"Peter, these are the years when a man changes into the man he's gonna become
the rest of his life. Just be careful who you change into." The Spider-Man film
franchise began in 2002 and has hit the age of identity crisis. It's gone in
three separate directions this year, with
Avengers: Infinity War, Venom, and
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, but that's how this empire should run. It's leagues better than when one
Spider-Man movie tries to do it all, like when
Spider-Man 3 and
The Amazing Spider-Man 1 & 2, each attempted that
.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is directed by Bob Persichetti,
Rise of the Guardian's Peter Ramsey (he's finally back), and Rodney
Rothman, and written by Rotham and Phil Lord, and they set out to tell the tale
"one last time," seven more times...sorta. When The Kingpin (Liev Schreiber)
opens a wormhole that teleports other Spideys into Mile Morales' (Shameik Moore)
dimension, he has to use his new powers to help send them home before the
wormhole becomes unstable.
Telling Miles' story could backfire simply for being yet another Spider-Man
origin onscreen, for being another superhero origin, so the filmmakers are smart
to speed through the familiar cliff notes of getting his powers and giving him
some villains to fight within the first ten minutes. A lasting moment from this
intro is Miles exchanging "good mornings" and secret handshakes with a crowd of
old classmates, on his way to a new prep school. Rotham and Lord knock Miles
down a peg with the new school (and the inescapable woes of adolescence), but
he's built up well as the more outgoing and adventurous Anti-Puny-Parker.
This is his story through and through, and the other Spider-People partnering up
with Miles luckily reinforces that, mostly to the film's benefit.
Into the Spider-Verse features a classic, but worn down, schlubbier, and (at last) adult version of
Spider-Man/Peter Parker (Jake Johnson), Gwen Stacy, the Spider-Woman (Hailee
Steinfeld), Spider Noir (Nicolas Cage), from the pulpy 1930s, Peni Parker and
her spider-co-piloted robot (Kimiko Glenn), and, finally, Spider-Ham/Peter
Porker (John Mulaney), who remarkably doesn't just predate
The Simpsons Movie, but the show too. Except for Spider-Woman and Jake
Johnson's version of Peter, most of visiting Spiders aren't explored too deeply.
They're given more than one-liners, but it's really just a promise of what'll
come in the sequels. The one-liners are fantastic though. Cage especially steals
his scenes with a put-on New York accent, reference to egg-creams, and a passing
mention of the "moral ambiguity of your violent actions." Billy Wilder would be
proud.
Finally, the animation in Into the Spider-Verse is a long time in
coming for the studio, for the genre, for film. There hasn't been a literal,
visual adaptation of a comic in a while (except for Captain Underpants),
but now the bar's been raised for other movies that want to try it. While it's
not relying on a heavy outline style, probably because that would fill the
screen too much, the modern visual storytelling in comics is on full display. 2D
animation is utilized throughout the movie, and ranges from re-creating comic
panels, to Peni's anime style, to the ludicrous antics of Spider-Ham.
Text boxes, onomatopoeias, and speech bubbles also highlight how upside-down
Miles's world is about to become, but he'll get used to being upside when
getting the drop on villains, so it's all good.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a return to where the franchise
began writing-wise, with the (typically forgotten) heart of the second
generation of Spidey films. As (pile of garbage) Nostalgia Critic, Doug Walker,
has mentioned, the Raimi Trilogy featured the same plot structure used in
Into the Spider-Verse. The movie doesn't spread itself too thin with
unnecessary characters, plot points, or an inflated runtime and budget. But that
just means the movie is functional. They also salvaged the message of the Webb
films and made it more important than ever. "Anyone can wear the mask. You can
wear the mask." Try it on.