Review: ‘Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse’ is a Perfect ‘Spider-Man’ Film

December 14, 2018

I think it’s safe to call 2018 the Year of Spider-Man. First, we had the PlayStation 4 exclusive game launch, which absolutely killed it. Then we got a major push of Spider-Man stories in Marvel comics with the Amazing Spider-Man reboot and Spider-Geddon series. Finally, in December, we have the release of Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse AKA the best Spider-Man film released to date.

It’s rare now for me to go into a movie with high expectations. However, my expectations were high for Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, and the film blew them away. I went in expecting just another animated Spider-Man film, but what I received was so much more.

Into The Spider-Verse is the first mainstream animated film in quite a long time that actively tried to do something fresh. It’s definitely a nice break from the current ‘cookie cutter’ animation we’re getting from studios like Illumination (i.e. The Grinch, Minions) and Dreamworks (i.e. Boss Baby). The fact that this is the same studio that gave us the Emoji Movie is astounding considering that film and Spider-Man are definitely opposite ends of the animation spectrum. I genuinely want Into The Spider-Verse to do well in theaters because it deserves it, and also that means Sony (and hopefully other studios) will bank on more thought-out and high-quality animated features like this.

For the most part, the designs of all the characters were great. I had a few issues with a couple of characters, but I’ll talk about that a little further down. The Spider-suits are some of the coolest designs to come out of comics in the last 50 years. There are so many amazing designs, they definitely had their hands full to deliver an accurate portrayal, and they nailed it.

In a way, I’m glad this movie isn’t in the MCU. Since it has no ties to a larger cinematic universe, it was able to break the mold that is the superhero film genre and attempt something new, and it totally stuck. It really found it’s own footing and did not take long to do so. The soundtrack for Into The Spider-Verse was great and worked very well with the style and flow. The soundtrack was comprised of mostly hip-hop and pop, and as someone who’s picky about the music they listen to, I enjoyed it a lot.

The story was done extremely well. It had something for everyone, comics veterans and newcomers alike. The story is from the great mind of Phil Lord, who is fresh off of being fired from the Solo anthology film (would have been cool now to see how Solo would have turned out under his direction). The story hits all the beats any successful ‘origin’ story should, and the flow rarely, if ever, slows. Although the film is inherently aimed at a younger audience, it wasn’t afraid to get serious and dark, and that was appreciated. I found the humor surprisingly fresh and legitimately funny. The humor was well fleshed out and was delivered masterfully.

A lot of things have to be done right to make a film like this successful. Any animated film can fall flat without a great performance from the cast. Luckily, that isn’t the case for Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. Everyone in the cast did a fantastic job in their roles, but the standouts were Mahershala Ali (Prowler), Brian Tyree Henry (Jefferson Davis), Shameik Moore (Miles Morales), Liev Schreiber (Kingpin), and of course Nicolas Cage (Spider-Man Noir). That being said, none of the performances were anything less than great.

There really isn’t much that I didn’t love about Into The Spider-Verse. My biggest issue with the film lies with some of the character designs. My nitpick was Kingpin’s design. I found it to be a little bit TOO silly and over-the-top. It didn’t really mesh with the rest of the character designs that were a bit more grounded. I also had an issue with SP//dr’s design. While I did like it in the film, a part of me did wish that they went for a more comics accurate design as it’s one of my favorite mech designs ever. The design of SP//dr in the film did work well with how Peni Parker was portrayed, so I’ll give them that.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse achieves the comic-to-film transition better than any film that’s been released thus far. The animation and art style definitely contributed to this, but so did the masterful writing, story, voice acting, and performances from everyone involved. I have hopes that it can destroy the box office, opening up a bright future for not just animated superhero films, but animated films in general.