I promise to try my best to not give you any major spoilers!
What can one say about Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse that hasn’t already been said? Visually stunning, the best Spider-Man (or maybe superhero?) movie of the year (ever?), a real teenager hero’s journey. So, naturally, the sequel Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has giant shoes to fill. And boy, does it stand tall.
Across the Spider-Verse is bursting with visual style accompanied with a pace that will make your excitement both palpable and kid-like. A little context: the film opens with Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) who is back in her own universe and hiding her identity from her father (as Spider-People do) but a villain from another dimension drops by but she’s aided by two members of a secret Spider-Society.
In his world, Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is now the only Spider-Man in his universe and he has been honing his special set of skills despite the absence of his mentor Peter B Parker (Jake Johnson).
Fans must have naturally put together that Morales’ spidey journey was an anomaly but what does that actually mean? We find out this time around.
Spider-Man movies, like many superhero movies, have been about one person’s journey to understanding and harnessing their true potential as they pay the ultimate price of their destiny. Instead of resigning himself to the life chosen for him, Morales asks, ‘Why?’
While the first movie challenged the idea of who gets to be a hero, the sequel questions the criteria a hero must fulfill.
I won’t give much away but he’s mad at Spider-Man (specifically Morales) and wants to take everything away from him.
The storytelling (courtesy writers Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, & David Callahan) visual and otherwise, is spectacular when it comes to The Spot. Morales and many who meet him initially write him off as a paltry villain and the film sweeps the audience into believing it too which makes his villain arc so much more enticing and terrifying.
Animation as a medium has such incredible, varying scope and the animators of Across the Spider-Verse know exactly what that means.
To add to that, the vocal work is absolutely exemplary. In his journey to become part of an elite task force, Morales meets many Spider-People: a guitar-wielding anti-establishment superhero cum activist Hobie (Daniel Kaluuya), the heartwarming Indian Spider-Man Pavitra Prabhakar (Karan Soni), and the impassive and domineering Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac). Every single person in the cast has imbibed the qualities of the Spider-People they are.
The best part about Across the Spider-Verse is that it never seems to be content with itself. Morales and O’ Hara clash over their ideological differences, the right people act as the right catalysts for the right moments, angst meets the desire to be good; it’s all there.
The worst part (and I say that loosely) is that sometimes it can become too much. At points, it’s almost overwhelming how much is going on on the screen. Admittedly, since there are so many Spider-People to account for, most of the character descriptions are rooted on superficial characteristics (for instance, Pavitra is mad at the use of ‘chai-tea’ and offhandedly mentions something akin to colonisation).
But perhaps the third part will have more scope for the characters to develop.
At a time when the phrase ‘superhero fatigue’ is near-impossible to miss when talking about Marvel, Across the Spider-Verse is a leap of faith. The film explodes with all that it can like a rapidly heating star but manages not to cave in upon itself. And how fun is that!
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