Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

I would say, “better late than never”, but waiting paid off since Sony fixed all the audio issues that plagued the first week of screenings. If only Warner Bros had done the same with Chris Nolan movies! SnoBorderZero waited too. How was your experience, sir?

Anyway, excellent movie.

Give it Best Picture at the Oscars.

What are the 20 minutes you would have removed, sir?

I'm itching to see it again on the big screen.
Such limited amount of premium screens tho, but transformers didn't deserve those screens in USA.

Disney Plus July 8th.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse(6/1/2023)

In a world where superhero movies are discussed ad nausea years before they even go into production it’s pretty rare to get one that really comes in as something of a surprise but somehow Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse really did seem to sneak up on me and on a lot of people back in 2018. I know that when I saw that first teaser for it I had assumed it was just a throw-away side project like those direct to video animated flicks that DC makes every couple of months rather than a “real” movie. Little did I know that it would be this really cool and trendy movie that would go on to win an Academy Award and stand as, in some people’s eyes, possibly the best Spider-Man movies ever made. Personally, I wasn’t willing to go that far with it at the time, though it has warmed on me more and more as time went on. The film’s animation style was a bit of a mixed bag for me and it’s sense of humor didn’t always entirely gel for me, but the overall vision was really cool and you had to admire the quantity of creativity it put on the screen. Of course that movie was, at heart, an origin story and one that set us up for more adventures with Miles Morales in the future and that new story has finally arrived five years later in the form of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, an expansive sequel that really looks to bring this vision to a larger canvas and expand upon it at length.

This sequel is set a couple of years after the original Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is now about fifteen. We catch up with him as, in typical Spider-Man fashion he’s caught between his two identities by having to stop a convenience store robbery while late for a college planning session. Said store is being held up by a villain called The Spot (Jason Schwartzman), who can open these portals using these spots on his body, and Morales initially believes him to be a non-threatening villain-of-the-week who he easily defeats but the villain does escape while the police are en route. Before he goes up against him he’s reunited with Gwen “Spider-Woman” Stacey (Hailee Steinfeld), who has gotten the ability to travel through dimensions from a group of inter-dimensional Spider-Mans lead by Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac). The reunion between the two goes pretty well, but eventually it has to come to something of an abrupt end when Stacey needs to move away to deal with her mission in that universe, which does have to do with The Spot and his own inter-dimensional hopping abilities. Eventually she tries to leave but Morales follows her out of a portal and begins an adventure across the many Spider-Dimensions.

So why was I a bit less over the moon about that first movie than other people? Well I had a few qualms about the animation style and particularly the designs it used for some of the villains. Beyond that, I don’t know, something about it just never quite got over the mountain for me and in some way this sequel tells me I was glad I didn’t over-praise that one because the follow-up proves there was room for improvement. You can see right from the start of Across the Spider-Verse that this is a movie being made with a ton of confidence. Where the first movie was about bringing a diverse roster of Spider-Mans into Miles Morales’ world this one (as the title implies) is more about exploring the different worlds that these Spider-Mans come from. In fact we start in Spider-Woman’s world, which has a whole different art style from what Miles’ world looks like and resembles watercolor graphic novels. We see other similarly rendered spider-worlds throughout the movie which I won’t spoil here but needless to say there’s a lot of creativity employed throughout. But the movie does not skimp on its rendering of Morales’ world, in fact a lot of the early parts of the film are so well rendered that I almost wished we’d been treated to a straightforward Spider-Man movie in this world before getting into another one of these multiverse spanning adventures with him.

There are nits to be picked with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. For one I think the soundtrack is a bit weaker than the one for the first movie (no standout like “Sunflower” here), though it does have a pretty nice score which sort of makes up for it. Additionally I think some of the animation styles here blend together better than others. The animation style used to render the semi-villain Spider-Man 2099 in particular seemed kind of unsightly to me and there are a few other bits like that which I’d maybe take some issue with. But really the main thing holding me back from going all in on this movie is just that it’s very much a “Part 1” to a two part sequel that is as yet unfinished. Partly that’s because I do think the movie struggled a bit to find the exact right moment to act as a cliffhanger, and the moment they come to does not feel like it could stand on its own as an ending the way something like Avengers: Infinity War does. But really it’s more just because on principal these kind of things make me kind of want to see how the final resolution plays out before making a final judgment on the whole project. That’s how I felt about Dune a couple years ago for example.

