When first hearing about Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, to say I wasn’t expecting much would be an understatement. It seemed to be just another flick that was being tossed out there with the hopes of milking as much money off of the Spider-Man brand as possible. Instead of finding something like that, I actually ended up watching a picture with some serious thought and effort behind it. In fact, what I thought would be forgettable and mediocre at best, turned out to be what will be viewed as the
The story focuses on Brooklyn teen Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) as he continues to adjust to life at his new school. He has the usual problems that many kids have under the circumstances, but his life is about to get even more complicated after he discovers his new superpowers. To make things more interesting, he becomes aware of the fact that there are other dimensions with people who also possess abilities similar to his.
Even though the overall quality of the film may shock some, what shouldn’t come as a surprise is a good bit of its content. Into the Spider-Verse provides a lot of the same stuff you usually see in origin stories pertaining to superheroes. The difference is that it’s brought to us in a way that makes it feel more original than what we frequently get. While the style in which some of it is handled is repetitive, the unique presentation makes this portion of the film passable and even acceptable.
Another factor in why this film works is the action that’s included. Of course, I wanted this to be at least decent, but it also turned out to be better than I expected. Whenever it comes on screen, this stuff always manages to be fast-paced and performs in a way that makes Spider-Man feel like the type of Spider-Man we all hope to see. I also found the action to be very active and lively every time it’s asked to take over.
Whenever it becomes the focus of the adventure, the action provides what feels like a threat to our heroes. Because we like these guys and they’re kind of overmatched and constantly put in difficult situations, it’s easy to connect with them during these moments. If you know anything about film, you know that’s what supposed to happen when you get a well-crafted movie interested in building a story around what’s known as “the hero’s journey.”
The only real problem I had with this movie is the visual style at some points pertaining to the background of scenes. Now, there’s apparently a valid reason why they do this the way that they do, but it comes off looking like bad 3D to people who don’t recognize that it’s actually being done purposely. That was an issue I had as I originally thought it was being shown to us wrong. Unfortunately, I don’t think most people will know this beforehand if they don’t look into it.
Outside of that one issue, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse works in every way it needs to in order for it to be the genuine success it is. As someone who always wants to see people put their best effort out there, I’m happy to see that I was as wrong as I ended up being. This is an amazing film that will satisfy the vast majority of people who watch it. If they keep putting this kind of effort into these, I’d be open to seeing more of them in the future.
Rating: PG
Directors:
Bob Persichetti,
Peter Ramsey
Rodney Rothman
Cast:
Shameik Moore
Jake Johnson
Hailee Steinfeld
Mahershala Ali
Brian Tyree Henry
Lily Tomlin
Luna Lauren Velez
John Mulaney
Kimiko Glenn
Nicholas Cage
Kathryn Hahn
Chris Pine
Zoe Kravitz
Film Length: 116 minutes
Release Date: December 14, 2018
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
