a target that he became Spider-Man in a bad placement that the spider came from different universe, but Miles wants to live with it as an independent that sharing the same canon as others, which is no secret that not only being independent, but also rebellious that he deserves better than being forced to be shared or being unfitted as Spider-Man. This is where one plot element that I saved it for later until now, which is the “Social Commentary” element how being Spider-Man when Miles is considered as an outcast. Like I said, Miles was treated for being unfitted when his canon of his universe wasn’t supposed to be like it compare to other Spider-Verse. Its like how the society treats black person as an outcast that he doesn’t belong in the town, or in this case, share the same canon origin as other people that the black person like Miles wanted to be not just independent, but also deserve better that while likes to live there, but also wanted himself as people’s people, which is exactly that black people deserve better to be equal than being treated like a toys to this day, which I still like to treating people as a respect, let along with Miles Morales as an independent Spider-Man. I know it sounds like im taking this movie politically, but I have to bring this up, like I always said, black people deserve better, Miles Morales deserve better and other races deserve better than being treated like trash. But as always, Moore did a nice work of his role of Miles.

Next up is Gwen Stacy (reprised by Hailee Steinfeld), the female version of Spider-Man in her home universe Earth-65. In this movie, she has a similar life struggle from Miles, difficult to live in double like as Spider-Woman and as a daughter of police captain George. But at the same time, she’s meant to be Miles’s love interest, since she’s also have a hard time to be lonely. Unfortunately, she’s also being forced to be part of Spider-Society from Miguel O’Hara as a student, leaving her have a hard time to be with them or with Miles to support him that putting her at risk to be banished. Yeah, its no stranger that we can relate Gwen that we like to support foreigners like Miles Morales as a respect than being manipulated from the society. Even though I like Miles, but I enjoy Spider-Gwen when it comes to Spider-Verse, and Hailee is still did a fun work of her role.

As for Peter B. Parker (reprised by Jake Johnson)? Well, while its good to see him again, but he’s unfortunately less focus, sure he likes to helping out to motivating Miles, but its mainly due to not just reuniting his home universe’s Mary Jane, but also becoming a father of his daughter, Mayday Parker. Aw well.

Ok, we got the familiar Spider-Men from before, but what about the new Spider-People in this movie after Peni, Spider-Noir and Spider-Ham (despite their cameos)?

First, we have Pavitr Prabhakar (played by Karan Soni), who’s a fun-loving Indian version of Spider-Man, but instead of bitten, he received magic to becoming a hero, which is pretty nice to have a magical element that sci-fi of bitten by radioactive spider. And Karan did a nice work of his voice role.

Second, we have Hobie Brown, aka Spider-Punk (played by Daniel Kaluuya), a Black British punk rocker who likes to be rebellious as anarchy in his home universe that is ruled by dictator’s system. Yeesh, talk about making punk rock of anarchism against hierarchy system for his freedom. Even though im not a fan of Spider-Punk, but il give a credit for his development who he hated what he has in his universe and Daniel did a nice work too.

Then we have, Miguel O’Hara, aka Spider-Man 2099 (played by Oscar Isaac), we first introducing him from post-credit in Into the Spider-Verse for his experiment, but ended up in hilarious argument of him and Spider-Man in Earth-67 (aka the old cartoon of Spider-Man that I remember from my childhood) for pointing each others. Anyway, in this movie, he’s the ruler of Spider-Society after his family origin gone wrong very badly that he has to creating his Spider-Society in order bring many other Spider-People to be shared the same canon way too seriously. I had a promise to see how’s going at first, but when he met Miles, this is where he considered Miles as an outcast (or “Anomaly” what Miguel called him) based on the aforementioned origin in bad placement since he wants to protect universe to be shared. I felt like he’s taking it too seriously, as well as his hatred against Miles for reasons that he doesn’t belong, making Miguel for me, not only taking too seriously, but downright mean-spirited that its almost like he’s setting up to putting Miles in misery, despite for the fact that Miles said it doesn’t matter that he likes to be independent. Im not saying I hate Spider-Man 2099 nor even Isaac’s performance, don’t get me wrong, but its just the way he’s setting up is both overprotective, forced, seriously and even mean to tell Miles to either be like them or be suffered as Anomaly, talk about being a Dick for not accepting about independence…!

