Review of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) by Miranda Z — 22 Dec 2018

If you thought Marvel movies were boring, this is the movie to change your mind. First and foremost - this is a piece of ART. Goddamn, the animation! A love letter to comic books AND cartoon styles, with a good dose of colour (as my friend Kelly put it, "It's like the animators were on LSD!") to boot. Just, gorgeous. And then there's the SOUNDTRACK! Atmospheric, moody, bass with a heart. The music was my personal favourite thing about the movie (that scene where they turn the volume up? Oh yeah.), because it reads like a character mixtape for Miles Morales, and I am HECKING ABOUT IT.

Now let's talk about why I cried: leap of faith, family love, supportive camaraderie. But mostly that leap of faith. "How will I know?" "You won't. You take a leap of faith." In a world wracked with uncertainty - where things most of us would never have predicted (*cough* elections *cough*) come to pass and reading the news can LITERALLY be anxiety-inducing, knowing you can fall back on faith is so important. Even more so when you consider the human condition is potentially, fundamentally lacking in knowledge. There are likely some questions we will never be able to answer (noumenon/phenomenon), so we need to be okay with uncertainty. More than that, we need to be able to keep going in the face of it. At some point, when you feel like there's nothing left, you gotta have faith in something. Because faith doesn't require evidence or rationality, it just needs your genuine conviction.

And that brings me to resilience: "Spiderman always gets back up." WHAT A TRAIT. WHAT A MESSAGE. The MCU likes to grapple with Big Issues (hello, Civil War), but with enough of a slant to feel completely conventional. I've argued before that superhero movies aren't just throwaway entertainment, because they are both outlets + inspirations for human heroes. But finally, a Marvel movie that tells you directly that you can be a hero! To your face, "We are all Spiderman" (and also that Stan Lee quote!). Because we have the potential to do good, and we really, really should try. But it's going to be a struggle, and when you fail, you gotta dust it off - hold onto that faith - and get back up. Spiderpeople do what need to be done, just because they should.

Oh, also, a good + experienced voice acting cast.

SERIOUSLY though, can we hang this up in a gallery?