Let’s face it, “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” (“Spider-Man: A new universe”) was the best comic book movie of the last decade.
With a cool animation, straight from the pages of the comics, “Into the Spider-Verse” aimed a supercollider at all superhero movie conventions. The solemnity was out.
Gone was also the idea of a chosen one. Spider-Man could be anyone, including a graffiti-painting Brooklyn teenager, or a pig named Spider-Ham. Suddenly, the possibilities for a comic book movie were limitless. Set to the sound of Post Malone and Swae Lee’s “Sunflower,” the vibe was, as they say, immaculate.
So he left some very big shoes to match. Five years later, the Spider universe or spider-verse is still expanding in exciting ways. “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” is the rare sequel that dazzles as much as the original did. It is something to behold. Colors drip, invert and splash in a brilliant pop art swirl.
If “Into the Spider-Verse” reveled in the collision of dizzying universes, “Across the Spider-Verse” speeds up the blender of the multiverse up a speed, or 10. Worlds blend. Spider-Men and Spider-Women crash like clown cars. This fast-paced, free-for-all film challenges you to keep up with its breakneck pace, the sheer number of elements in the frame can be almost overwhelming.
But despite everything that’s going on, “Across the Spider-Verse” is remarkably based on a coming-of-age story. The masterful style of writer-producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who wrote the script with David Callaham, relies on how they detonate convention and then assemble the fragments to build something deceptively sweet and simple.
The management team has been completely changed. Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson take the reins in this second chapter, which finds Miles Morales (played in English by Shameik Moore) now a 15-year-old with a better handle on his crime-fighting powers. . However, he is less adept at communicating with his parents, Jefferson (Brian Tyree Henry) and Rio (Luna Lauren Vélez), who still don’t know his son’s secret identity and are increasingly worried about the stranger. behavior of him
Similar problems beset Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), who, by revealing to her father, Police Captain George Stacy (Shea Whigham), that she is Spider-Woman, it has caused a big break in their relationship, as he believes that she is responsible for the death of Peter Parker.
When Miles and Gwen meet again and hang out in New York, they’re not so much a couple with spider superpowers and romantic ties, but a couple of teenagers whose parents just don’t get them. When they sit together, at the bottom of a ledge in the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower, gazing upside down Manhattan, misty and blue in the distance, the image perfectly encapsulates an electrifyingly upended film franchise.
In its own chaotic and confusing way, “Across the Spider-Verse” continues to play with these notions.. Miles and Gwen feel exceptional and that their problems are unique to being highly gifted guys. But the movie reinforces time and time again that, yes, they are supremely talented, but no, they are far from alone. “I’m Spider-Woman,” Gwen says when a pregnant superhero (Issa Rae) shows up on a motorcycle. “Me too,” she replies.
However, being a “spider-verse” movie, there’s more to some Spider-Man lurking. Actually, there are loads of them, each one from a parallel world. There’s a Mumbai-like New York, a Lego land, and a nightmarish alternate reality. Portals begin to open thanks to The Spot (Jason Schwartzman), a supervillain who looks like a blank page stained with ink. Miles asks if he is a cow or a Dalmatian.
Spot’s powers grow, attracting the attention of the Spider Society, a group of Spider people who maintain order in the multiverse. Some of them are great, especially Daniel Kaluuya’s Spider-Punk, a British rocker who looks like he’s straight out of The Clash. Others, like the leader Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac), are more serious and tormented.
When worlds begin to collide, their histories are altered. Apparently, anything goes in these multiverses, but as Miguel informs us, there is an order that must be obeyed. Certain pivotal events must happen, somehow, for every Spider-Man, including the sacrifice of a loved one.
When Miles tests these principles, it sparks a battle with far-reaching Spider-Verse repercussions. For Lord and Miller, the postmodern creators of “The Lego Movie” and “The Mitchells vs. The Machines” (“The Mitchells against the machines”), this is a battle that they have been waging throughout their lives.
The danger in all these intersecting dimensions is that no one reality seems to mean much. By exponentially multiplying Spider worlds and beings, “Across the Spider-Verse” risks becoming dizzying. Surprisingly, even poignantly, though, it stays true to the core adolescent thrills and parent-child relationships that drive all these upheavals of the multiverse.
It’s the first Marvel movie that made me feel sorry in theaters because it was over. “Across the Spider-Verse” will be a two-part sequel, ending with a complete cliffhanger leading up to the third installment. That “Across the Spider-Verse” generated such a response is surely due in part to its fast-paced design., as well as his conviction that within all of us there are multitudes. As Miles High School Principal Rachel Dratch says, “Each person is a universe.”
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse” a Sony Pictures Animation release, it is rated PG (suggesting some parental guidance) by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) for some dialogue and thematic elements. Duration: 117 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.