Review of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) by Nikola P — 05 Jan 2019

In a year full of wonderful animated films, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse stands out.

This movie tells a story of becoming Spider-Man from a unique angle and clarifies from the get-go that is is not a Peter Parker story; this is a Spider-man story. For the first time on the big screen, Miles Morales is featured along with other rich and fun characters.

Blooming in colour, the visuals resemble a moving comic-book and are truly astonishing. Complemented by creative and comical directing, this film seems as if it was born in a child's imagination!

One of the strengths of this picture is that ignores the recipes of the previous live-action Spider-man franchises(both Sam Raimi's and Marc Webb's) of an origin story+the main plot. Marvel's Spider-man: Homecoming did likewise by ignoring the origin and diving straight into the world. Alternatively, Sony's animated take on the Web-head embraced the arrival of a new protagonist to re-tell the origin story giving itself as much time as it needs. Rather than giving us a quick "With great power comes great responsibility" and letting it be, we are taken into Miles' Morales journey and experience the triumphs and tragedies of becoming a hero.

There is not a part that doesn't belong in the movie, the only notable problem is that the villain is under-developed. The writers gave him a very cliché motive and expect us to empathize without fleshing out. On the other hand, it is pretty clear that the film does not intend to develop the villain but rather the abundance of protagonists.

To conclude, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a thrilling experience no matter if you are 5 or 75. Go watch it on the big screen while you can!