Now, that was a film to behold. I honestly didn’t expect to feel so much of this film and walk away wondering what the hell was going to happen next. I haven’t walked away from a film feeling this way since watching the ending of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. That ending created the feeling of unknown dread about how Luke was going to resolve his problems, save his buddy Han, and address his newly found info that his father was the ultimate murderer in the Star Wars galaxy. That is how you create a powerful connection between fans and the story and create a long-lasting franchise in the process.
Anyway, in this day and age when superhero films seem to be on the downswing of movie-going entertainment, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a breath of fresh air. The first movie in the series, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse proved that an animated superhero film could find its place among the big live-action giants, although at the time it was seen as a side piece of entertainment that was funny, serious, and emotional, the step forward made by the sequel proved it could be that giant to show the world there was still life in the genre. There’s so much in this film to unpack.
So, on that note, stretch those legs and make sure you’re flexible enough to handle this review. Let’s get to that unpacking.
Story
Official Synopsis
After reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklyn’s full-time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is catapulted across the Multiverse, where he encounters a team of Spider-People charged with protecting its very existence. But when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders and must redefine what it means to be a hero so he can save the people he loves most.
I love that Sony Pictures doesn’t give away any details of the story for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, as it would be a grave injustice to moviegoers. Now, having said that, let’s break down this story and talk about some obvious points and some potential spoilers. Don’t worry, I’ll put together some spoiler tabs for you all.
The first act of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse spends a good amount of time getting everyone reacquainted with the universe and with Gwen Stacy’s role in it all. She opens the movie on the run from the police and chasing down an ancient-looking vulture who looks like someone out of time. Literally, in the wrong timeline. During that fight, she is helped by two new friends, or rather new spider-friends named Miguel O’Hara and Jess Drew. With their help, she takes down the odd vulture but in the process of winning is left standing face-to-face with her police captain father, where she unmasks herself in hopes of explaining how the death of Peter Parker went down. Parker’s death was pinned on her, and she had been chased since. Anyway, tasked with doing what is right, he forces her to decide — disappear into the spider-verse with the Spider-Society, or get incarcerated. Of course, she chooses the latter and becomes a multi-verse hero who helps to keep criminals and heroes in their own universe with their proper origins intact. All while feeling guilt and a sense of loneliness from leaving her father daughter-less.
This is a fabulous introduction to the plot points and characters to come in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. It’s a simple, yet genius way of explaining what the heck is going on and what is coming without needing to explain it like a comic book. Nothing stinks worse than over-explaining a story loudly within said story. Lord and Miller do a wonderful job of piecing this quick moment for Gwen together and helping set up the rest of the movie in the process. It’s so darn good and well-written.
As the story continues, Gwen finds herself back in Miles Morales’s universe hunting down another anomaly, much like that odd vulture, and decides to stop and see how Miles is doing. How Miles is doing in this part of the story is complicated. He is overwhelmed trying to balance out his work life, saving people in New York, with his school life, and that’s not even counting his need to think about college and his future. He is a mess, slowly becoming less than dependable by his parents, and he is lonely because of all this jumbledness in his life. Miles’s biggest issue is that he has no one to talk with about how he is feeling and what he is dealing with. It’s a side of comic book heroes that is always glossed over, but never really explored. By showing off Morales’ flaws and grounding his character, the story makes him more relatable and more importantly real. How often can you say that an animated feature felt grounded and relatable? Not often. Well, maybe with Wall-E because we’re ruining the earth right now. Okay, that’s an article for another time.
Anyway, prior to Gwen connecting with Miles, he showed off his messy life and found himself battling with an evil, goofy villain named The Spot. He is a villain who can create spots to move his body (or other bodies/machines) through and be in multiple places at multiple times. A funny villain, but nonetheless dangerous when you think about him (or look up his Marvel wiki). The fight is endless but clever, as The Spot and Morales trade punches and inventive ways to tussle. Eventually, Miles parts ways with The Spot, as he believes he has won the day, and quickly changes and gets to a celebration late for his father, with a heavy amount of angst as a present.
