Movie Review--Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse

"There's only one Spider-Man, and you're looking at him."
--Peter Parker, Into the Spider-Verse


Into the Spider-Verse is easily the greatest Spider-Man movie to date, but it is also one of the year's best films.  The characterization, writing, and animation result in a synergistic effect that amounts to a splendid example of how to make a superhero story with comedy and genuine emotional gravity.  It has its moments of amusement, including a wonderful jab at the dancing scene in Spider-Man 3 and a post credits scene that capitalizes on recent meme culture.  At the same time, it features some very significant emotional elements.  It also allows villains like Olivia Octavius, a female version of Doctor Octopus, and Scorpion to get cinema attention that they would otherwise probably not receive.  Besides the leap of faith nonsense, the themes are some of the most positive I've seen in cinema this year: the movie emphasizes how we are not guaranteed lasting relationships, yet relationships are what propel most of us forwards.  From the backgrounds of the heroes to that of the villain Kingpin, this point is displayed with sincerity and consistency.

Production Values

The smooth animation is a perfect match for presentation devices like the comic panels that complement the fact that this is a movie based on characters from comic books.  While animation is sometimes regarded as a medium for stories aimed at children, Into the Spider-Verse has the emotional depth that is often missing from superhero films.  There is humor, yes, but it never conflicts with the drama and stakes, which are integrated into the movie in a manner that is entirely natural.  Excellent voice acting on all fronts helps create this urgency and depth.  Kingpin has little screen time, but the superb writing means that no appearance of his goes to waste.  He is developed very well in only a handful of scenes, hoping to bring himself relational peace by using the multiverse to reunite himself with his family after a tragic accident.

Of course, the Spider-people from various dimensions in the multiverse, being the premise of the story, have to be handled right for the movie to work.  Every single one of them has an opportunity to shine, with Spider-Woman and an alternate Peter Parker getting the most attention.  Hailee Steinfeld (who also stars in the surprisingly good Bumblebee) and Jake Johnson elevate these two characters, highlighting the individuality of the various Spider-people.  Their characters help ground key themes firmly into the narrative.  Then there are the other Spider-people, including Peter Porker (a talking pig with special abilities), Peni Parker (a young girl uses a robotic exoskeleton and has the spider that bit her alive and on hand), and the grittier Spider-Man Noir.  Nicolas Cage voices Spider-Man Noir in one of his least wild performances.  Make no mistake, Cage gets to display some of his wildness, but he does the role justice.  After Ghost Rider, I'm glad that he could redeem himself in a good comic book movie.  The central Spider-Man, though, is Miles Morales, who must grapple with his new powers and the confusion and terror that they initially bring.  Without Shameik Moore's talent, there would be little to hold everything else in the movie together.


Story

Spoilers!

In an attempt to meet versions of his dead wife and son from other dimensions of the multiverse, Kingpin uses a Super Collider (resembling the LHC from CERN) to create a dimensional rift that brings five Spider-people to the New York where a young man named Miles Morales is adjusting to new powers after being bitten by an Alchemax spider.  Having actually killed the version of Peter Parker from Miles' dimension, Kingpin can now only be opposed by Spider-people he is not familiar with.  Miles has the opportunity to bond with his new companions, and with Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker in particular, mastering his abilities in time to help the others back into their respective universes before Kingpin's project destroys each of them.


Intellectual Content

Considering that the use of the multiverse in the movie is not supposed to be oriented towards intellectual matters, as in Doctor Strange, it still demonstrates the concept of the multiverse very well.  In this possible but unverifiable cosmological model, there could be a parallel version of the external world for every slightly different conception of the universe that is logically possible.  Into the Spider-Verse does not explore the philosophical ramifications of a hypothetical multiverse, but it securely ties the concept into the story's focus on relationships.


Conclusion

While so much of the film is executed with utter excellence, one of the things that grabbed my attention the most was the Stan Lee cameo.  Planned before his actual death, the scene works even more effectively precisely because he died.  It is certainly the most meaningful cameo of Stan to date because of the circumstances.  In light of his death, the scene becomes all the more poignant, appropriately serving as a reminder of the movie's focus on interpersonal relationships and their prominence in human life.  The cameos are often comedic asides in live action Marvel movies, but here the cameo puts one of the film's strongest aspects on full display.  Into the Spider-Verse has heart, something desperately needed by many other movies in its genre.


Content:
1. Violence:  The fact that the movie is animated softens the already tame violence.  Even a major death is handled without showing the brutality of it.