My daughter and I just returned from our second viewing of this year’s Across the Spider-Verse, and I’ve got to say: this film is easily the best that I’ve seen this year, and likely one of the best films I’ve witnessed. It delivered everything that I hoped to get from it, and heaped upon me gift after web-wrapped gift of brilliant cinema - so many story turns that I didn’t expect, executed with the visual sorcery to which we were treated by the previous installment, but with a meticulous story wherein I could find no fault. I say that Across the Spider-Verse is one of the best films I’ve ever seen, but it may be this generation’s The Empire Strikes Back - the film does well in coaxing us along with the cleverness and spunk that won us over in the first flick but, like Miles, this newest Spider-Man has grown beyond its adolescence, and reflects the brutally nuanced ways in which our lives will eventually develop.
Not only does Across the Spider-Verse trace the narrative threads of the preceding film, but it expounds upon the dimension unraveling events that the Spider-People used to triumph over the Kingpin and his cohorts at Alchemax Labs. In the wake of the collider’s destruction and multiverses away from Earth-1610, Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac) along with Spider-Woman Jessica Drew (Issa Rae), is part of an elite society of Spider-powered agents that have tasked themselves with restoring the shattered strands of the so called Spider-Verse, deporting Spider-Man villains and glitched anomalies back to their home dimensions. When a dimensionally displaced Adrian Tooms (alla one pen and parchment Leonardo Da Vulture) attacks the Guggenheim in Gwen Stacy’s universe, events are set in motion that threaten to unravel everything we held to be true about Miles Morales, his alter-ego, and the function that these heroes serve across the whole of the multiverse.
With no idea of the consequences they’d be left to face after defeating Kingpin, and with bizarre new villains out for revenge, our heroes Miles Morales (whose vocal performance is reprised by Shameik Moore) and Gwen Stacy (returned by actor Hailee Steinfeld) journey through an increasingly perilous path through spacetime, rife with betrayals, half-truths, and mortal danger.
Featuring a new trio of directors (Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson) Across the Spider-verse’s screenplay was penned by producer Phil Lord, with additional writing credits going to producer Christopher Miller and writer David Callaham (Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings). Lord and Miller’s involvement is felt in all of its charm and wit, while Callaham’s knack for conflict both internal and familial is apparent, most especially in Mile’s desperation to maintain his life as Spider-Man while preserving a relationship with his parents - a struggle with which Miles, during a cavalier discussion with his folks, attempts to solve literally by purchasing two cakes to celebrate his dad’s promotion to police captain - one to have, and one to eat, so to speak.
Having your cake and eating it is one of life’s dilemmas with which we will all contend at some point, and it’s often a theme central to Spider-Man stories. Whether it’s forsaking social normalcy to keep your loved ones safe, or choosing between the life of the person you care about and the neighbors you’ve sworn to protect, Spider-Man’s life is chock full of miserable choices. In the case of 15-year old Miles Morales, his struggle is to thrive as a son and student, developing himself as the bright young man that his elders perceive him to be, all the while sacrificing his personal life to web-sling his way through Brooklyn - thwarting crooks and swinging through city streets with abandon. What’s more, this same unstable attempt to preserve balance is mirrored in Gwen Stacy’s Earth-65, and there is even an instance in which Gwen literally “switches off” her father’s voice in the form of a chittering police scanner. While their styles may differ by degrees, Gwen and Miles do share many similarities, and it is their aloofness towards communication that will cost them by story’s end. For my part, five years after Into the Spider-Verse and with no small degree of irony, I can see with more clarity just how much these characters put on the line; however, I do wonder if they, as children, realize what they risk on behalf of their parents every time they turn gymnast through an 18th floor fire escape.
But maybe they are aware?
That idea adds a depth of dimension to our protagonists, and illustrates the burden shouldered by these young people. In fact, it speaks much to characters like Miguel O’Hara, whose utter lack of humor conveys the magnitude of his perceived responsibility and the lengths that he will traverse to achieve what he believes is right. His zeal is such that Miles is driven to ask, “Are you sure you’re even Spider-Man?” In one incredibly dynamic and adrenaline-fueled chase though the futuristic sheen of Nueva York of Earth-928 (a testament to the craftsmanship of a massive animation team), we get the impression that Spider-Man 2099 is about to sink his teeth into Miles, with fangs teased in chilling silhouette at the start of the film.
While Miguel’s Spider-Man 2099 does play partial antagonist in Across the Spider-Verse, it would be a crime to make a footnote of the Spot (the unassuming but somehow totally iconic Jason Schwartzman) who serves as the film’s villain. During an attempted robbery of an automated teller machine (the lack of acronym is intentional - you gotta go see the flick) the character reveals to Miles that he’s a former Alchemex scientist who worked on Kingpin’s collider project and, ultimately, brought forth the extra-dimensional spider that would lead to the development of Mile’s own powers…and the subsequent destruction of the collider that would transform the scientist into the unsettling lanky, bleached skinned, portal covered villain that he is. A villain who - according to the Spot - is now nemesis to Spider-Man, as they share the fated bond of mutual creation.