As you probably guessed by now, Miles is a misunderstood brooding teen who doesn’t know when to ask for help from the ones he loves. His angst doesn’t go too far in this part of the story, as he finally connects with Gwen, who becomes an almost safe spot for him, and unloads his day-to-day woes on her. Their connection is genuine, and you can see how much the two characters need each other badly to balance out their own problems with a safe space they can go to when nothing else is available. Their connection is endearing and real, and the dialogue between the two characters makes this movie an easier story to connect with on a human level.
The story rolls on and soon The Spot, initially introduced as a comedy relief, suddenly becomes a catalyst to everything when Gwen reveals she is trying to track him down. The reasoning behind his importance is simple, as it is spoiler-y. So, here goes:
*SPOILER COMING UP*
The big reveal in the film is that Miles Morales’ fight with the Kingpin in the first story caused a scientist working on the Alchemax collider to be caught in the blast and lose all his recognizable features, including his face and form. The Spot also reveals that he was responsible for transporting Earth-42’s spider into Miles Morales’ universe which ended up biting him and creating Miles’ spider-persona. That small detail ends up being a bigger problem in the story.
Anyway, The Spot’s power gained from the explosion allows him to punch holes through multiple universes, while also allowing him to get revenge on Morales and other Spider-people by messing with their universes. The once goofy character suddenly becomes enemy number one and a real threat to Morales’ family and friends.
*SPOILER ENDS*
Gwen once again teams up with Miles and they’re off to stop The Spot, but sadly end up causing more damage than expected in the alternate universe Earth-50101. While chasing The Spot through this universe, Miles and Gwen end up changing the course of history in that world, where preventing the death of someone changes how other lives pan out. It’s a powerful notion in a complicated story that creates more loose ends and a scary multi-verse anomaly that could only be compared to the branching timelines in Loki. It’s certainly a crisis of strands that need repairing in the story.
It’s always scary when time travel or multi-verse elements are introduced into a story. The story runs the risk of getting everything so far out of whack that there isn’t time to bring it all together. With a nearly three-hour runtime, it certainly seemed like that was going to be an issue with this film. Animated films are at max typically two hours in length. A nearly three-hour film means that the story needed extra time to solve issues, and quite frankly if time travel or multi-verse was going to be strung out everywhere in the acts, it was going to be a bad issue to solve in that amount of time.
A reviewer can be wrong, right?
At this point in the story, Miles and Gwen are invited back to the Spider-Society on Earth-928, where Miles is introduced to how things work. He is also introduced to three concepts that affect him directly and that will cause him to pause joining up with the Spider-Society:
*MORE SPOILERS*
- The Spot caused all the breaches in the multi-verse.
- The spider who bit Miles was not from his universe, which is a problem, but not something unsolvable.
- To make things right, Miles must suffer the death of a loved one like every other version of Spider-Man. The death he must watch is his father’s, who dies a few days after making the rank of captain (remember that celebration?).
*SPOILERS END*
As you would imagine, Miles cannot accept the last concept. Even though everyone in Spider-Society has run into that concept and gone through it willingly, he cannot stand by and just wait for that concept to happen. Who could? It’s a fair question, though both sides to the argument are understandable. Rejecting doing nothing, he goes and attempts an escape, which triggers an angry response from Miguel and his multi-counterparts, who now must hunt Morales down for the next half-hour of the film. This is probably one of the most intense parts of the film, as Morales does his best to justify his position on the concept matter and create a solution to his problem. It’s such a wild, beautiful ride, and it makes complete sense considering the alternate outcome is dark and terrible.
Eventually, Morales makes his escape and finds his way back to his own universe. At this point, I’m going to pump the breaks on how this story concludes. I want to tell you, but you should really experience the conclusion of the movie yourself.
I will say that the worry about loose strands for time travel or multi-verse is legit but how those loose strands are left hanging is such The Empire Strikes Back quality. You leave the story just flabbergasted that an animated film could be this deep, well-written, and well-acted, and leave the viewer with so many thoughts on how this story is going to ultimately end. It’s a breathtaking way of making your fans want the third film. I want that third film, ASAP.
On that note, let’s wrap up.
Conclusion
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a masterpiece with the story, acting, and creating cliffhanging drama. Lord and Miller upped their storytelling game created a grounded and human story for Miles Morales, and set the new bar on how comic book movies should be.
