Sony Pictures
There have been three Peter Parkers who have appeared on screen throughout the years. The idea of a reboot of the beloved web-slinger has become repetitive and tiresome. With the new Spider-Man movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Sony is taking on five new origin stories. They introduce characters like Miles Morales, Spider-Noir, and Spider-Ham in a new animated film that pokes fun at previous Spider-Man movies. I applaud the filmmakers for taking on such a daunting task when previous Spider-Man origin stories failed to capture the true nature of the character. That it isn’t the case for this new animated film.
Miles Morales is a young teenager from Brooklyn, NY who is struggling to balance school, friends, family, and the fact that he is the new Spider-Man. After he gets bitten by a radioactive spider, a portal is opened by the notorious Kingpin and five other Spider-Men and Women enter Morales’ universe to help him stop Kingpin from destroying the portal back to their own universes.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is easily the best animated movie I have seen this year. There is so much to love about this well-crafted and sleek animated movie. With so many Spidey characters to watch, we get a wide variety of character designs, backstories, and humor to relish. Sony put together an all-star cast to lend their voice for the heroes and villains in the movie. John Mulaney, Nicholas Cage, and Hailee Steinfeld are a few of the voice talents in this movie that make up the Spidey characters. With so many different web-slingers in this movie, it brings different styles of humor. I found characters like Peter B. Parker, Spider-Ham, and Spider-Noir to be particularly funny. Since the version we get of Peter Parker is much older, lazy, overweight, and divorced it is amusing to see him reconnect with his younger self and how to be Spider-Man again. Spider-Noir (Nicholas Cage) provides a much darker style of humor for the character and is easily perplexed by Rubik’s Cubes which is a stand out scene. Spider-Ham reminded me of a Saturday morning cartoon with his references and his ability to pull a large hammer out of his pocket. Watching humans interact with Spider-Ham was a true delight.
The style of animation is something I have never seen before. The film added many details into the movie that I loved. It is soaked with a modern style of animation that pops and is energetic. The film offers such added features as subtitles, thought bubbles, and music notes that appear throughout the film. I was impressed with how they handled Penni Parker and Spider-Ham. Both of them entered Morales’ world with their own style of animation. Penni Parker was created in a traditional style of anime and Spider-Ham was cartoonish. The animators carried those styles over into a new universe for them and it mixed so well with Morales’ form.
I wasn’t expecting the film to be so emotional. The film did a great job building Miles Morales and having the audience feel connected to him. Through family struggles and inner battles, the emotional scenes relating to Morales felt worthy and earned. Parker and Morales built a strong connection throughout the film as both of them were helping the other become the Spider-Man they wanted to be. I viewed a lot of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse to be similar to The Karate Kid. Parker was comparable to Mr. Miyagi and how he was teaching Morales to develop into Spider-Man, similar to how Mr. Miyagi was teaching Daniel Larusso karate in the 80s.
The only thing I was frustrated with is that I didn’t get enough time with a few of the Spidey heroes. A few of them had less screen time than others which lead to them to being undeveloped. They were so fun to watch but I left the movie wanting more from the characters. Spider-Noir is one hero I would love to see more of. I want to read some of the comics regarding Spider-Noir and learn more about him.
I was blown away by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and how it juggled six superheroes as well as plenty of villains. There is a hilarious Stan Lee cameo of course with a touching tribute at the end of the film. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse stands as my favorite animated film of the year and will push for a spot in my top ten at the end of the month. I would like for future Spider-Man movies to explore some of the side characters we witnessed and give them a film of their own. Whatever they do in the future, this was a step in the right direction.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has a run time of 1 hour 57 minutes and is rated PG for frenetic sequences of animated action violence, thematic elements, and mild language.
Share this post
