Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Review: A Dizzying, Dazzling, Incomplete Sequel
In 2002, Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" swung into theaters and changed everything. The film was a massive, massive success at the box office, and when that happens, producers and studios get itchy. If "Spider-Man" was a hit, surely more superhero movies would hit just as big! Of course, that wasn't true, and we got a series of mixed super flicks, some good, some not so good. Then 2008 came along and gave us the one-two punch of "Iron Man" and "The Dark Knight." The "realistic" superhero era was born thanks to "The Dark Knight," while "Iron Man" paved the way for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And we've been buried under the weight of it all ever since.
It is fair to say we're overloaded with superhero movies. I'm not here to deride anyone who still derives pleasure from these things, but as for me, I burned out on the subgenre a while ago. They all blend together into one CGI-enhanced mess in my mind. And yet, every now and then, a movie comes along to remind me that — in the right hands — there's still a little magic left to be conjured. Such was the case with 2018's wonderful "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse," a film that used the medium of animation to create something stylish, and grand, and beautiful. On top of that, there was a touching, emotional journey as Brooklyn kid Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) learned to become Spider-Man, backed up by some Spider-People from other dimensions.
Now Miles is back with "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," a sequel that's bigger and bolder than the first ... and also incomplete. By making this the first of two films, writers Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and David Callaham have crafted a movie that doesn't really feel like a movie — it's just a chapter. An exciting chapter, sure, but an unfinished chapter that runs out the clock, torpedoing all the momentum it was building in the process.
All right, let's do this one last time
It's been a year since Miles became Spider-Man, and while he's clearly improved his spidey-skills in that year (and grown a little too — one of the film's neat choices is to make many of the characters look slightly older), he's struggling to juggle both his normal student life and his superhero alter ego. His parents, father Jefferson (Brian Tyree Henry) and mother Rio (Luna Lauren Vélez), want to know why Miles is late to everything all the time, and Rio is convinced her son is hiding something. The moments between Miles and his parents are funny, warm, and full of big, emotional beats where Miles struggles to tell them the truth but ultimately decides he can't. His parents, for their part, want to understand, but can only operate based on what Miles is telling them, and he's not telling them much.
As for Miles, he's in a bit of a funk. He misses his friends from alternate universes, especially Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), another Spider-Person who is ten times cooler than he is. Miles is unable to jump between dimensions and universes, therefore he assumes he's never going to see Gwen again. But Gwen soon comes calling, and we learn that she's been recruited by the Spider Society, a group of what seems to be thousands upon thousands of Spider-People all under the leadership of Miguel O'Hara, aka Spider-Man 2099, a futuristic Spider-Man who is also a vampire (hey, that's cool!). He's also, in the words of Miles' mentor Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), the only Spider-Man who doesn't tell jokes. Miguel has no time for cracking-wise — he has multiverses to save, damn it!
Meanwhile, a bad guy named The Spot (Jason Schwartzman), his body covered in portals to other locations and dimensions, has arrived on the scene. Miles dismisses this somewhat buffoonish figure as a "villain of the week," but The Spot is growing more powerful, and that could mean serious, serious trouble for Miles.
Style to spare
Directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson, and their animators, create all of this in stunning, jaw-dropping detail. Animation is what makes the "Spider-Verse" films so special — because they don't play by traditional animation rules. In fact, they ask the question: Why have rules at all? The worlds on display here are pop art extravaganzas, bursting with color and vibrancy. They feel more alive, more lived-in, than the vast majority of the CGI-enhanced worlds that live-action superheroes inhabit. Some of the best moments of "Across the Spider-Verse" happen when the scenery takes center stage.
There's a stunning, lovely little scene where Miles and Gwen sit upside-down on a skyscraper looking out over New York, the skyline vast and sparkling and stretching on seemingly forever. You get the sense that every single one of those buildings is full of people with their own little stories just waiting to be told. Later, a conversation with Gwen and her father features shifting backgrounds where the colors change to pastels, watercolors, and abstract shapes. It's gorgeous to look at. As are the many pulse-pounding fight scenes, where characters spin and flip and twirl through modernist art backgrounds, the colors popping, the energy never letting up. There's a wonderful fight between Miles and The Spot where Miles keeps falling through the portals all over The Spot's body, making it hard to land a punch; that sort of inventiveness goes a long way.
Since "Into the Spider-Verse" already established the formula, "Across the Spider-Verse" is free to get even crazier and more creative, throwing brilliant ideas up on the screen. There's a villain animated to look like he just jumped out of the pages of Leonardo Da Vinci's sketchbook. And there's the no-nonsense Spider-Punk (a very funny Daniel Kaluuya), whose animation style keeps changing from shot to shot, designed to look like he's been torn from a band poster plastered against a wall in an alley. These artistic choices are delightful, and they mix with a sweet-hearted script packed with jokes (some that land, others that definitely do not) to create a wild, inventive, entertaining film with propulsive energy and style to spare.
And yet ...
Cliffhanger
"'Across The Spider-Verse' is a movie on its own, but it definitely ends on a bit of a cliffhanger."
So said co-director Kemp Powers in a recent interview about the film. Here's the thing: I'm not quite sure that this really is a "movie on its own." Cliffhangers are nothing new in the world of film — they date all the way back to silent movie serials. And of course, "The Empire Strikes Back," one of the most beloved blockbusters of all time, concludes with a cliffhanger.
But "Empire" also feels like it tells a complete story. There's plenty of room for that story to continue, but the film itself never seems incomplete. Most recently, another space opera, Denis Villeneuve's "Dune," did something similar, ending with a set-up for the sequel while also giving us what came across as a (mostly) complete narrative. "Across the Spider-Verse," however, is in a mad dash to get to the third movie, making everything that happens here little more than a stepping-stone to the real story, the one we can't have just yet.
Don't fret, I'm not going to get into spoiler territory here. But I will say that by concluding the film in such an open-ended manner, the filmmakers do a disservice to "Across the Spider-Verse." All the thematic, emotional beats — storylines about Gwen struggling to tell her father to true just like Miles is trying to tell his parents, coupled with Miles having to make a difficult choice — are sapped of their life by an ending that essentially throws up its hands and says, "Sorry, you're gonna have to wait for the sequel!" There was absolutely a way to end this film with a set-up for the third movie while also giving us a more satisfying conclusion. What the hell ever happened to a movie just being one movie, not a launchpad for something else? It's exhausting and disappointing. I don't go to the movies to be teased for something yet to come; I go to see a story. A complete story. And "Across the Spider-Verse" doesn't have that.
Still, that's not enough to completely sink "Spider-Verse." While the incomplete nature of the film is maddening, everything else dazzles. These days when I see a superhero movie, my mind jumbles up all the boring, unimaginative action scenes until one is indistinguishable from the next. But I'll be thinking about the images from "Across the Spider-Verse" for a while. There's an early scene where Miles and Gwen swing around New York City having a conversation, their bodies weightless, the world passing them by one frame at a time, the backgrounds popping with vibrancy. It's jaw-dropping in its beauty and energy; it's a scene bursting with life, and it only further underscores how dire and drab every other superhero movie is these days. Filmmakers: give us more of this, please. Just remember to give us an actual ending while you're at it.
/Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10