Review 793: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is huge surprising delight; a pleasure to look at and even more fulfilling as a story. I came to mock and stayed to smile. I must confess that the idea of a multiverse animated Spider-Man film sounded like a recipe for disaster 

On one level, yes this is franchise filmmaking first and foremost. But I was also surprised at the amount of care and nuance that went into this film. The script, co-written by producer Phil Lord and co-director Rodney Rothman has a surprising amount of thematic depth to it  The Spider-Man stories, for my money, are the ones that involve our young hero having an enormous responsibility thrust upon them almost out of nowhere and they then need to decide what person they want to be. And that's pretty much the emotional through line of our hero Miles Morales. 

Based on the Miles Morales version of Spider-Man by Brian Michael Bendis & Sara 

What's immediately striking about Into the Spider-Verse is how visually rich it is. There's something to the flow of simple dialogue scenes and a fluidity to the action set pieces that sets it apart from other animated films

I freely confess that I didn't know a lot about Miles Morales prior to seeing this film as my primary

Newcomer Shameik Moore delivers a   helping him give his own distinct voice and persona separate from Peter Parker  Miles has responsibility, but I argue that he also has greatness thrust upon him. 

including Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Atlanta's Brian Tyree Henry, Lily Tomlin, Dexter's Lauren Velez, Zoe Kravitz, John Mulaney, Kimiko Glenn, Nicholas Cage (yes really), Kathryn Hahn, Liev Schreiber & Chris "Kirk" Pine. Rather awesome.

Jake Johnson's vocal performance as Peter B. Parker is a surprisingly nuanced one. This is a Peter Parker who  but who's life went to shambles after one bad decision too many. Getting his life repeatedly destroyed without achieving any kind of lasting happiness. Watching him, you get the sense that he peaked when he was in his late teens/early twenties and has been doing exactly the same things since and he's afraid to move on from that. He's kind of a cautionary tale for Miles on what to avoid. 

Aaron actually encourages Miles interests in  and loves to hang out with him whenever he can.