Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Review!

Alright! Today I'm reviewing Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the sequel to 2018's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and likely to be the biggest breakout sequel of all time. Across the Spider-Verse ("Across" in shorthand) continues Miles Morales' journey as he learns the webs of being the one and only Spider-Man. However, a new villain named The Spot, the weight of a secret identity, and his feelings towards his multiversal counterpart Spider-Gwen all come to a boiling point as Miles is introduced to a secret Spider-Society dedicated to keeping the multiverse together. 

Now, Across has some pretty big shoes to fill: The first movie, while a modest box office success, was critically acclaimed, won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, had an excellent word of mouth that grew its reputation throughout the past five years, and is generally seen as the greatest Spider-Man movie as well as one of - if not the greatest - superhero films of all time. Additionally, it revolutionized the animated medium, inspiring the look of The Mitchells vs. the Machines, The Bad Guys, and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Could Across the Spider-Verse possibly live up to that legacy?

Yes. Yes it does. No sugar coating, no recency bias: Across the Spider-Verse is absolutely stellar and likely to be the best film of the year. It is the perfect sequel, expertly handling and expanding on its predecessor's themes, visuals, quality, characters, writing, fan service, and animation. The only real problem with it is a technical issue - audiences, including myself, experienced awkward audio mixing for the theatrical experience, especially during the opening narration. Aside from that, I can't think of a single thing that I disliked about the movie or thought could be better, just how it differed from the first one. 

The best way to describe it is as follows: Into the Spider-Verse is like a lit stick of dynamite that makes you think "Wow! That's a stick of dynamite!" and Across the Spider-Verse is like seeing the same stick of dynamite still on fire - "Wow! That stick of dynamite is still on fire!" It's a similar reaction, but it's not quite the same statement, and both are equally impressive and/or surprising in different ways. The interpretation is all up to the viewer, but the fact remains that both thoughts concern amazement towards the stick of dynamite. Both movies are cut from the same cloth. 

It's a common reviewer trope that every cliffhanger movie in a trilogy gets slapped with "This is the Empire Strikes Back of [this trilogy]!" That comparison has followed every cliffhanger sequel from Pirates of the Caribbean to The Matrix to The Hunger Games to The Planet of the Apes to Star Wars' own Last Jedi. However, I feel like this is the only time since 1980 when that comparison is truly earned. A revolutionary first movie that works fine as a standalone feature but blends perfectly into the sequel? Check. A darker, longer sequel with a cliffhanger ending that perfectly expands upon the themes and ideas of the first? Check. Similar visual quality that matches, if not exceeds, the already groundbreaking predecessor? Check. Empire Strikes Back is often a lazy shorthand for "this movie ends on a cliffhanger," but here? This is actually the Empire Strikes Back to Into the Spider-Verse's A New Hope. 

Speaking more towards the quality of this film rather than how it compares to the first one, Across the Spider-Verse is a beautiful and heartfelt adventure that absolutely nailed everything it tried to do. The wide ensemble of characters is all bright and vibrant in part due to the stellar individual animation but also the fantastic scripting that separates each of them. The stakes are clear, the way the plot challenges the protagonist is fantastic, the opening "day in the life" sequence is amazing, the twists the movie takes are all very unexpected, and the furthering of character relations was done exceptionally well. The longing Miles has to be included and see his friends again is incredibly realistic, and his longing for longtime crush Gwen is perfect. Despite being an animated movie about a Spider-Verse, it contains some of the most realistic teenage angst to ever hit the big screen. 

The same goes for Miles' interactions with his parents. I give all of the love in the world to the scriptwriters and voice actors for these scenes because their dialogue and delivery were perfect, creating a world that you can easily see yourself living in. In a movie as fantastical and ambitious as Across the Spider-Verse, a very real sense of stakes and heart were needed to ground the story, and the father-mother-son dynamic does it exceptionally well. There are almost two movies here - one is a very grounded story about an average rebellious teenager meeting his old friend from school, and the other is about a superhero fighting alternate versions of himself to get back to his dimension. And the kicker? It doesn't feel like two movies. The transitions between the two are absolutely seamless and the fighting is always grounded in the emotional stakes Miles has in the story. It's never action and references for the sake of action and references. 