But really the movie this reminded me of more, and not just because of the ending was The Matrix Reloaded. Obviously that’s a comparison that could be deeply unflattering and I’m not trying to say this is anything like as flawed as that underwhelming sequel. In fact it’s superior to it in all kinds of ways. However, I did detect some clear structural similarities: an early fight with a villain who sort of disappears for much of the rest of the movie, a big exposition dump late in the film by an authority reframing the hero’s world, an abrupt “to be continued” ending… it’s not a perfect one to one but there’s something there. That movie and its follow-up ended up being something of a case study in why doing “Part 1/Part 2” sequels can be dangerous and that does sort of give me a bit of caution in how much I find myself praising this one. If this ends up in many ways writing them into a corner of having to make a strange beginningless and kind of incomplete feeling follow-up that ends up feeling like an overlong climactic battle scene that might reframe this movie as being a touch more misguided than originally believed. But again, don’t take that comparison as too much of an insult, most of the problems with the Matrix sequels weren’t entirely structural and on its face this has more than enough entertainment value to make it head and shoulders better than that comparison should success. By and large it’s an extremely successful sequel that will satisfy almost everyone who liked that first movie and then some.

**** out of Five

The last I heard coming out of the rumor mill is that the strike is now likely to last through October.  And then it will take a number of weeks to get people back into the swing of things.  For the shows that aren't already hip deep into production things ain't looking good in the near future.  

In a lot of ways, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the prototypical example of a sequel going "bigger and better" in its approach. That can often be a detrimental way of approaching a second movie, but it works rather well here. The filmmakers not only expand greatly on the multi-verse of Spider-Men concept, but they also really push the bold animation style which made Into the Spider-Verse such a breath of fresh air in 2018 (and so influential moving forward). While that first movie was defined by its distinct comic-book art style and kinetic animation, this sequel emphasizes a clash in styles, as characters from different universes are ripped into other worlds. Beginning in Spider-Gwen's world rendered in more of a watercolor style is eventually host to a version of Vulture who looks ripped out of a da Vinci scrapbook is a great introduction to this idea. That clash probably peaks with Spider-Punk being made out of a crudely assembled punk rock zine. That the character is, more broadly, unbearably cool, definitely helps.

In addition to pushing the visual style, the filmmakers have also refined their approach to action set-pieces. One of my criticisms of Into the Spider-Verse (and the movies its inspired) is the action scenes descend a little too much into chaos for my tastes. There's still some of that in Across the Spider-Verse, but action is largely much more coherent. The showstopper is the large-scale Spider-chase teased in most of the films trailers, which is absolutely thrilling, delivering a staggering degree of visual spectacle and great gags with total clarity.

But for all the improvements Across the Spider-Verse makes, I'm not sure the whole is actually better than its predecessor. This is in part because the film is not in fact whole, but a rather clear "Part One", right down to ending with a "To Be Continued". The ending does at least drop a pretty sweet twist that I still left the theater satisfied, but the movie also devotes a bunch of its runtime to set-up and cuts off just as it feels like its building towards a climax. That's especially notable given that, for all Into the Spider-Verse's visual charms, it also had a rock-solid screenplay which really tied together beautifully. I do at least have faith the filmmakers will stick the landing, but there are other flaws that have nothing to do with the split nature of the material. I was especially annoyed by how overtly the film leaned on references to other Spider-Man media. For one, we're drowning in superhero reference porn at the moment, but I also really admire how the first movie was able to evoke the cultural memory of Spider-Man rather than just showing things from other media.

This isn't just a silly nitpick either. The core conflict that eventually emerges is the danger of deviating from canon events - key moments that bind every Spider-Person's history. There's always a radioactive spider-bite, always a tragic mentor who teaches a lesson about great power, always a police captain the hero is close to that dies saving innocents, etc. The use of the word canon makes it abundantly clear that the subtext is really about how trapped superhero stories are more broadly, unable to deviate from the established norms and doomed to repeat the same plots forever. This is an especially salient critique for Spider-Man given comic-book stories like One More Day or the resolution of Superior Spider-Man reverting back to the status quo. I like this theme, but the movie also makes an especially big deal about how a police captain close to Spider-Man has to die... but then shows clips from the Sam Raimi movies, where that never happens. And sure, you could argue that it does happen in the adventures we don't see post-Spider-Man 3, but my point isn't that this is a plot hole, my point is that the subtext of how Spider-Man stories can't deviate is somewhat undercut when the film reminds us of movies that do in fact break from the supposedly unbreakable rules.

Granted, this is ultimately a minor critique, one Beyond the Spider-Verse may well address. It certainly seems like Miguel is still hiding something from the others. All told, this is a very cool movie that I had a great time with, and that's despite the fact that my theater had some rather annoying teens who would not shut the fuck up. It's a testament to this movie's quality that I was able to block those twerps out and focus on the movie. Looking forward to Beyond the Spider-Verse next year.

A-