Directed by: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsay & Rodney Rothman
Runtime: 117 minutes
We are constantly being bombarded with narratives of ‘technological marvels’ and animated realism. With the new Lion King reboot hitting next year, and most blockbuster ventures being laced with CGI, we are constantly told which films are going to shape the future of cinematic storytelling. After exiting a preview screening of Sony Animation’s new film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, I felt like I was watching the next step in animated history first-hand.
It is hard to believe that the people behind The Emoji Movie have created the best animated picture of the year. As with any redemption story, there was doubt, hope, then splendour—I witnessed a Spider-Man fan tear up at the beauty of the thing. But really, despite heralding phenomenal visuals and being the closest thing to bringing a comic book to life, we were presented with great characters, high emotional stakes, and genuinely hilarious moments.
Essentially, many different characters in many different universes are bitten by radioactive spiders and end up with spidey-powers. While the plot of the film is actually well-constructed, clever, and nuanced, I feel like going into it in any detail here would do the film a disservice. Some aspects of the story are surprising, others are surreal, but all are handled with exceptional grace. The characters in the film are written fantastically—I am hard pressed to find a character that annoyed me in the whole film. Being Mile Morales’ first film, and yet another origin story, there was a lot that could have gone wrong here, but the filmmakers knocked it out of the park.
The visuals are stunning. In a rotoscoped mid-ground between 2D and 3D animation, my eyes were alight with wonder throughout the entire experience. More surprising is that, despite being balls-to-the-wall in parts, with explosions of colour smattering across the screen at any given moment, the quieter, more emotional moments are handled with enough subtlety to land. The stylisation of the film is awe-inspiring but never distracting—a balance that is difficult for anyone to master, let alone the studio whose main motivation for a long time was selling Smurf merchandise. It is obvious that the creators of the film injected a lot of passion and love into every frame.
Far from a corporate cash-grab, Sony’s new venture into Spider-Man’s terrain is a ballsy passion project of epic proportions. Seeming to achieve the impossible, a Spider-Man cinematic universe is now palatable in the animated form. Sure, we have seen Spider-Man on screen many, many times… but not quite like this. Finally, we have a Spider-Man film that lives up to its titular hero’s namesake—Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is both amazing and spectacular, and I recommend that all fans of the comics go and see it, if only to see the panels on your pages spring to life.
“The best” “amazing” “spectacular” ….aren’t we all getting a tired already of these types of reviews. It’s just an outlandish concept done fine on the screen and doesn’t deserve a score more than an 8/10. A Netflix premiere wouldn’t have generated similar enthusiasm and I know the reasons involved.
……rotoscoped mid-ground between 2D and 3D animation, my eyes were alight with wonder throughout the entire experience…….
It’s not doing well in my region and I overheard a kid interrupting me complaining he wants to see Aquaman. The opening weekend for Spiderverse suggested it already in US. The demographics at BO are also not supportive and it was more of 90 percent non-family adults praising than kids. So sorry my lady again. This isn’t going as expected at the BO this season. To complement my comment further look at the audience score of Mary Poppins on RT and compare it with what we will see for Aquaman on 21st with a 96 percent “want to see”. This is for you to clearly understand how an audience reaction nullifies critiques.