I also absolutely loved the wide ensemble effect the movie has. The returning characters from the first movie all return exactly as you would want, albeit without Spider-Man Noir or Spider-Ham. Luckily the loss of those two is softened by the introduction of Spider-Man India and Spider-Punk, the first of which is an instantly likable character I need to see more of, and the latter of which looked amazing, although it took some time to understand what he was saying (Either the aforementioned audio mixing or the character's fast British quips are to blame here). 

One of my favorite characters in the film was Spider-Man 2099, superbly voiced by Oscar Isaac. In a world where movies want villains to be antiheroes and fail spectacularly, here we have a hero who has to be an antihero perfectly done. While he has sympathetic motivations and, all things considered, the logical high ground, he never feels like a villain despite being the main antagonist of this film. He was the perfect thematic villain for Miles, leading to a dynamite thematic battle where logic and fate battle morality (The core ethos of Spider-Man). I also adored the design and animation that gave him a visual and physical edge over the other Spider-people.

While I have mentioned it prior, I would like to once again give praise to the animation. Words cannot properly describe the sheer love and detail that went into this movie, nor are there enough adjectives available to praise the animators. Suffice it to say that the already revolutionary art style of the first one has been blown out of the water in every conceivable way by this one. It is a visual spectacle the entire time, full of beautiful cinematography and life-changing scoring/visual matches that take place during simple conversations on and below rooftops. 

Albeit that the predecessor took place in one dimension, Everything Everywhere All at Once didn't have the budget to go bigger than life, and Multiverse of Madness had the budget and chose to make New York but you stop at green and go on red, Across the Spider-Verse has the best multiverse mechanics by default but also takes full advantage of its premise in a way no other Hollywood flick has or is likely to surpass, using the dizzying animation to make every new universe an art gallery-worthy affair and 200+ characters all look and feel different. Spider-Verse makes the convincing case that animation is a superior medium to live-action, especially for the superhero genre.

The movie is also stuffed to the brim full of easter eggs and in-jokes, all of which are prime for half-hour YouTube "watch on 0.25x speed" videos. However, unlike recent superhero projects where the biggest takeaway was a minute-long cameo, those Spider cameos? They're cool, yeah, but they're not what audiences will take away from the experience. Because the movie keeps the stakes grounded in the strong family dynamic, all of those glitzy Spider-people become the icing on the cake instead of the whole cake, even being some of the weakest beats in the movies (The Venom reference was not needed). But it's fun to see all the names they were able to pull regardless.

Even more of a magical feat was making this two-hour and sixteen-minute film feel like a breeze. I can't count the number of bloated blockbusters I've seen over the past two years, but Across the Spider-Verse (The longest Western animation film ever, by the way) was one of the most engaging theatrical experiences I have ever had. Knowing that it ended on a cliffhanger, I was absolutely terrified that every scene change would be the last one for the last forty minutes of the film. It could have been a double feature with Beyond the Spider-Verse and I would have happily strapped myself in for another two and a half hours. 

Speaking of the cliffhanger, I loved the note the movie ended on. My excitement for Beyond the Spider-Verse is immeasurable and it's a shoo-in for my most anticipated movie of next year. Of all the notes the movie could have ended on, it chose the most exciting and likely to leave the audience wanting more - it's quite the testament to the movie that after two and a half hours the audience will wish it had gone on longer. I saw the movie twice and noted two very different audience reactions - one was the booing you'd expect, but the other was a much more sinister stunned silence where hardly anyone moved, stunned by the experience they had just had. 

Across the Spider-Verse makes me feel absolutely terrible for the competition. After not even a week The Little Mermaid is wholly usurped. I doubt Transformers will be able to stop the exaggerated swagger of a black teen. I feel doubly bad for Pixar's Elemental and DC's The Flash, both due the 16th, and both of which target similar audiences (Animated children's movie, multiverse superhero movie). No matter how good those films are, nothing will be able to top the mechanics, experience, and animation Spider-Verse boasts, and nothing save for the sequel is likely to top it this decade. 

Overall, I give Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse a 10/10. "The biggest problem with Across the Spider-Verse is that I couldn't watch Beyond the Spider-Verse right after." 

2024 can't come soon enough