Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can. Sorry this review is so late but I’ll make it very very quick. Look out, here comes The Blog Complainer’s review of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. (Also spoilers.)

I approached Sony’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse with a fair degree of scepticism. Firstly, the last movie of theirs that I watched was something that general audiences loved but people like me thought was a total mess. Secondly, I probably had to watch the trailer for this movie about 5 or 6 times (which also kind of reveals some important plot details) and after awhile it tainted my interest. Lastly, the great reviews this movie has been getting made me curious but, if you know me, that doesn’t immediately make me jump onto the band wagon.

Now that I have seen the movie I’m pleased to report that it doesn’t suck. So this movie treats you like you’re already familiar with Spider-Man and his lore, which of course I am, probably way more than the intended audience, but if you don’t know anything then it won’t take long for you to catch on. For a movie featuring multiple different Spider things from different Spider universes it isn’t very complicated at all, so even if you’re a little Rugrat you’ll be just fine.

So the movie gives us a brief introduction to Peter Parker and then dives head first into Miles Morales’ story.  He’s a young teen and as far as I can tell is somewhat similar to Peter as he’s also pathetic and socially awkward, though the movie doesn’t really spend too long on his High School life. I do like that even when the movie starts introducing other Spider-things Miles still gets the most attention and the most screen time. Like Mowgli, Miles is the best character in this movie as he’s very relatable and when he gets the Spider powers he really doesn’t know what he’s doing and with the pressure of the end of the world the stakes are very high for him to hurry up and become a superhero. Miles is a great protagonist because he really earns his powers and in the end it’s fascinating to see him become Spider-Man.

This movie also has a pretty great supporting cast. Peter Parker, aka beer bellied Spider-Man, was a good change from the other portrayals of this character that we have seen. He’s an older moody Spider-Man who plays like a mentor for Miles and their chemistry was really well done too. We’ve also got Gwen Stacy Spider-woman who is okay, although once we find out she’s a superhero too she kind of becomes irrelevant. The other three spider-things I found more of a fun novelty, my favourite probably being the Noir Spider-Man who is voiced by Nicholas Cage, who has now voiced two iconic superheroes in the same year. I also liked Miles’s dad who I loved all of his scenes with Miles.

As for villains, only two of them are worth mentioning because the others are more of a novelty. The main villain is the Kingpin as he has the most exaggerated body out of all of the normal characters. (More exaggerated than Peter Porker!) I do like that he’s given a bit of a motivation that makes sense but he never really had much of a presence until the last act, all of that was given to female Doc Ock and the Prowler, and yeah the other character I was thinking of earlier is the Prowler as we find out he’s Miles’s uncle. I actually forgot about him for awhile although he was pretty scary when he showed up. I did like his death as it was pretty emotional but that doesn’t mean I was surprised that he died.

I know I may be bashing it a bit but I still really enjoyed myself as the highlight of this movie is that it’s visually impressive. The movie is presented like a 1 hour 30 minute long comic book with how the characters move all kind of blocky, some actions look like they were ripped straight out of a comic book, also you can read the spider things thoughts as if you’re reading a comic book. There is alot of visual like cartoon humour and since it’s animated you can really get experimental. There are also some very impressive action set pieces in this movie. It makes me grateful that it’s animated because it really looks way better in this form. (Maybe the MCU should become an animated series, I doubt you’ll be able to tell the difference.)

Since we’re in spoiler land I guess I can talk about Easter Eggs as, if you have a vast knowledge of Spider-Man and other Spider-Man media, you would get a kick out of it. This movie is kind of like Logan where they advance some parts of the story with people looking at old Marvel comic books. There are some references to the other movie portrayals of Spider-Man like there is a scene where Spider-Man does that weird dance thing from Spider-Man 3 – that was pretty funny. Stan Lee gets a nice posthumous cameo in this movie as the guy who sells Miles his crappy Spider-Man suit. Also this is one of the few movies where I stuck around until the end of the credits where future Spider-Man has a watch thing that can help travel through dimensions and the first place he stops is at the animated 60’s Spider-Man show. I thought this was really cool.

I think this is my favourite animated superhero movie of the year. As for favourite superhero movie of the year, it’ll probably be in the top 3. I really enjoyed myself, I’m definitely going to watch it again at some point and it’s definitely one of the best Spider-Man movies out there. I’m feeling generous so it’s a 9/10. It’s really close to amazing and I highly recommend it to everyone who wants a good time or if you’re interested in Spider-Man.

That’s it ’til Christmas because for some reason no one wants to release new movies five days before Christmas but I can improvise until then. So ’til next time, I have been your cynically Neighborhood Blog Complainer, Signing Out. (That was pretty bad.)