Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

With visually stunning animation and taking in more ambition in its storytelling than its great successful predecessor, this animated superhero sequel exceeded all expectations

If there is one film this year that successfully combines our love of cartoons and comic book movies, it is "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse." With good cause, this is one of the most anticipated movies in recent memory. Everyone, including myself, was awestruck by 2018’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” Under Sony Pictures Animation, Marvel, and produced by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, it's basically a masterpiece in terms of an action-packed movie with great representation that makes the audience, whether young or old, feel that we can become heroes in our own right. The Academy Awards recognized the significance of the original by awarding it the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, which many people believe to be an iconic film of the last decade.

Therefore, you better know that no one needed to be anxious when this was disclosed. It would be difficult for a sequel of this size to be better than anticipated as the months become a year as we wait for those doses of excitement. In this situation, the experience makes you reflect on what made the first extraordinary and "Across the Spider-Verse" in the same vein.

A little over a year after destroying the Collider, Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) serves as Brooklyn's friendly neighborhood Spider-Man in his universe. However, he’s struggling with balancing his duties of being a superhero and going to school, which seem more of a challenge than anything else than to be honest with his parents Rio and Jefferson (voiced by Luna Lauren Vélez and Brian Tyree Henry) that he is Spider-Man. Things get trickier when Miles faces a former scientist-turned-black-and-white supervillain named The Spot (voiced by Jason Schwartzman), whose body is converted by interdimensional portals and can travel through the multiverse. A visit from his old pal Gwen Stacy (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld) has him traveling across the multiverse, where Miles discovers an entire group of Spider-people known as the Spider-Society, led by Miguel O’Hara/ Spider-Man 2099 (voiced by Oscar Isaac), trying to keep everything as it should be.

When you pay a ticket for “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” the guarantee when walking out is being blown away, once again, by the colorful display of animation. I knew it would be great, but not on this level. Seeing various visual animation art styles in one movie could’ve been overwhelming to take everything in when they clash. But you have to embrace what’s coming at you on-screen in one creative decision after the next that’s even better than what we already saw previously.

Both of these films are enough to continue applauding all the animators who went to work every single day to get every detail of a character, especially the abundance of Easter eggs true Spider-Man fans will notice, or a minute of the background of the environments Miles and Gwen jump into were so effortlessly flawless in every frame. Just the look at Gwen’s world is absolutely stunning. All I was wondering was how this only had a budget of $100 million.

Due to the time and effort put into making everything come to life, this movie is the most astounding collection of fan art you've ever seen. You won't be able to take your eyes off it for even a brief moment. You must see it again to spot things you couldn’t catch the first time. Every action sequence, combined with another excellent score from Daniel Pemberton, never had the urge to be repetitive since it keeps you locked to your seat and feeling those high stakes that ultimately challenge its characters around the central conflict, the same way you think as reading the various Spider-Man comics. There’s a chase that was glimpsed in the trailers that I couldn’t believe was happening in front of me.

With a new trio of directors taking over in Joaquim Dos Santos ("Avatar: The Last Airbender"), Kemp Powers ("Soul"), and Justin K. Thompson and working with a script penned by Lord, Miller, and Dave Callahan, they all put together a story that goes beyond the original’s more somewhat grounded premise. Here, it expands this bigger world Miles discovers that leads to some pretty unpredictable elements that took me off guard in a good way when it handles the basics of following the multiverse and going further into having the great power and responsibility theme we all know by heart when it comes to the sacrifices we make. Becoming Spider-Man isn’t an easy job, and I always think back to what Spider-Ham said in the first that’s still profound today, “The hardest thing about this job is you can’t always save everybody.”

Amid all the web-slinging and continuing to work with the humor you expected, the film takes its time around the first act to get personal with everybody within an almost darker tone. That might slow things down for some in between the stakes of the character’s ideologies. Still, these two films understand the importance of the characters, in particular, Miles having some ambition but don’t necessarily want to disappoint those around him and what they believe is right or wrong. Even when it’s a sequel with too many Spider-people to count, it does a great job at not becoming overcrowded, as I feared.

Shameik Moore is still the perfect guy to voice Miles Morales. He’s still a teenager finding his place in his world and it’s managed to be a journey that is acceptable to follow through and still root for him as our hero. This character has only been in two movies, and he’s still one of my favorite on-screen interactions of Spider-Man out there. But, unsurprisingly, Hailee Steinfeld was my favorite of the returning actors. And it’s not because I adore the Oscar-nominated actress and meeting her would make my life complete, but I truly hoped there would be more of Gwen Stacy in "Across the Spider-Verse" to fill her character out, and it appears the universe listened for once.

This is where we get to know her more here than in the last, where it starts with her backstory and how she’s been dealing with the death of Peter from her universe and her relationship with her father, George Stacy (voiced by Shea Whigham). And she doesn’t want to make the same mistake of getting too close to someone she cares about, including the friendship she shares with Miles and their parallel in telling their respective parents about themselves. Both Moore and Steinfeld played off each other even better in this sequel since I believe they were both in the studio recording their lines.

And with the new cast, there’s no denying they all stood out, from Issa Rae as the pregnant motorcycle-riding Jessica Drew/ Spider-Woman, Schwartzman as The Spot, and Karan Soni as Pavitr Prabhakar / Spider-Man India. The Spot is a villain that begins as someone not to be taken seriously, but as we realize who he is, he becomes a far more dangerous threat than I had anticipated and makes me curious about where they’ll go with him next. The two everybody will talk about come from Oscar Isaac and Daniel Kaluuya as Miguel O’Hara and Hobie Brown/ Spider-Punk, respectively. We got a glimpse of Spider-Man 2099 during the post-credit scene in the first, but Issac’s voice is so unrecognizable as the no-nonsense leader doing what he can to protect the universe. And Spider-Punk isn’t a version of the hero I’m familiar with, but he’s the kind of Spider-Man that teenagers who grew up in their anarchistic phase listening to Sex Pistols or The Clash will understand completely.

It didn't feel that long for a movie that clocks in at about 140 minutes for half a story. Not an average runtime for a kids’ movie, and there might be some lulls for the younger audience members. Still, I just wanted to keep moving with its decision to leave things off with a cliffhanger ending that might reveal one of the most reconciles endings we’ve seen in Hollywood. If anything, this is "The Empire Strikes Back" of the franchise based on where it closes. Where it ends will make waiting for the third installment, "Beyond the Spider-Verse," more difficult next spring. When I watch this again, I'll decide which of the two is the finest. However, with one viewing, this is a clear winner in the eyes of this admirer.

For being one of my most anticipated summer films, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” exceeded those high expectations in being one incredible sequel from start to finish. Much like its already great predecessor, it succeeds with its jaw-dropping animation styles, fast-paced action, and a story with stakes and more fleshed-out characters. If you loved “Into the Spider-Verse” and have been eager to see more since nothing will prepare you for how epic this will be in one of the best films you’ll likely see in theaters this year.