SONY PRESIDENT: Hey, folks! After what made us mess up with Venom from all the horrendous reviews from both critics and audiences, let’s actually make a Spider-Man film that is actually flawless and can actually top Spider-Man 2 back in 2004.
SONY EMPLOYEE: Yes. I can agree with that. Can we make it animated instead of live-action? And also one more thing. Since he didn’t have a movie, can we have Miles Morales as our Spider-Man?
SONY PRESIDENT: Oh yeah. That sounds like a very good idea indeed. (Smiling with sincerity.)
What we just saw was the creation of not only the best animated film of the year, not only the best “Spider-Man” film, but aside from “The Dark Knight”, the greatest superhero film ever made.
I am not even making this up. This is really balls-to-the-wall serious for a movie from 2018 to compete with such a masterpiece from Christopher Nolan. “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” achieves to take so much hard and ambitious risks a superhero film would never accomplish and makes it work beyond flawless as anyone can imagine.
The film tells the story of Miles Morales (Dope’s Shameik Moore), whom is struggling to adapt to his new boarding school in Brooklyn since his parents (Luna Lauren Valez, Brian Tyree Henry) perceive him as a menace. While at Miles’ uncle’s (Mahershala Ali) house painting Graffiti, Miles finds out that he was bitten by a genetically modified spider. Miles’ uncle unfortunately loses contact at that time with him since Miles developed spider-like features to become the superhero himself. This leads Morales to unexpectedly finding this laboratory where Wilson Fisk built this accelerator, which leads him accessing many universes of Spider-Man.
Miles Morales unfortunately witnesses the raw and tragic death of the real Spider-Man (actually played by Chris Pine), which mortally upsets him personally and makes him motivate to be just like him by his sacrifice. Miles soon is traveled back into the accelerator by an old, jaded Spider-Man (Jake Johnson) during of his mourning when looking at the grave of the former Spider-Man.
Miles is now sucked into this universe by this accelerator to experience many different versions of Spider-Man (Spider-Ham, Gwen Stacy, Spider-Man Noir, and Peni Parker). Spider-Man and his different versions of him must educate Miles to develop himself as a true fighter of crime as he should.
This is one of these rare movies this year I have seen like “The Hate U Give” and “Madeline’s Madeline” that every aspect of the film is utterly and completely flawless with its creative humor, character development, conflict, acting, and it’s overall look.
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” takes very important notes on what “The Dark Knight” changed the way people look at superhero films and ends up being on par with that film. It is that perfect that it would be the greatest and malicious crime for the Oscars to make this film not win the award for Best Animated Feature Film.
Probably the greatest aspect of this film would be the main character, Miles Morales, played by Shameik Moore. Miles is such a flawless character that develops so much raw human aspects that can be relatable and inspiring to very young audiences. Along with Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark, I think he is one of the best developed comic book characters of all time for that particular reason.
Other actors who perfectly stand-out in this would be the educative Peter Parker played by Evanston’s own Jake Johnson, Spider-Ham, an extremely comedic and sarcastic pig version of Spider-Man played by Chicago’s own John Mulaney, Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy, and probably the greatest one of them all, Liev Schreiber as arguably the greatest villain to ever grace the silver screen this year, Kingpin.
That leads me to the most unique and original aspect of the film which would be the way the film looks. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, two of the writers of this film, told the general public that the animation itself would feel like you would be in an actual comic book. Three words. It definitely does.
The greatest example of this to occur in the film would be when Spider-Man himself encounters Kingpin during the final act of the film. It has got to be the most grand, bold fight scene in superhero motion picture history. When something action-packed happens, captions sometimes blow out, “Boom!” “Pow!”, and a hilarious, “Aaaahh!”.
This film also does something very impossible anyone would never see in a modern superhero motion picture. That would be to include realistic, life-like topics like tragedy and family relations into the mix. There reveals a reason why I think it is on par with “The Dark Knight” because the film deals with a narcissistic Joker (Heath Ledger), where it feels like a balls-out crime film.
Prepare in the next 20 or maybe even 15 years as many movie buffs and critics like me bring on brutal mayhem as considering and hailing this masterpiece as not just one of the best animated films, but arguably the greatest superhero movie of all time.
Grade: 10/10
