Film Review: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is smart, funny and ceaselessly inventive
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-VerseÂ
- ★★★★☆
In a cinematic landscape top-heavy with superhero movies that are essentially recycling the same story, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) was a badly needed breath of fresh air – a subversive, animated variation on the classic story of the teenager who develops superhuman powers.Â
The twist in Spider-Verse was that it wasn’t Peter Parker who was bitten by a radioactive spider, but Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore); in (PG) Miles realises that his emergence as an unexpected Spider-Man is causing havoc with all the other Spider-Persons who operate across the innumerable dimensions of the Spider-Verse.Â
Already battling a new nemesis, The Spot (Jason Schwartzman), Miles is hauled into an inter-dimensional fracas by his new friend Gwen Stacy, aka Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld), where he encounters Miguel O’Hara (Jason Isaacs), a ‘ninja-vampire’ Spider-Man who isn’t best pleased by Miles’ refusal to pack up his superhero costume and go back to being boring old Miles Morales…Â
Into the Spider-Verse creators Philip Lord and Christopher Miller have the unenviable task of recreating the lightning strike of the 2018 movie, and while the element of surprise is no longer in their favour, Across the Spider-Verse certainly delivers on expectations.Â
A complex and sophisticated story of a search for identity forms the backbone to a lovingly crafted superhero story that also explores inter-generational conflict and a variety of means of coming to terms with loss and grief, all wrapped up in an ambitious aesthetic that avails of an exhilarating blend of classic animation styles inspired by comic books and cinema alike.Â
Smart, funny and ceaselessly inventive, Across the Spider-Verse raises the bar for the superhero flick again. (cinema release)