After that, we have Jess Drew (voiced by Issa Rae), the African-American version of Jessica Drew that, like Jessica, he’s now pregnant that while potentially becoming a movie, she’s using motorcycle and while didn’t maintaining her secret identity. I find her to be passable for being Miguel’s partner of Spider-Society, though Rae did a fine work.

The last one to be mentioned is Ben Reilly, aka Scarlet Spider (voiced by Andy Samberg) who’s like Spider-Man 2099 henchman to facing against The Spot. While its nice to see Scarlet Spider in a movie, but he’s more like a questionable comedic role. But hey, at least its better than the godawful Clone Saga when he was a main deal, while he called Peter Parker as a clone, when in reality, its all BS to insulting our intelligence (Sorry, just want to bring it up).

As for the villain (that’s not Spider-Man 2099) named Dr. Jonathan Ohnn, aka The Spot (voiced by Jason Schwartzman) the main villain of this movie (well, briefly) based on using his black dots appearance as his portal against anybody in his crime. Btw, here’s an interesting twist, remember the escaping lab scene in Into the Spider-Verse when Miles threw a bagel at one scientist? Well, that scientist who got bonked by bagel is actually The Spot himself, meaning after got contacted, he got accidentally putting himself in Alchemax, leaving him not only creating his portal form different locations, but also jumping into various universes (America Chavez, eat your heart out), though its a shame that he has a brief appearance only in first and second half, but I gotta say, even though I wasn’t sure at first, but he ended up being unique but also funny with some humorous lines that I can’t help but gives me a chuckle. While he has a unique twist, but I think I find The Spot to be memorable and Jason did a fun work of his villainous role.

As for the rest, there aren’t much else to say, there’s Vulture (voiced by Jorma Taccone) who’s the minor villain with Da Vinci’s presentation that he came from Italian Renaissance theme universe, Jeff Morales (reprised by Brian Tyree Henry) who’s Miles’s father whom likes to see Spider-Man, but not easy to connecting with Miles in his celebration, Rio Morales (reprised by Luna Lauren Velez) wo’s Miles’s mother that she has a good heart on him, but again not easy for chemistry with her son, George Stacy (voiced by Shea Whigham) the police captain and the father of Gwen, and Lyla (voiced by Greta Lee) who’s Miguel’s AI Assistant since we saw her in post-credit of Into the Spider-Verse.

The characters in this movie are both memorable, lovable and even relatable that we enjoy, even if there’s some that I have a problem for either less appearance or worst of all, one of them being mean spirited.

And now for my final opinion of this film.

Overall, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a one helluva movie, but in a great way with fascinating story with twist and plot element, memorable characters, fun voice acting, fun humors, a good heart, a fun Easter Egg, along with meme-able moments Not as much as Into the Spider-Verse), and the animation has taken innovation to next level for how amazing it looks, in a trippy and colorful way.

However, while its pretty impressive, but the movie has some flaws like forgetting The Spot (that is unless we’ll get him back in Beyond the Spider-Verse) to focusing on Spider-Verse, the movie could get long and probably burnt out for nearly 2 in a half hours long film, some characters could be “meh”, but other like Miguel O’Hara isn’t my cup of tea for being too serious and mean against Miles Morales, making Spider-Man 2099 dangerously close to be the villain, but more like a feud.

This is definitely a Must-Watch film for our easy anticipated movie Spider-Verse from Sony Animation, I can’t recommend enough for many reasons why I and many movie-goers enjoy this movie as a long waited sequel. But like I said, its the first part of 2 part movies, so we’ll see next year of Beyond the Spider-Verse. You should definitely check it out for your curiosity and being a fan of Spider-Man like me.

For my rating, I was originally thinking to giving it an 8, but since I have a blast of watching it, im definitely gonna give this one a 9/10, as well as earning the Trophy of Success for a well-deserved anticipating sequel with next level of innovative animation.

So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.