Movie Review: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse [2018]

Somehow, I have never reviewed this movie? Despite it being one of the best superhero movies of all time? I was looking for my review of this movie so that I can link to it when I did Spider-Man: No Way Home, since the multiple spiders and the whole 'multiverse' concept was stealth-debuted to the broader audience in this amazing animated movie... but apparently I simply... never did one. That's odd! I remembered watching this movie in 2019 on an airplane and got absolutely shocked at how much I loved it.

So yeah, this is going to be less of a review and more of a gush moment for me. Into the Spider-Verse adapts not only one of the very few 'legacy replacement' characters that is universally beloved -- Miles Morales, the Ultimate Spider-Man -- but it's also one of the most stylish, well-done animated movies of all time. The action sequences, described as 'hyper-kinetic' (particularly the Prowler one!) the funky comic-book style dot-jet shading at times, the great usage of the street art as a recurring visual theme, the amazing integration of animation and music, with my personal favourite scenes being anything with the Prowler, the amazing way they utilize comic books and even a superhero origin narration into the movie... and... shit, pretty stellar voice-acting while we're at it. We've got a lot of familiar voices to the superhero cinematic genre as well -- Nicholas Cage (Ghost Rider)! Mahershala Ali (Cottonmouth/Blade)! Hailee Steinfeld (Hawkeye)! Oscar Isaac (Apocalypse/Moon Knight)! Brian Tyree Henry (Phastos)! Krondon (Tobias Whale)! Liev Schrieber (Sabretooth)! Kathryn Hahn (Agatha Harkness)!

In short, from a visual, audio and action-packed movie standpoint, the movie already wins hands-down. 

But the movie still manages to do an amazing job at giving Miles Morales an origin story -- by really telling us where he comes from. It manages to find a way to be respectful to the original Spider-Man, Peter Parker, by using the idea of multiverses to play with different mentor archetypes -- the mentor that dies and galvanizes our young hero and the mentor that is a deadbeat and eventually grows out of his funk as he befriends the young hero. It debuts yet another highly-popular new-Marvel superhero, Spider-Gwen. It introduces the whole multiversal doppelgangers thing. 

And somehow, the plot works. Even with cameos from multiversal spider-people (Spider-Man Noir! SP//DR! Spider-Ham! Spider-Man 2099 and 60's cartoon Spider-Man, even, in the post-credits) and villains (Prowler and Kingpin take central stage, but the movie also features a new Dr. Octopus, Scorpion, Hammerhead and Ultimate Goblin) the movie never feels bloated, or overly-busy, or uninteresting. 

We just follow Miles as a young teenager who's trying to fit in with life. I do love that they manage to make it into Miles going to a school for 'advanced' children, and not really make it about ethnicity or class while also subtly hinting at it. The movie develops Miles' character pretty well early on, as is his supporting cast, making Miles' dynamic with his overbearing, sometimes-embarrassing cop dad and his cool, charismatic slick uncle Aaron, and his attempts to emulate Uncle Aaron when he meets a cute girl at school. 

Of course, an escaped Alchemax spider ends up biting Miles and granting him spider-powers, leading Miles right into the call of destiny as he witnesses a giant superhero sci-fi battle between Spider-Man, Green Goblin and, in the distance, Kingpin. And in the process, Peter Parker hands over a 'goober' (a.k.a. a plot device) to Miles, before he straight-up gets murdered by Kingpin.

Again, the plot points are so economical because the massive doomsday weapon devised by Kingpin is actually an interdimensional portal to access the multiverse, which the Kingpin wants to use to find alternate universe versions of his family who died in a car crash, bringing in such a sad depth to this antagonist beyond making him an exaggerated caricature of his rotund comic-book counterpart. And as Miles continues to try to struggle with the typical confusion that arises from having superhero powers, he begins to meet multiversal characters all around him. Most interesting of all is Peter B. Parker, or the 'failure' Spider-Man who didn't manage to get his life together, and ends up a gigantic, lethargic loser. 

B. Parker ends up becoming the aforementioned 'mentor that shines', and I think they did a rather respectful way to juggle Spider-Man, Iconic Hero of the Marvel Universe and Spider-Man, Constant Punching Bag of the Marvel Universe pretty well by showing the two extremes of it as different multiversal characters. This allows the movie to have its cake and eat it, by having the Peter in Miles' universe die so he can actually be the Spider-Man of his world... while also not alienating Peter Parker fans because we do get a variation of him that ends up being pretty likable.  

The movie goes on quickly to introducing characters. As Peter B. Parker ends up finally relenting and going with Miles to infiltrate the Alchemax Labs where Kingpin and his assistant Dr. (Octavia) Octopus works in, we get the revelation that "Gwaaaanda" is actually Spider-Gwen. And then as we peel back more and more about the multiversal plotlines, we never really lose sight that the movie ends up revolving around Miles' own growth, and the whole 'great power, great responsibility' ethos that I felt is probably best conveyed in any movie.

Even as we meet more and more members of the cast -- Aunt May of Miles' universe, who has a huge giant Batcave-style base underground; the revelation that Aaron is Prowler; the three other wacky Spider-people of Noir, Peni and Ham; Kingpin's other goons -- we never lose track of the fact that the focus of this movie is Miles' journey, and how he grows to accept his responsibility. Yes, each of the supporting characters get a fair amount of time (and I so badly want much more of Nicholas Cage's Spider-Man Noir) but unlike a problem levied at movies like Eternals, the movie never loses track of the fact that its central character is Miles.

Also, the movie flips between comedic and dramatic effortlessly, going from scenes where Spider-Ham drops a giant cartoon (or, well, even more cartoonish) anvil on Scorpion's head to slick badass fighty-fight between all these colourful superheroes, to the dramatic scene as Prowler realizes that he can't bring himself to kill Miles and gets murdered by Kingpin for it.

The movie goes through what you'd expect from a typical superhero origin arc. There's a darkest moment when the other spiders think Miles shouldn't join in the mission, but yet he ends up on a sequence of self-discovery that feels authentic. There's an amazing moment when his webbed-up self can't respond to his dad, who's been fighting with him all movie long, tries to tell him about Uncle Aaron's death. And then, of course, the now-iconic scene of What's Up Danger as Miles dons a full-on costume, his iconic black-and-red outfit, after spending the first half of the movie in a Spider-Man cosplay costume. 

The ending of the movie is suitably well-done. As the side-cast gets trimmed out (by the bad guys being defeated and the good guys returning to their dimensions), Miles proves his worth particularly to Gwen and Peter B (that goober-swipe was amazing). We also learn of Kingpin's sob backstory... and we get a form of reconciliation as Jefferson recognizes Spider-Man as a hero, and... I don't know. Every emotional plot arc is just done so well in this movie; both foreshadowed and concluded well. The ending sequence showing Miles adapting to his new life, and reconciling with his dad over the memory of Uncle Aaron, and the promises of more spider-versal-multiversal madness to come... it's all amazing. 

And even then the movie keeps giving. There's just so much comedic gags going on in the background. The stylishness of the constant 'origin stories' that are told by the two Peters, then Gwen, then the three wacky Spiders. Peter B's sad character arc and his gradual growth. A lot of great background gags like Noir not understanding the Rubik's Cube, everything adorable about Peni Parker, Ham constantly pulling shit out of hammerspace... I don't really often rave all this much about superhero movies, but Into the Spider-Verse somehow succeeds at being so outrageously bold at adapting some of the more mainstream-unfriendly elements of the superhero comic genre and ends up being a powerful movie because of it. Such a fun, light watch, and a dizzyingly pretty one, too!