Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – REVIEW
It’s a pretty common pattern that the majority of film sequels never do as well as the original film–with a rare few exceptions. I’m happy to say that Spider-man: Across the Spider-Verse is one of those exceptions.
I also want to confirm that this movie has a banger of a soundtrack and I immediately went onto Spotify for it. The music fits the overall themes while maintaining the same tone as the first movie’s soundtrack.
The last film left off with Ghost-Spider aka Gwen Stacy, voiced by the talented Hailee Steinfield (Pitch Perfect 2) calling out to Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) and you would expect this film to carry on from that point.
You would be wrong.
Instead, we’re given a look at what happened to Gwen after the conclusion of the first film. And a further explanation as to what had happened to her version of Peter Parker. Her character is stripped of the mystery and replaced with a relatable young teenage girl who is dealing with the loss of her best friend, her new friends and her father trying to hunt down her alter-ego.
This helps to set up the introduction of what looks to be the main villain, Miguel O’Hara–voiced by Oscar Isaac (Marvel’s Moon Knight) and side character Jessica Drew (Issa Rae).
Side-note: the film does well by not casting Miguel as a one dimensional villain. He initially works with Gwen to stop a bad guy, then, as a different version of Spider-Man he is seemingly evil yet his idea of sacrificing one person to save many feels noble.
Skip ahead to returning the focus on Miles and seeing how he is clearly overwhelmed with juggling his personal life, his future and his role as his universe’s Spider-Man is refreshing. He’s grown from the awkward young teenager discovering his powers to a slightly maturer teenager who just needs some help or support while debating whether to tell his parents who he is.
Which brings me to one of my favourite things in the film: Jefferson Davis and Rio Morales. They are the stereotypical parents who don’t want their kid to grow up too fast and so try to keep him with the family. Not to mention, trying to relate to their son with slang that is cringey but funny at the same time. And Rio being very much a Spanish mother had me expecting her to grab the slipper at times.
This film has an overall theme of growth–whether that’d be personal or environmental. Characters from the first film like Peter B. Parker have changed from the ‘I don’t need a sidekick/mentee’ to a proud father of an adorable daughter. His character rocks the slippers and baby carrier, while excitedly having multiple photos of his daughter looking the same on his phone that he shows to everyone.
And the introduction of new characters like Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya) who is the embodiment of old school British punk raging against the system and chaotic good and Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni) who once saw the job as his world’s Spider-Man as easy before getting a reality check.
Overall, the movie was visually beautiful and brought in variations of Spider-Man from across every form of media. Lego Spider-Man, animated TV show versions of Spider-man, old school comics and even shots of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s versions of the friendly neighbourhood hero. And the humour wasn’t forced but clever and timed perfectly.
After seeing it, I’m now re-downloading the Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales game back onto my console and watching the first movie again.
★★★★★
In Cinemas now
