Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse

I, like most people, was dealt with a crippling sense of dread leading up to this movie's announcement. After a string of mediocre Marvel movies and due to the massive success of the first film, I couldn't help but be a little dubious of whether or not this would live up to its predecessor. Many, including myself, consider Into the Spider-Verse to be not only the best Spider-Man movie but also one of the greatest animated movies of all time. Shockingly though, even with all the odds stacked against them, Across the Spider-Verse manages to live up to and even surpass the original in many ways.

Almost immediately after sitting in my seat, two things stuck out to me about the film. First, was the breathtaking animation. What was already considered to be revolutionary animation in the first film was blown out of the water by Across the Spider-Verse. Every single scene has its own unique style of animation to reflect a certain emotion or character trait and I truly want to print out each frame of the film to hang up in my house. Each character's design, similar to the original, was drawn in a different animation style from the previous one to reflect whatever universe they came from. I cannot even begin to fathom the painstaking time and effort it must have taken the animators to produce each frame but it shows with the movie as it truly is one of the best-looking films I have ever seen. What enhances the animation even further is the score, composed masterfully by returning composer Daniel Pemberton. I kid you not when I say that I unironically listen to the score in the car. The ferocious drums for Gwen, the music for the chase sequence, and the blaring synths that you feel in your entire body for the Miguel O'Hara theme song, are all by themselves 10/10 but combined in the same 140-minute experience are nothing less than ethereal.

Besides looking and sounding great, the story itself is amazing as well. At this point, the story of Spider-Man has been told countless times with similar story beats that everyone knows regardless of if you're a superhero fan or not. Across the Spider-Verse uses this idea to its advantage, telling an original, compelling story and getting to the root of what makes Spider-man who he is. Just from a narrative perspective, this is easily one of the best stories told in a superhero format. The only thing that makes me hesitant of calling the story better than its predecessor is the fact that the story is technically incomplete. Across the Spider-Verse is the first part of a two-part series, making it so that character arcs are incomplete, story threads aren't wrapped up, and you don't really leave the theater with the contentment that you had after the first movie. With that being said, while you don't leave satisfied, you do leave excited which is arguably even better.

Of course, you can't forget about the characters and voice acting, all done to perfection. One of the biggest strengths of the first film is carried perfectly into the second, arguably with even greater success. The returning cast of Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Jake Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, and Lauren Velez all deliver on every account. Each character is further fleshed out in this movie than in the previous, particularly Steinfeld's Gwen Stacy AKA Spider-Gwen, who is just as heavily shown as Miles Morales, without taking the spotlight away from him. The new characters absolutely stand out, particularly the dual-antagonists Oscar Isaac's Spiderman 2099 and Jason Schwartzman's The Spot. Both are equally menacing in their own ways and pose serious threats to Miles' world that we as the audience feel primarily due to how well the movie establishes a connection between us and the protagonists in the film. On the "new" Spider-men side, Daniel Kaluuya's Spider-Punk and Karan Soni's Pavitr Prabhakar, have both elevated themselves to be top-10 Spider-Men in my book and I wouldn't mind spin-offs with either of them. As is to be expected with all Marvel products, there are easter eggs and reference-galore littered throughout the film, with cameos and call-backs for all types of Marvel nerds. The difference is, while most Marvel products seem to be using these easter eggs as a crutch *cough cough* No Way Home *cough cough*, Across the Spider-Verse does what all movies should be doing with easter eggs, and that's using them as more of an "icing on a cake" as opposed to being the entire movie.

All in all, Across the Spider-Verse is a masterpiece in animation, sound design, and character design, and while the story is yet to be completed if they continue their stellar track record, The Spider-Verse trilogy will go down as arguably the greatest film trilogy of all time.

Star Rating: 10/10