Spider-Man : Across the Spiderverse
There are very few animated movies that I get all that excited for nowadays. Of course, one of the reasons for that is age as that stuff is far less exciting as an adult. After the first movie in this now soon to be trilogy came out, I was totally in. Part of that is that im a big fan of the team of Phil Lord and Chris Miller. They have been doing fantastic work from the Lego movie to 22 Jump Street. The other hook for me after seeing it was the art style. It was new and yet somehow old all at the same time. The color dots and random offline markings made it feel like a comic come to life just jumping off the page.
The story must be good though ultimately and this one certainly is. We pick up on what Miles has been doing since we last saw him, we get what Gwen has been up to back in her own universe and we get introduced to an army of Spidey people across multiple universes. Now the guys have taken things even a bit farther with the visiting of each universe the art style and the animation changes too giving each universe its own distinct feel. What Miles in this movie comes to find out is shocking and will influence how things pan out in the future third movie, so obviously I’m not going to spoil that for you but its good. The voice acting is great and if you are a Spider-man fan of any kind there’s something in this movie for you for sure. I can see how they decided to cut this movie into two different parts because there is a lot going on. Not only with the story but with the number of characters too. It seems that Lord & Miller have decided that since they were given the keys to the kingdom that things are best if they leave no stone unturned.
What they have done is take a large set of amazing lesser-known Spidey characters and given life to them for a whole set of Spider-man fans that may have never known that they even existed. Of course, the focus is on Miles and Gwen’s story lines, but they are not keeping the other Spidey friends as just quick splash page cameos, we are getting a good look at what makes some of those guys and girls tick too. So, if you got a need for some comic book action on the big screen regardless of the fact that’s its animated you would be hard pressed to find a better comic book movie this summer in theaters NOW. Can’t wait for the Third one 4.5 out of 5
*This movie review was originally published in The Current River Observer as the River Reels article written by Jeffrey Riggs
