If Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse was a story about Miles Morales then Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse is a story about “Spider-Man”. That is, all Spidermen/women/they!! This was a visual telling of the saying… Anyone Can Wear The Mask! Now I could write my review in just a few words but in the words of Miles “everyone keeps telling me how my reviews should go but na, imma do my own thang”
We catch up with Miles Morales who has fully grown into his Spider-Man shoes and fulfilling his GREAT RESPONSIBILITY with his new powers. He’s still trying to manage school, family and puberty all at the same time. He gets a visit from Gwen who then invites him to a universe full of Spider-People who are tasked of correcting any anomalies in the multiverse and charged with protecting its very existence. Its a spectacle of beauty.
We are introduced to a whole host of new characters including Spider-Men. We meet The Spot played by Jason Schwartzman. He’s confused, innocent and lost. However we witness his transformation into this stone cold villain. He starts of doing robberies to an all out revenge mastermind. Oscar Isaacs is our big bad playing Spiderman 2099 / Miguel O’Hara. He’s cold, cool, menacing, direct and focused, which is what makes him a problem. He’s like the Bruce Wayne of this universe, get the job done by any means regardless of who needs to be sacrificed. Spider-Punk is our local UK resident spidey. Witty, rebellious and just plain old awesome. Daniel Kaluuya delivers. A character with minimal screen time that I do look forward to seeing more of. Issa Rae and Karan Soni play Spiderman India and Spiderwoman, both very fun and mysterious characters. Our originals do return. Shameik, Jake and Hailee all still putting in stellar outstanding performances as expected.
The creative direction in this motion picture is out of this world (pun intended) and Sony really are letting their creative juices flow. Firstly the decision to shake things up by playing this movie out from Gwen’s perspective is amazing. I’m happy for them to make another 7 movies showcasing from all the spideys point of views. I am here for it. We are all aware of the evil type of spideys venom, carnage etc but the choice to somehow twist a heroic spidey into a somewhat villain to fit the narrative of this movie, epic. Surely you can already imagine the crazy amounts of cameos on show. They have really expanded this universe to new heights. Spide-Man India was a fresh take. An angle I have never experienced and a full bucket of laughs every time he was on screen.
Spider-Woman for whatever imaginative reason they decided to make pregnant and place her on top of a high speed motorcycle to also getting flung around like a rag doll. It had my paternity alarms going off.
Meshing and mashing the animations with the live action counterparts was a nice touch with characters even acknowledging the MCU is just pure genius. It just makes it all wholesome and makes us the viewer just feel like we are watching a seamless connected production.
As anticipated, visually, magnificent! Somehow there is so much bright and flashing colours through the whole film and yet we are not greeted with no epileptic warning because it’s not needed. There’s a balance to it all where it rests easy on the eyes. This time round they went grand with showcasing and differentiating each character from their own universe by incorporating their comic art styles to their animations. For example Spider Punk is displayed as almost black and white with a hint of colour like he’s been ripped out of a progressing newspaper similar to Spider Noir who was only shown in black and white noir style art. The use of the backgrounds, colours and art style was plentiful. There are scenes where the emotions amongst the characters literally alter the colour schemes in their costumes, the setting and the background. As they switch from sad to anger the visuals pop with it giving the voice actors that extra layer of engagement.
With such a grand soundtrack, song after song was so fitting. Setting the mood and tone, each scene’s audio choice just got me hooked and engaged. Had me trying to Shazam mid scenes LOL.
We are blessed with the usual gems on topics about sacrifice, friendship, family, brotherhood and self belief. I can say it’s a near perfect film. From beginning to end it has you hooked and the flaw is its wonderful, superlative, exceptional cliffhanger ending which I loved but I didn’t want the film to the end, so yes its a problem for me. You can see Miles’ growth both physically and mentally. We have seen tons of spidey origin stories but this one makes us feel a lot more connected. I believe it’s the well fleshed out plot pieces of where we see his human side. Dealing with school, relationship with mom and dad etc. we are also blessed with a glorious and magnified… multiple spidermen pointing at each other asking “who you? You or me”… doesn’t get any better (or perhaps its does).
Somehow they found a way to top the previous movie which I didn’t think was possible and so now I have all the faith in them to inflate and magnify the next showdown. This is a must watch which will require your full attention, in the cinema, only best place to watch it.
Who was your favourite spidey? Are you looking forward to the sequel? Do you also love Chai tea? Do you think there is a Spiderman Africa? If anyone can wear the mask then anyone can leave a comment right? React and comment below…
We loved it!