Second Verse, Not the Same as the First

Film: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Format: DVD from Cortland Public Library at Cortland Public Library.

A lot of the movies I’ve been reviewing lately have come from the Cortland Public Library. This is a tiny little library one town over from where I live. Despite its size (it’s considerably smaller than my house), it has a great movie collection. But, any collection can always be improved. I’ve teamed up with one of the librarians to create a movie club. Once a month, we host a movie showing, ask for a $1 donation, and, eventually, will use those donations to buy additional movies for the library. We premiered the group last night with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

And holy shit. I’d heard it was good, even groundbreaking, but I was not prepared.

I’m going to make the plot summary, well, summary, because this is not a movie to have spoiled. Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is, like all Spider-People, bitten by a radioactive spider and experiences the strange growing pains of that event. This happens simultaneously with him going to a new school and dealing with the embarrassment potential of that. One night, while dealing with trying to avoid trouble, Miles encounters the real Spider-Man (Chris Pine), who is trying to stop a plot of Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin (Live Schreiber). This plan is to create a dimensional rift to find another version of Fisk’s late wife and child. However, when Spider-Man falls into the rift, he essentially brings five additional Spider-People into his own universe. Since this world’s Spider-Man is killed by Kingpin shortly after and Miles is completely inexperienced, the additional help is clearly needed.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is inventive, smart, and visionary in almost every respect. We’re not given cookie-cutter versions of Peter Parker. Instead, we have an older, broken-down version (Jake Johnson), the acrobatic female version named Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), the anime-inspired future version (Kimiko Glenn), the 1930s Nazi-fighting noir version (Nicolas Cage), and the cartoon talking animal pig version named Peter Porker, the Spider-Ham (John Mulaney). In this world, Doctor Octopus is Olivia Octavius (Kathryn Hahn), and Aunt May (Lily Tomlin) knows all about the late Peter Parker’s secret identity. It’s insane, inclusive, raucous, and wild.

It’s also visionary in terms of its style. This is not merely an animated movie, but an animated comic book. We both see and hear the dialogue in places, and many of Miles’s thoughts appear in text blocks as if in comic book panels. There’s no other way to put this. While clearly an animated movie, it also clearly takes its inspiration from the visual style and sensibilities of the printed page.

It’s actually rather astonishing that this was even made, and that a major studio not only put money into it, but a great deal of money. It’s almost experimental in the way it delivers the story. It injects moments of humor, pathos, pain, and joy into its world, and it genuinely cares about its characters. While the porcine version of Spider-Man is clearly meant as comic, the others—even the somewhat ridiculous black-and-white noir version—are not necessarily played for laughs. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse doesn’t talk down to its audience, but assumes a level of maturity that many movies do not.

In fact, I have only one complaint. In the third act, when we get the culminating battle between all of the Spider-People vs. Kingpin and his various minions, the visual style gets…difficult. There are a lot of colors happening and a great deal going on. It’s the sort of thing that could easily trigger a seizure in those prone to them, and I have to wonder how many people were negatively affected by this visual style. This is beyond comic book, but a constant visual assault, and it goes on for a painfully long time.

Beyond that complaint, I have nothing negative to say here. This is groundbreaking in all of the best ways. It is forward-thinking, exciting, and interesting, and the sort of risk that I love seeing a studio take. It could have very easily folded in on itself and been terrible. That it isn’t indicates good control from the trio of directors and a vast amount of trust from the studio. Marvel has been making its bones with the MCU, as well it should. I can’t imagine, though, that they won’t continue to make animated films based on the success of this one. If they all have the vision, guts, and attention that this does, it may eventually rival the MCU.

Yeah, I said it. It’s that good.

Why to watch Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: It’s a game changer.
Why not to watch: The third act is a bit seizure-inducing.