Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse had a near-impossible job. Into the Spider-Verse felt so fresh that I wondered how anyone could match it, let alone top it.
Miles Morales is juggling life as a normal teenager and life as Spider-Man, and it’s going about as well as you’d guess. Then Gwen Stacy shows up and pulls him into the Spider-Society, a massive crew of Spider-People from across the multiverse. Their leader, Miguel O’Hara, has very strict ideas about how a Spider-Man’s life should go. Miles disagrees. That clash is the heart of the movie.
The animation is unreal. Every world looks like its own comic book. Gwen’s universe is soft watercolor, with colors that bleed and shift with her mood. It feels nothing like Miles’s grittier Brooklyn. I wanted to pause every few seconds just to stare.
The voice cast nails it. Shameik Moore gives Miles a warm, nervous energy that makes him easy to root for. Hailee Steinfeld brings real feeling to Gwen. Oscar Isaac plays Miguel as a man who’s angry because he’s hurting, which makes him far more than a rule enforcer. Jake Johnson’s Peter B. Parker still gets the biggest laughs.
What caught me off guard was the family stuff. The scenes between Miles and his parents are some of the film’s best. For a movie this loud and colorful, it’s the quiet talks at home that stuck with me.
It isn’t perfect. The middle gets crowded, and at around two and a half hours, it runs long. The Spot is fun to watch, but he’s more mood than villain.
And yes, it ends on a cliffhanger. Some people will hate that. I just can’t wait for part two.
If the first one won you over, go see this. It’s a sequel that dreams bigger and pulls it off.
See Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse on TMDB
