"I ain't from 'round here, I'm from another dimension...": A Review Of Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse

[SPOILERS BELOW]

I don't know what took me so long, but I finally saw it: what many people say is one of the best animated films ever made, or at least, certainly of the past few years. In the words of the ever-classic phrase, "Does it live up to the hype?" Well yes, essentially. Well, I guess that's the review!

In all seriousness, it does mostly live up to the hype as an excellent animated film. And I put emphasis on animated. Because honestly, if it wasn't for the incredibly vibrant, detailed, and gorgeously textured and layered animation...I don't think it would necessarily be revered as it is. That's not to say the story is crap or anything, far from it. It's well told, has a nice progression and pace to it, doesn't get slowed down unnecessarily and is full of a cast of colourful (or in one specific case, colourless) characters. But there are a fair few (the dreaded word) cliches in it. The one that stood out the most was the group of heroes (or other versions of Spider-Man from other dimensions) leaving the protagonist, Miles Morales, behind at the final battle because he wasn't ready. Soon after, he manages to gain complete control over his powers which he has been struggling with throughout the movie and then joins up with the rest of the Spider-Men (Mens? Spider-People? Eh, I don't know) at the battle, and ultimately, saves the day.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't expecting a revolutionary story or anything, but some parts of it felt like I had seen it plenty of times in other films before (particularly, animated films). Now, before anyone writes me off as being a hater of this film, there are still plenty of cool things in the story. The death of the main universe's Spider-Man came out of left field. I really wasn't expecting it and it took some serious guts to actually do that - near the opening of the film no less - and it sets up the overarching plot of the story really nicely. The reveal that Miles Morales' uncle was The Prowler, henchmen of the Kingpin, was pretty neat even if his death lacked any emotional impact for me (Ah crap, we're back to negatives again). But I suppose, while we're on the subject, I wonder if there's something wrong with me when it comes to a character's death in a film or if I've just seen this sort of death so many times before that I've become desensitized to it.

Anyway, back to what makes the film excellent. For one thing, other than the beautiful animation, the humour is, like the film itself, fast-paced, energetic and doesn't slow down for a second. So while not every joke will land, the film just moves on as quickly as possible to a joke that probably will. The humour is also aided by the animation with little details here and there, like little captions (the yellow boxes) representing Miles' thoughts ("Play dumb!'...'Not that dumb!"), referencing other comic book conventions like visual onomatopoeia (The bagel joke is probably my favourite instance of it) as well as each character having their own little quirks in animation style like Noir Spider-Man being fascinated by the colours on a Rubik's Cube or Spider-Ham's propensity for hammerspace, which further makes each character stand out.

Let's see, what were other things I liked about the film? Well, I thought Kingpin's motivation was interesting: trying to bring back his dead wife and son by taking them from another dimension. At least it wasn't a "TAKE OVER THE WORLD" modus operandi that more generic villains seem to always have. Although, I think Doc Ock's character could have been fleshed out a bit more. The reveal that she was Doctor Octopus was neat, but I think they could have done more with her. Well, sequels are a thing, so we can only hope.

And I do desperately want a sequel because this film really is amazing, and I simply cannot overstate how beautiful this film is visually - so much so that I desperately want to look up Behind the Scenes stuff, and talks by the animators on how they pulled off some of the sequences. And yes, my only major criticism is that I think the story could be a bit stronger. But even with the weaknesses in the narrative, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is still a lovingly constructed, beautifully animated love letter to the Spider-Man mythos that I'm sure will be thought of as a classic years down the line.

Overall: 9/10, with a good chance of being a 10/10...I guess. Look, I don't know where to place it, just go watch it - it's fantastic!