Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse: A Spoiler-Filled Discussion
***As the title would suggest, full spoilers for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse follow***
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was a surprise hit back in 2018 and is widely considered one of the best superhero movies ever made. It had heart, comedy, great emotional moments, and a totally unique art style that set it apart from more animated movies at the time and since. This set a very high bar for the sequel Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse to hit to be as good as the original, let alone better, and whether or not it does will definitely vary person to person.
What Worked
Like the last movie, the voice acting is fantastic, and the new cast members mesh well with the older ones because of the perfect casting. Of note, Amandla Stenberg's Spider-Byte, Andy Samberg's Ben Reilly, Karan Soni's Pavitr Prabhakar, and Daniel Kaluuya's Spider-Punk are all fantastic editions to this canon and hopefully they have large roles in the sequel.
Similarly, designs of the various other universes they visit are all cool, unique, and use the medium of animation in ways that are not paralleled in other films. From Gwen's universe being watercolor painted with color shifts to reflect her mood to a totally different design and color palette for Mumbhattan and the world of Spider-Punk and the world of Earth-42 at the end, every world feels different and the Spider-People retain their style as they travel between universes.
The introduction of the canon events that happen in every Spider-Person's life is another interesting idea that is coincidentally also a source of the biggest issue. The idea that every Spider-Person needs to have certain key moments like the death of someone close to them, the death of a police captain they work with, encountering the symbiote, falling in love, and other moments is cool and leads to some cool exposition. The most interesting part of it here is the portrayal and the visuals that go with it including the return of what looks like the MCU's sacred timeline and the web of the multiverse. If it's possible, the MCU should adopt these multiverse rules going forward.
What Didn't Work
The biggest issue with the movie that keeps it just below the original is that there is no massive marquee character moment for any one character. When someone thinks about Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and they are asked to think about one scene, by and large, they think about the leap of faith sequence, and there isn't anything like that here. Gwen has a few cool moments, but none of them measure up to that or even come close.
The other major issue comes from the fact that the movie feels like it never wants to end, and the third act drags a little bit. There are a few points where the film could end with an interesting cliffhanger, but this happens way too often for it to be interesting. It's also not like there's enough going on during these sequences to make it interesting besides stretching out the "reveal" (which the movie flat out tells you) that Miles was sent to Earth-42, not Earth-1610.
Finally, the conflict between the Spider Society and Miles is flimsy at times because it does not feel authentically Spider-Man to have basically every Spider-Person resigned to the fact that someone has to die and there is nothing they can do about it. It's easy to buy the Spider-People viewers don't know but to see Insomniac Spider-Man and Spectacular Spider-Man in the mix, it feels weird. I get this is meant to be a story of cyclical trauma and breaking the cycle, so just because one person went through it doesn't mean every person has to, but a third act with a Spidey-Civil War would have been more interesting. This does also indicate that when Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse comes out next year (March 29th, 2024) it's likely that at least one if not all three of the live action Spider-Men make an appearance because if you need to keep people from dying and the multiverse from collapsing as they do it, you might want to call the guys who successfully did it last time.
How You Should Watch This Movie
Obviously, this is a movie designed for a big screen viewing experience, and the visuals alone make it worth seeing in IMAX, Dolby, 4DX, or whatever the biggest and best screen a local theater offers. At the same time, it's not like the narrative is shortchanged in favor of the visuals because it is still a strong story, even if it is just a shade weaker than the first.
★★★★★https://open.spotify.com/episode/2R0aOpDVvxEpT5HdSCgVL5
