Spider-verse Review: Miles Ahead.

This shouldn’t work. You can’t fit 5 main characters with 6 villains into one movie and expect it to make sense, let alone be coherent, and certainly not exceptional. There are countless examples of movies being watered down into sludge with too many plot lines. The best I can think of is the 3rd spider-man flick itself . And yet Into the Spider-verse is the most rapturously enjoyable movie I’ve seen this year.

One aspect of it that needs to be addressed out of the gate is its animation style. It’s a lot. Sometimes it moves at a traditional 25 frames a second, often a mere 12 frames. It may bug you at first but I stopped noticing around 15 minutes in. If it bothers you I suggest focusing on the film's finer details, which are scrumptious. The dot painting fluttering around the edges of everything, the onamonapia when appropriate, and the individual animation style for each universe. Spider-verse is a film I would jump at the chance to see again. On mute.

This is still essentially a coming of age story for one kid about how intimidating greatness can be. Miles is enrolled at a boarding school for the rich and “gifted” only to drown in the unfamiliar sea that is his homework. He resents his dad for throwing him into the deep end and not letting him go to his more comfortable (and mediocre) public school.

Subtler emotional stakes than I expected from a movie with a talking pig-spider. What’s more is that his arc perfectly captures that agonizing feeling that comes from when a group of people collectively decide you’re just not “good enough.”

As character driven as it is, this is still an action movie. No fight ever devolves into a blur. Everything is crisply choreographed from web swinging, to dodging punches, to chuck jonesian mallet smashes. Credit is also due to each character design. The sinister 6 especially has been rebuilt from the ground up to take advantage of being animated. Norman Osborn has scarcely ever been this… cave trolly. Toss in a few earned character deaths and a eye melting art show caliber climax and you’ve got a film they’ll say was robbed of best picture down the line.

I sh*t thee not. Movies that are this fun, this dark, and this honest almost never get made let alone gross over $300 million. Good job America! Feels good to say that. If you choose not to see this in theaters you may well regret it. I’ll certainly respect you less. Just let go of that $12 wad in your pocket and I promise you’ll have a good time.