TAS Reviews: Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse
The reception and critical success of Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is nothing short of a phenomenon. Despite the success of the superhero genre as the most lucrative genre of cinema right now, they're still struggling to be considered as a viable form of storytelling and high art. The Dark Knight and Logan are regarded by many as being the greatest superhero movies of all time, and despite my love for both films, and my long held opinion that TDK is one of the greatest modern movies, I always get stumped when someone says "The Dark Knight is great because it barely feels like a superhero movie, it feels like a crime drama" or "Logan is great because it's not a superhero movie. It's a Western." And the worst offender of them all? I'm sure we've all heard the phrase "it's not just a great superhero movie. It's a great movie. Period."
Imagine how absurd it would be to hear someone say "this horror movie was great because it didn't feel like a horror movie" or "this drama was great because it wasn't a drama" or"you know why that science fiction movie was so great? Because it WASN'T a science fiction movie" There seems to be something inherently shameful about being a superhero movie in a way that isn't there for other genres, and the ones that are held in higher-esteem (Logan and The Dark Knight) are the ones that feel least like what you traditionally think of when you hear the term "superhero movie." Enter Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, a movie that embraces it's comic book roots with open arms. It is a traditional good vs. evil story, it's colorful, full of pop-culture references and allusions to the source material, it's a tale of inter-dimensional travel where the heroes fight giant green monsters and against all odds, it goes on to become not only the highest rated superhero movie of all time, above The Dark Knight and Logan, but, at the time of writing this, the movie just won Best Animated Feature at the Golden Globes, which is a pretty significant feat considering The Dark Knight couldn't even get a best picture nomination in 2008.
Into The Spider-Verse is one of the most gorgeous animated movies ever made. Sony put a lot of effort into crafting a distinct animation style, developing their own technology in the process. It results in a film that is colorful, crisp, detailed, and truly unique. You hear a lot about superhero movies like The Avengers and most recently Aquaman, which feel like comic books come to life in terms of tone, colour and storyline, but ITTSV feels like a comic book come to life in the truest sense. The framing, use of thought bubbles, sound effects, panels and the way things are positioned on the screen are all thought out to deliberately feel like your eyes are moving across the pages of a comic book. This combination of unique animation style and technique results in a movie that doesn't just feel unlike any movie this year, or unlike any other superhero movie, it feels unlike any movie I've ever seen.
The story of Into The Spider-Verse is one of inter-dimensional travel, and throughout the journey, we meet a lot of different Spider-Men (or more accurately, Spider-People), each from different worlds, with distinct personalities, backstories and voices. Each iteration succeeded in bringing something different to the table, all the while still feeling homogenous. I particularly Nicholas Cage's Spider-Man: Noir, who reminded me a lot of Will Arnett's Batman in terms of morbid and gallows humour. I thought John Mulaney did a fantastic job as Spider-Ham, and I loved the self-deprecating humour Jake Johnston's Peter B. Parker brought to the table. These different personalities mix very well, resulting in a melting pot that represents different facets of the Spider-Man lore that are very fun to watch.
The focus, primarily for the first half of the film, is Miles Morales and his world. Miles Morales succeeds in being both an avatar for the audience, and his own character, with Shameik Moore doing a fantastic job as the character. His voice is absolutely perfect for Miles. The character is relatable, endearing, and he brings a lot of humanity to the film, specifically through his relationships with family, such as his Uncle Aaron, and his father Jefferson Davis and mother Rio Morales.
The script is written by Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman, who did a good job crafting a lighthearted and fast paced adventure that weaves in a lot of laughs, pop-culture references, memorable personalities and interactions for the different Spider-Men, delivering on some inventive reimagining of classic Spider-Man lore: a tremendous task for any screenwriters. The fact this movie is even watchable is a feat, but the fact it's really enjoyable is even more of a testament to the work done here.
That said, with all there is to love about Into The Spider-Verse, I do feel that personally, I'm not on the same page with this movie as most others are. I do think it's great, just not amazing. Although the film is very inventive in terms of visual presentation, I found it unimaginative and underwhelming narratively. If you removed the visual element of the presentation, you're left with a movie that unfolds pretty standardly in terms of sequence of events, to the point where the first-half of the film often feels like the filmmakers are going through bullet-points to get Miles's origin story out of the way.
Moments like Miles's dad stopping him to ensure he tells him he loves him, and Miles's Uncle teaching him how to finesse a girl, are pretty generic stuff, and felt trite even on first viewing. To get an idea of how unimaginative the sequence of events are, there's a scene with Miles is first experiencing his powers and can't make any sense of them, so he stumbles around until a Spider-Man comic book falls on his head, he sees Peter going through the exact same thing in the comic, and then he goes "uh huh, so THIS is what I'm going through." It's as boring as it sounds. The message of the movie is that "anyone can be Spider-Man." It's not a bad message, but the filmmakers didn't go much deeper than literally "anyone can be Spider-Man." They didn't explore the theme in a way that's inventive, profound, or meaningful, and the relationship between Miles, Peter, his mum and dad feel very surface level, so when the emotional moments hit, they didn't land for me.
I wish they would've gone crazier, because for a movie with such an interesting premise, it often feels tame. I would've loved to visit the different worlds these iterations come from, instead of limiting us to one world for a vast majority of the film, I would've loved to see more of The Goblin, who does barely anything, and says even less, and I would've loved to delve more into this iteration of Doc Ock, who is little more than a glorified cameo. There's all these promises and glimpses of something greater, that we barely get to explore. I praised the different iterations of Spider-Man in this movie, but if there's one I felt was disappointing, it would be Spider-Gwen. Hailee Steinfeld unexpectedly does a reliable job as the character, but the writing is boxed into this stereotype that every female character in a blockbuster needs to play the sarcastic, straight lady who says things like "do I always have to clean up after you boys?" and isn't allowed to be silly, goofy, funny, or morbid.
Conclusion
Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse delivers on one of the most beautifully animated, uniquely presented movies made in recent times. It is a thrill to look at, capturing a feel you won't get from any other animated movie, and one that deserves to be witnessed on the big screen. Though the storytelling isn't unique and inventive enough for me to place it among the ranks of The Dark Knight or Avengers: Infinity War in terms of providing a unique narrative experience, the stylistic presentation of the movie is more than enough to make it worth experiencing in cinemas.
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