Spider-Man, Into the Spider-Verse: Swinging Off the Screen and Into Your Heart

I’m not the first to note that animated films are typically dismissed out of hand by the wider cinematic community because society tends to conflate “animated” with “cartoon” and “cartoon” with “for kids” and “for kids” with “not worth giving serious consideration to.” Unless it’s a Pixar or Disney film, in which case it usually gets a pass because company branding is a thing. I’m also not the first to call this phenomenon out as detrimental to the art of film making as it disregards an entire medium with its own artistic merits, style, and advantages. Siskel and Ebert had to have this same conversation in 1995 over ‘Batman: Mask of the Phantasm’ and now I, not to compare myself to such legends, feel the need to do the same with ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.’

Told through some of the most fantastic animation ever put to screen, the story of ‘Into the Spider-Verse’ follows Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), an average bi-racial teenager in Brooklyn starting life at a new, live-in academy. While his parents want him to pursue academia, his enigmatic Uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali) wants him to nurture his artistic talents, an endeavor which leads him to be bit by a radioactive spider in the sewers of New York, giving him the same powers as the popular hero Spider-Man (Chris Pine). In investigating these powers, Miles witnesses the villainous Kingpin (Liev Schreiber) activate a super-collider which breaks through dimensional barriers and draws a number of alternate universe Spider-Men into their world. These include the tentative Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld), the overdramatic Spider-Man Noir (Nicholas Cage), the cartoony Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), the anime inspired Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn), and a washed-up, middle-aged version of Peter Parker (Jake Johnson). It lands on Miles to get his new friends home, stop the Kingpin, and destroy the super-collider before it tears apart the space-time continuum.

Despite the star-studded cast, the real draw for this movie is the visuals. Looking like a cross between cell animation and 3D CGI, the visuals of the film replicate the look and feel of the comics it was spawned from, including the use of frames, meta-narrative artwork, and word boxes. Every shading and shadow blends in beautifully with the movement of the characters and settings, all of which look incredible. The lines, solid, shattered, or split, are fantastically drawn to direct the eye to the exquisite details of the background. There's a sequence in a forest that is particularly breathtaking for it's use of foreground-to-background transitions. Colors pop off the screen like your vision has been sucked directly into the camera itself, fully immersing you in the movie-going experience. Every frame a painting, folks.

The characters in particular benefit from this style as it allows for a variety of tones to be used simultaneously without clashing. For example, Spider-Man Noir is shaded entirely in black and white, Spider-Ham is always drawn as a 2D Saturday morning cartoon, and Peni Parker is like a paper-cut version of manga, but all three can share the screen with the other Spider-Men and not look out of place at all within the frame.

This is also one of the best acted animated films to hit theaters in quite some time. Moore has the brunt of the work as Miles and he holds up well under the pressure, but the emotional core of the film belongs to Brian Tyree Henry, who plays his cop father. Henry’s stern inflections become all the more powerful when he allows them to crack for a few pivotal scenes. Schreiber is both a gangster stereotype and broken man in his performance, relying heavily on an accent that he cunningly uses to humanize his portrayal. Among the collective Spider-Men, Jake Johnson stands out the most because his character’s struggles frame Miles’s development, but his scratchy voice and firm grasp of sarcasm and delivery make him the perfect fit for the role. Steinfeld is equal parts scalding and sweet in her role, keeping the appropriate amount of venom in her voice at all times.

Glenn, whose Japanese school-girl-esque character really didn’t need to be nuanced, voices Peni with an underserved subtlety. It speaks volumes that she has possibly the fewest lines of any of her companions but still gets one of the most heartbreaking moments of the whole film down pat. Cage is an absolute scene stealer as Spider-Man Noir and I wouldn’t be surprised if a spin-off was in the works based on his performance alone. Mulaney’s high pitch and comedic delivery make him perfect as Spider-Ham and you can feel a surprising amount of energy behind his performance that you wouldn’t expect from him.

Other voice over performances from the likes of Zoe Kravitz, who plays Mary Jane, Lily Tomlin, who is Aunt May, and Kathryn Hahn, who gives life to an intriguing new version of classic Spider-Man villain Doc Ock, are also stellar, if underutilized. The only real outlier among the performers is Ali, who unfortunately gives a very monotonous performance. He’s the only one who looks like he’s relying on the stellar animation to express his character’s opinions and emotions. But he still shares great chemistry with Moor and isn’t too much of an albatross to the rest of the cast.

The only place where the film trips up is the script. The story, while seemingly simplistic, has a few pretty significant plot holes covered up by snappy, enjoyable dialogue. There’s also the matter of themes. The message of the movie is that anyone can be a hero like Spider-Man so long as they are willing to take the plunge, believe in themselves, and do the right thing. That’s not my interpretation, it’s literally repeated throughout the film a dozen times, as if the film doesn’t trust the audience to be smart enough to understand imagery or symbolism. There are a few intriguing ideas being thrown around, such as a clever inversion of Spider-Man’s famous catchphrase, what responsibility means to different types of people, and, of course, the intricate character interactions that define the superhero film genre, but all of them are secondary to the film’s prerogative to beat its audience over the head with its message.

‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ is worth your attention, your time, and your money. It’d be hard for anyone to walk away from a theater unsatisfied with it. Even if you’re not a superhero person, the sheer beauty and masterful craftsmanship of the film’s visuals are worth the price of admission. Add to that some really admirable performances and a generally encouraging and inspiring message and I’d say you’ve got yourself a pretty terrific movie. 4/5.

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