Review of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) by Nathan L — 06 Jan 2019

"Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse".

With how oversaturated the super-hero genre has gotten, with the "Infinity Wars" and "Justice Leagues" it is easy to miss a smaller scale film such as this; I assure you, however, that this is the one you DO NOT want to miss. At this point in time, I have had 5 viewings of "Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse" 5(going on 6) and I'm left in awe each and every time I sit in my recliner.

The plot in this film is so fresh and exceptionally well done: using a new Spider-Man learning how to be a hero from an older Spider-Man who has forgotten how to be one? They nailed it. Filled with so much heart and human emotion, "Into The Spider-Verse" is a film that does so many different things and succeeds in every single one both thematically and in it's ambitious narrative.

The script is also handled spectacularly while being extremely well written. Dialogue is real and believable; never in this film did I feel like "oh real people don't talk like this." Everything is natural and flows, even all the superhero jargon sounds less expository as in other films. Exceptionally well done and paced.

"Into The Spider-Verse" is a MARVEL in modern animation,from cell shading, to 3D models retouched with 2D animated features, blending the two styles seamlessly and also paying homage to traditional animation by animating characters 2 frames at a time, but kicking it into 1 frame to smooth out the more dynamic movements just to hyper-emphasize the fluidity of the characters. Utilizing chromatic aberration to "faux pull focus" while refrencing golden and silver age comic book printing errors. The film is a joy to look at. Each frame is handled with heart and it shows on screen. Visually spectacular.

Spider-Man has always been a character made from strife. The theme of life taking more than it gives has always been Peter Parker's shtick, and never has it been clear here. The theme in this movie is failure, and more importantly, getting up afterwards. In life, things will knock you down, but you always get up. We are all filled with so much untapped potential, and at the end of the day, there isn't the Green Goblin or Kingpin standing in the way of us, but ourselves. Thats been the theme of Spider-Man since his conception, so to have a film so expertly and lovingly give this to us in the form of "Into The Spider-Verse" is something that I could not give more praise to. Best Spider-Man film. One of the best in the genre. Best movie of 2018 for me. Take care yall. Much love as usual. May add to or edit this in the future.