If that all sounds a bit convoluted, it is; but it’s the perfect crux upon which all conflict in Across the Spider-Verse is based. Like Miles, the Spot was created by accident; however, unlike our hero, the Spot did not have a mentor to guide him, and he’s now desperate to make sense of his misfortune and find meaning in the chaos - even if it entails shoehorning into existence a hero/villain dynamic that squares him as Spider-Man’s arch-enemy. Miles could listen to the Spot and in so doing reach some kind of resolution; but no, he instead treats the encounter as a “villain of the week” joke as he half-asses his way to a parent/student meeting with his college admissions counselor.
It’s that miscalculation that explodes the film’s central conflicts onto the screen. The Spot, having been spurned by Miles during what he believes is the most consequential encounter of their lives, is driven to construct his own mini-collider which enables him to hop from dimension to dimension, drawing power from each world’s super-collider until he is powerful enough to bring Miles to his knees. Now, with all of our Spider-powered friends converging on Miles “for the greater good,” we’re left alone with Miles in a parallel Brooklyn that never had a Spider-Man! It’s a frightening reality shown to us in one of the most dramatically intense cliffhangers on which I’ve ever been stranded. .
My family and I have thought for some time that Into the Spider-Verse is the perfect movie, and Across the Spider-Verse could be (sorry, Star Wars: Episode V) the perfect sequel. There’s so much to love about this film, though it’s the visual zhuzh that stands front and center - from the expert use of illustrated backgrounds and lighting to convey tone and emotion, with many shots reminiscent of contemporary artists such as Alice Zhang, Brian Stelfreeze, and Bill Sienkiewicz (the latter two receiving credit for work that appears on screen), to the sequences wherein Gwen Stacy appears on Earth-65. The effects team responsible here even went so far as to “create a simulator” that would alter the color-scheme of Gwen’s costume and surroundings, which was particularly effective during her reconciliation with Captain Stacy, which saw the background shift to a colorless “clean slate.”
The soundtrack, as well, is marvelously on point. Composer Daniel Pemberton is at the absolute top of his game, comforting us with the familiar tunes of characters we already know, and regaling our ears with new pieces such as Miguel O’Hara’s gnarly, synth inspired theme, which harkens to my beloved Stranger Things and the 80’s sci-fi/horror miracles that inspired it. Miguel’s theme is interesting, in that it gives us something new, but with brassy overtones that hint towards the villainous. The track ‘Annihilate,’ featuring artists Swae Lee, Lil Wayne, and Offset, is used to particularly haunting effect as Miles web-slings through a lonesome nightscape, desperate to reconnect with Gwen amidst the verse’s reedy melodies.
The film itself was far more gloomy, and had a distinct nighttime wetness to it, like tire slick and neon. There was a menace lurking around the onscreen comic panel edges that I couldn’t quite place, but could feel raising the hairs of my arms. Across the Spider-Verse succeeded in making me believe that there was something sinister at play behind the apparent heroism, and the lines that should clearly define the good guys and bad guys are always glitching.
Despite this, Miles Morales - his attitude, his costume, and his exuberance - always has you rooting for the kid, and I love him for that. Gwen Stacy is given a bigger stage in this film, and her motivations are no longer obfuscated. Across the Spider-Verse does gives room for established characters to develop, but also provides a second-stage for the splendid anarchism of Spider-Punk (whose Cockney rhyming is bestowed by a poetic Daniel Kaluuya), the virtual Spider-Byte (Amandla Stenberg), and the perma-optimistic Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni). Literally the only gripe that I have with this picture comes in the form of the Scarlet Spider. While I adore the chosen aesthetic and voicework of Andy Samberg, I’ve been such a longtime fan of the character that I wasn’t overly stoked for his Gotham-esque exterior monologue. Never meet your heroes, kids - at least not in their hyper-stylized animated form.
Lord and Miller have boasted that there will be over 240 different characters spanning across the final two films of their proposed trilogy and, somehow, they’ve still turned a storyboarder's nightmare into a dream come true for us Spider-fans.
Comparing Across the Spider-Verse to the sequel of sequels, The Empire Strikes Back, there are no doubt fans that would cry foul that I’m attempting to pit fandom against fandom; however, the two films do well to suggest the grayness of moral ambiguity and all of its implications as to what distinguishes right from wrong, and supposed good from supposed evil; the truths and lies we tell, for the sake of ourselves and the people that we love. Are we protecting them or ourselves? Can it ever be both, and is it ever really worth it? Is it selfish, then, to want to write your own story? What then of your own truth?
The Spot is a pertinent choice of villain for this sequel, because like our own decisions, there are always “holes inside of holes,” and infinite data present in terms of weighing our options against themselves. How can you know which choice is the right one? And how can you ever know which events in life must be allowed to happen in order for us to spread our wings and ride the winds of the unknown?
As Peter B. Parker once explained to Miles, “You won’t. It’s a leap of faith… that’s all it is.”
The one thing I know for certain is this: I’m gonna have a hell of a time waiting for Beyond the Spider-Verse!