Phil Lord

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

04/06/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

In 2018, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse caught a lot of people napping. At that time, the Marvel Universe pretty much dominated the public movie-going imagination and here was something completely unexpected: Lord and Miller’s animated extravaganza – which had the temerity to take on the big guys. It was, quite literally, like nothing we’d seen before.

A lot has happened over the intervening years. Marvel are not quite the force they once were, with recent offerings (though still profitable) failing to reach the dizzy heights they’ve previously climbed to. And the weight of expectation for Across the Spider-Verse is palpable. Can this Sony Studios sequel really hope to put lightning into the bottle a second time?

Well, yes, as it turns out, it can. The credit sequence alone offers more imaginative filmmaking than we’re used to seeing in the average Marvel feature.

Sixteen months after the events of Into, Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfield) is having a hard time getting on with her life on Earth-65. After accidentally killing Peter Parker (Jake Johnson), she’s understandably depressed – and she can’t help but miss her old pal Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), who is inconveniently stranded in a completely different dimension. On Earth 1610, he’s still negotiating everyday life with his cop father, Jefferson (Brian Tyree Henry), and his nurse mother, Rio (Luna Lauren Vélez), whilst continuing his secret adventures as our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.

But when Gwen is visited by another couple of Spider-People, Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac) and Jessica Drew (Issa Rae), they give her a handy bracelet that allows her to slip easily between dimensions. Time to give Miles a quick visit? Well, why not? Doing so couldn’t possible mess up the old twisty-turny-timey-wimey configurations… could it?

It would be pointless to try and convey more of the plot here because it’s complicated and mind-bending in the best possible sense. It’s to Lord and Miller’s credit (they wrote the script with Dave Callahan) that at no point do I feel bewildered by what’s happening onscreen. The true triumph, however, is the ever-changing beauty of the many different art techniques used to illustrate the story: from realist to impressionist; from pastel shades to psychedelia. Across the Spider-Verse is a mesmerising, eye-popping spectacle that feels like being plunged headlong into a fabulous maelstrom of sonic fury.

And it’s also more than that. The sprightly script keeps throwing snarky one-liners at me, the story counterpoints teenage angst with the minefield of parental responsibility and, with the arrival of The Spot (Jason Schwartzman), I’m offered a super-villain like none I’ve ever seen before. Best of all, I’ve rarely seen a film that feels more inclusive than this – that gleefully throws in a pregnant, afro-wearing, motorbike-riding Spider-Woman, just because it can.

My only real criticism? In a film with a running time of two hours and twenty minutes, surely the story arc could have reached some kind of standalone conclusion? When the ‘To Be Continued’ message hits the screen, I let out an audible groan. I can only hope I won’t have to wait another five years for part three, because I’d be happy to sit down and watch it right now. But hey, if my one negative comment is that I am left wanting more, that’s a good thing, surely?

Miss this one and weep. And folks, I know I say this a lot but please, please don’t wait for streaming. If ever a film was designed to be seen on the biggest screen possible, this is the one.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) as Spider-Man in Sony Pictures Animation’s SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE.

12/12/18

That unwieldy title notwithstanding, this is a genuine treat. For those who are wary of watching yet another retread of a tired and over-familiar concept, let me assure you that this doesn’t so much as reinvent the franchise as grab it by the neck, tear it to pieces and start all over again. The result is one of the most exciting slices of animation I’ve seen in a long time.

Troubled teenager Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) is struggling to fit in to the straight laced Brooklyn high school where he has recently enrolled. His father, Jefferson (Brian Tyree Henry) is a New York cop, a disciplinarian and a vociferous Spider-Man critic. Miles finds himself gravitating towards his mysterious Uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali), who is an adventurous sort, prone to bending the rules. One night, when Miles and Aaron are indulging in a graffiti-art session in a deserted stretch of subway, Miles is bitten by a robotic spider and, shortly afterwards, begins to experience major changes to his mind and body.

Understandably confused, he returns to the subway, just in time to witness regular Spider-Man villain, Kingpin (Liev Schrieber), opening up a portal to a whole series of alternate realities and, for good measure, enacting a murder that will have all staunch web-heads shrieking ‘Noooo!’  at the screen. Kingpin’s meddling with reality is an attempt to reconnect with characters from his past, but his machinations have unwittingly invited five different personifications of Spider-Man to leave their own dimensions and head for present-day New York. I won’t list the alternate Spideys in detail but suffice to say: two of them are female and one is a cartoon pig called Peter Porker. The thing is, does Miles, still coming to terms with his new abilities, have the necessary stuff to join up with them?

Phil Lord’s plot may be bat-shit crazy, but it doesn’t matter one jot because Spider-Man: into the Spider-Verse careers along at such a breakneck pace there’s never any time to question the absurdity of it all. What’s more, the eye-popping animation is so extraordinary that it virtually dazzles the viewer into submission with levels of ingenuity and chutzpah rarely witnessed in this genre. There’s a whole riot of styles thrown into the mix, with individual frames freezing momentarily to do homage to veteran artists like Steve Ditko and John Romita, and more experimental sequences that break new ground entirely. It’s fabulous stuff. Oh, and  just wait till you see what they’ve done with Doctor Octopus!

Purists may not approve of some of the liberties that have been taken with the source material, but the fact is that the Spider-Man franchise has already been pretty thoroughly milked (yet another live action movie is due to land early next year), so if you’re going to slip into that distinctive red and blue outfit, you’d better have something different to offer. And believe me, this film has that in abundance.

Oh yes, and this features one of the best Stan Lee cameos ever (voiced by the man himself, of course), which, given his recent demise, makes it all the more poignant. Here he plays the owner of a cheap novelty shop, selling knock-off Spider-Man outfits and pointing to a sign that says ‘No refunds.’ Priceless.

There is only one other viewer at the afternoon screening I attend, and that’s a shame, because here’s one superhero movie that actually deserves closer investigation. Don’t let it swing over the horizon without giving it a spin.

4.7 stars

Philip Caveney