Spider-Man: Into The SpiderVerse: Film Review

Spider-Man: Into The SpiderVerse: Film Review

Vocal cast: Shameik Moore, Chris Pine, Jake Johnson, Nicolas Cage, Hailee Steinfeld, Kathryn Hahn, Mahershala Ali, Liev Schreiber
Director: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman

Another Spider-Man origin movie, I hear you cry?

Well, let's be honest, you've not seen a Spider-Man story like this slice of animation excellence.
Centring on Miles Morales, a mixed-race, relatively normal 13-year-old kid (voiced with heart by Shameik Moore) from Brooklyn, this computer animated tale spins a story when Morales is bit by a radioactive spider while underground with his uncle Aaron (Ali).

Things are further complicated for Morales when he sees Spider-Man killed by Kingpin (Schreiber) as an out-of-control experiment threatens Manhattan. As if that wasn't bad enough, Morales finds himself landed with another group of Spider-Men from different universes pulled into the conflict by Kingpin's quest...

If the multi-verse aspect of this film looks confusing, it's not. And to be frank, it's the least enticing part of Spider-Man: Into The SpiderVerse, a film which smashes the visual medium to pieces with originality and flair.

Using 3D animation on 2D backgrounds takes a little to get used to, but to anyone who's played anything from the Telltale Games back catalogue, the format and concept is very familiar.

Except what the directors also do is use the visuals and the tenets of comic books to induce a kind of sensory overload throughout. Visually, this film has style, and really does much to redefine the comic book animated movie genre, much like Batman: Mask of the Phantasm did years ago.

It starts with a voiceover saying "Let's do this one last time," a tacit nod to how often we've heard this story, but with clever twists, that same voiceover is given a thrilling new spin.

With meta touches and cheeky nods, as well as a heartfelt ode to Stan Lee, Spider-Man: Into The SpiderVerse may lose some of its emotional way in the final run, and may be a little long, but it's a thrilling reinvigoration of a story told a multiple amount of times, and a positively dazzling reinvention of how comic book movies should be translated to the big screen.