When Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse swung into cinemas back in 2018 it was a revelation. Bold, stylish, and compelling as all heck, it quickly established itself as the definitive Spider-Man movie, and one of the greatest superhero movies ever made.
It’s with some amazement, then, that I report its sequel - Spider-Man: Across The Spider Verse - is the new greatest Spider-Man movie of all time. It is also, by some distance, the very best superhero sequel I have ever seen.
Like a streak of light, directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson have arrived just in time to cut through the increasingly bland landscape of superhero cinema with a tightly paced and visually exquisite dream of a movie - one packed with heart, humour, and enough Spider-People to keep Easter egg-hunting YouTubers in business for the next decade.
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Across The Spider-Verse picks up roughly a year after Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) came into his own as the Spider-Man of his universe, sending his fellow Spider-Men and Women (and pigs) home to their own dimensions. Like any Spidey worth their salt, Miles is struggling to balance his personal life with his crime fighting duties, and believes that if he could just see his trans-dimensional buddies again, he might feel like less of an outsider. But after an encounter with “villain of the week” The Spot (Jason Schwartzman), he discovers that more Spider-Folk doesn’t necessarily always mean a good time.
The story moves along at breakneck pace, throwing us through multiple dimensions and introducing us to a huge amount of Spider-Men. There were more than a few cheers at our screening as we bumped into a number of fan-favourite versions of the iconic character. I won’t spoil them here, of course, but there are plenty of crowd pleasing moments, plus one or two cameos that I genuinely believe you’ll never see coming.
But while Across The Spider-Verse could probably have floated through on nothing more than mindless cameos and bright colours (cough, The LEGO Movie 2), it’s a much smarter film than that. The heart of the story is the relationship between Miles and Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), with an opening sequence focused on our heroine that is so incredibly slick that I kind of found myself wishing we were watching a solo Spider-Woman movie. I’m sure that’s coming somewhere down the road, mind you.
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Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) is also back in the mix, giving longtime Spider-Man fans a treat by finally delivering Peter and MJ, happily married with a baby, on the big screen. I never thought we’d see the day. Oh, and if we don’t see thousands of new parents rocking a Spider-Man and Mayday joint costume this Halloween, I’ll eat my web shooters. Newcomers Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya) and Spider-Man India (Karan Soni) also bring fascinating new shades to Spider-Man lore. A Camden-dwelling Spidey that hates the PM and wants to burn down the establishment? I’m down.
Spider-Man 2099, AKA Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac) provides the meat of the movie’s conflict, giving us a much darker Spider-Man that’s willing to cross lines other Spider-Men would never dare. His insistence that there are some tragedies that have to happen to ensure the survival of the multiverse is in direct odds with Miles’ ideals - that “Spider-Man can do it all!”
Crucially, Miguel isn’t a villain in the traditional sense. But his belief that Miles is the least Spider-Man of all the Spider-Men makes for a delicious conflict, especially as Miles’ former friends are reluctantly drawn into the fray. Miles’ refusal to give in to the overwhelming odds is, of course, the thing that makes him the most Spider-Man of all… but it’s something else to see this meta commentary at play, given the vocal ‘fans’ out there who have always insisted Miles isn’t really Spider-Man. Can you guess why they might think that?
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Across The Spider-Verse is also quite possibly the most visually stunning movie I've ever seen. Sure, Avatar 2 treated us to photorealistic computer generated water and little blue fellas running around , but the level of ambition, attention, and sheer creativity on display in Spideys latest adventure is dizzying. The various Spider-People and their respective universes all have their own unique visual identities: Gwen's New York is a muted watercolour world, a stark contrast to the comic book palette of Miles' dimension.
Meanwhile Spider-Man 2099 is all sharp edges and muscles, a nod to his 90's origins, while Spider-Punk looks like he's torn his way off the cover of a Sex Pistols B-Side. Seeing these radically different characters and styles come together on the screen shouldn't work, but absolutely does in a way you won't be able to take your eyes off - and a climatic chase scene involving literally hundreds of different Spiders deserves to go down in history as one of the all-time superhero setpieces. It's a mind boggling achievement, and a reminder that animators and their craft aren't afforded nearly enough respect (or, indeed, pay).
It’s no secret that this adventure ends on something of a cliffhanger. All I’ll say at this point is that Beyond The Spider-Verse has a hell of a lot to live up to. But if it sticks the landing, then we could be about to witness the first truly perfect superhero trilogy. This is a film that demands multiple rewatches. It deserves to be paused and rewound, every lovingly crafted frame and detail pored over and squealed in delight at. But for now? Go out and watch it on the biggest screen possible. And then go right back into the cinema and watch it again.
Featured Image Credit: SonyTopics: Spider Man, TV And Film, Sony