So why haven’t y’all watched this yet?
There’s some visual elements in the film I don’t want to give away to an unawares audience, but almost all my impressions of it are really based on them, so between that and the movie being out a mere weekend as I’m putting this up… yeah. Go catch it on the big screen now, then come back to me. It’s good, 8/10 stuff, but with plenty of bonuses. Go!
Honestly the movie is self-evidently good to the point I want to start out with my most negative reaction: at a surface level this being so obviously A Spider-Man Movie that I wonder if it’s just a bit too generic. The tale of Miles Morales hits the beats of the Spider-journey so thoroughly it’s very obvious.
And the movie makes that part of the narrative, turning what could have been an unfortunate implication, that the black latino Spider-Man has to be carried by all the others for his first movie, into a strength; anyone can be Spider-man if they try, and more importantly you could be Spider-Man.
I’ve rarely been in a theater and had an entire audience crack up as often as they did at Spider-verse. A lot of the humor didn’t quite click for me, in part because I think some of the slapstick segments go on long enough to be uncomfortable? Old Peter being passed out and pulled across Brooklyn with Miles along for the ride is funny for 30 seconds, can hold a good rhythm for a couple minutes, but the length it goes on in the movie starts to feel like they just wanted to make the poor guy suffer.
Alright! Time to gush.
It’s not only a gorgeous movie, with an immediately recognizable New York with vibrant detail, but the crossover elements manifesting in the animation style both artistically and in motion sells effortlessly that these are people from incredibly different places. Realizing Peter Porker so brilliantly in a cg animated film is something I’m not sure I can point to a better example of, Peni isn’t just out of an anime, she’s sporting that very slightly western style you’d see more in shows like Avatar than most anime out of Japan. The way Miles’ street art is brought to life does an amazing job of not just being impressive, but selling the way this is a manifestation of his self and spirit into physical form.
The little touches in the story and using the Spiders are nice. I certainly plan to get this on video just so I can try and dissect some of the big scenes for added easter eggs. The gags subtler gags worked in around the wackier characters hit home nicely: Spider-Noir vs Rubik’s Cube is something everyone should experience. Spider-verse has my second favorite post-credits of the year (nothing’s going to top Ralph), definitely stick around for that. And the movie being so willing to mix comedy and drama is always welcome; I’m never going to complain about a little girl mourning her robot companion while a talking pig offers her a shoulder.
In spite of all this madness the core of the story is always Miles’ Spider-Man origin, and that the madness around it only serves to support, emphasize, and contrast his twists on that origin. Prowler’s design and unique lighting makes him absolutely pop against the other characters, lending him the most menace of any enemy in the film, which naturally lends that much more power to his refusal to hurt Miles in the end. The shirt clutching speech, and its reversed reprise, is a perfect sort of grapple where you both feel how sudden and paralyzing it can be but also just as quickly remember it wouldn’t truly be hard to break out of for Spider-Man. As noted several paragraphs ago, the similarity of Miles’ story to the others is a point of bonding; we’re the ones who’ve walked this road, and we know you too can come out the other side of it a hero.
It’s mostly visual, but I wanted to single out the final battle. Because despite being probably the only big-name Marvel hero that he had no personal involvement in, I have to think that far more than Stan Lee or Steve Ditko, it’s Jack Kirby that gave this one a standing ovation from the beyond. The way the super collider’s interdimensional portal manifest is possibly the first time I have ever seen Kirby’s art style so vividly, eye-poppingly rendered in motion. Subatomic space in Ant Man and the magical realms of Dr. Strange have nothing on those perfect inky-black Kirby Dots from the beam between worlds. The dimensional web we get glimpses of when someone’s passing through the door is so perfectly a recreation of expertly used negative space on a comic panel you can’t look away. The way the rest of the room gets swallowed up by the energies and other dimensions spilling out of the portal, but you can see hints of the original room peaking behind them… ahh!! So good!
There’s definitely some tendencies in the way the movie is written and presented that betray it’s younger target audience than most modern super hero fare, and the big emotional moments only rarely land with the same emotional punch as most of Pixar or Disney’s output, but the unique visual flair and openly inspirational messaging definitely elevate it into their company. Not always for everyone, but something everyone needs a little more of in their life.
Rating- 8/10
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