Marvel Studios
Before Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse came out in 2018, the track record of Sony Animation was mixed at best, but I had faith in the movie because it was also being produced by the Phil Lord/Chris Miller pairing (from The LEGO Movie, 21 Jump Street, Clone High, etc) that have yet to miss. After watching that one I had the firm belief that it was immediately the best superhero movie ever made, not just the best animated one (an easier feat).
There was no question that the Oscar-winning movie would get a sequel, but the pressure was unquestionably high, and the fact that the movie didn’t intentionally plan out a sequel meant that things could be tricky to pull off. Thankfully Lord and Miller returned with the writing partner of Dave Callaham (who has a more mixed record of success) to deliver a knockout sequel that may not hit the heights of the original, but is wildly successful in its own right.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse comes from a new director team of Joaquim Dos Santos (a producer on the legendary cartoons Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra), Kemp Powers (writer on Soul), and Justin K. Thompson (production designer on the last ‘Spider-verse’ movie). But given how insanely jam packed this movie is, it makes sense to share the load with three people.
The film picks up essentially where we left off, following Gwen Stacy (the always impossibly talented Hailee Steinfeld) as we get her backstory (naturally very tragic) more fully fleshed out and see her descent into a sad state. She misses Miles (Shameik Moore) but as they’re from separate universes, doesn’t think there’s any way to see him again and feels alone and isolated. But we know (since it was the ending of the first movie) that they will meet again, so the trick is to see how that takes place.
In the very final post-credits scene of Into the Spider-Verse we were introduced to Spider-Man 2099 Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac, who reprises his role like nearly all the voice actors) in what was really just a joke scene (albeit a hysterical one). But this movie reveals that Miguel helps lead a team of many different Spider-Man versions from hundreds of different Spider-universes, and his path inevitably crosses paths with Gwen and Miles.
There are a lot of amusing cameos and one-off jokes that I won’t dare to spoil, but two of note in the trailers already are one version of Spider-Woman Jessica Drew (Issa Rae), a cool motorcycle riding badass who doesn’t really have the most interesting storyline — this is contrasted with another new character, Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya), who is an anarchist punk Spider-Man and is immediately one of the coolest characters in the movie, a standout with a legitimate arc that takes you places.
But this is mainly Gwen and Miles’ story, so we spend most of it with Miles as he’s back in his own universe stretched thin as the local Spider-Man while trying to be a good student, a good kid for his parents, and somehow figure out a way to find Gwen again. The big plot gets kicked out when a weird villain called The Spot (Jason Schwartzman) shows up with a particularly strong vendetta against Miles and with a power set that is both visually interesting and highly problematic for our local hero.
The movie sets up big themes with Miles and his desire to make his parents proud, while dealing with their own worries about him and his lying and mysterious behavior (not that they know why). It’s highly important to give us this backstory as stakes so that when things get out of control, there’s still a human element to remind us to stay invested.
Of course Miles ends up involved in other universes and other Spider-people, and the action scenes continue to set new standards for dynamic movement, inventive styles, and simply cool heroics. Part of the fun is to see all of the various new worlds dropped in, so I won’t spoil anything past what’s already been shown in trailers, but the storyline becomes twisted in fascinating ways as characters have to grapple with ideas like fate and personal choice against the stability of a ‘canon’ (i.e., the baseline storyline continuity in comic books).
The twists and turns are well set up and make sense — some of the big ‘reveals’ were a little obvious and didn’t quite have the impact on me as they did on the characters, but they aren’t heavy handed. The movie is still funny, if not as much as the first movie, but it retains the heart and strong characterization as it introduces new characters (some that work better than others) and brings back some old favorites.
The only real issue with the movie is that it is an intentional ‘Part 2’ of a trilogy, as the movie was originally planned to just be a simple one-off sequel to the first movie. But this film, already 2 hours and 20 minutes long, simply didn’t have the time to pay everything off. The pacing works well, even if it builds to a climax that never comes because we get a cliffhanger instead.
Sometimes an intentional cliffhanger works, like in The Empire Strikes Back and sometimes it’s immediately a groan-inducing moment, like The Matrix Reloaded. But it’s also rare to have an intentional trilogy and have the creators be given the freedom to actually make it. Maybe you could look at The Lord of the Rings or the Back to the Future trilogies as other examples — Back to the Future II literally has a trailer for the third movie in it after all.
But although Across the Spider-verse isn’t a perfect movie like the first one, it sets things up perfectly for the finale Beyond the Spider-verse, and so far Lord & Miller haven’t disappointed me yet so I’m optimistic that they’ll be able to complete this trilogy as one of the greats. Whether or not it’s the greatest will entirely depend on the third movie, but in my opinion this movie is a must see if you enjoyed the first one.
It’s wildly inventive, visually gorgeous, and with intriguing ideas and themes that we’ll see if they get fully paid off. And there’s no post-credits scene, so if it’s getting a bit late, you don’t have to sit through the whole credits — unless you want to, of course.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has a run time of 2 hours 20 minutes, and is rated PG for sequences of animated action violence, some language and thematic elements.
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