Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One)

[The Laughing Fish]

A sneak peak is up and running, with a nice little appearance of Spider-Man 2099 at the end.

Into the Spider-Verse was an animation feast, and I'm confident this one will be just as good. It's the only Spider-Man multiverse movie I'm interested in at the moment.

[The Laughing Fish]

It looks a little sillier than I expected, but the animation looks superb as expected.

[The Laughing Fish]

I watched Across the Spider-Verse nearly a month ago.

It was a little long, and I still preferred Into the Spider-Verse, but I enjoyed this. It was a good continuation of Miles Morales' journey and the ending is the best cliffhanger definitely I've seen in a long time.

I really enjoyed the character transformation of the Spot; going from this joke of a villain to becoming a major existential threat. I enjoyed the use of humour surrounding his character and his battles with Miles was done really well and were genuinely funny, before the stakes got much higher in the third act.

I thought Gwen Stacy/Spider-Gwen was done very well too, and her arc was further enhanced in this film. When I first heard of her character a few years ago, the cynic in me suspected she was used as a cheap Deadpool knockoff because of the comic book covers and panels I saw. But in this film, she's a believable character, and I liked how her arc inversed the classic Gwen Stacy tragedy in Peter Parker's timeline and how it puts her at odds with her own father George.

I enjoyed the whole moral dilemma Miles had to face in wanting to save his dad from the Spot, even though trying to prevent a fixed canon event will put the entire multiverse at risk. This makes Miguel O'Hara aka Spider-Man 2099 a secondary antagonist in the film, albeit a tragic one - as he tried to alter the circumstances of his own tragedy, only to see that universe crumble. If you read too much into this, this whole scenario reads like a commentary of comic book gatekeepers arguing how diverting away from characters' tropes breaks the whole canon, as you can see as Miguel confronting Miles as an anomaly in the whole multiverse. Nonetheless, the stakes allow you to sympathise both Miles and Miguel.

My only complaint about this film is there are some subliminal political messages in this film. But thankfully, they're not enough to spoil the film for me.

Despite the subtitle was removed, ATSV is definitely part one of the conclusion to Miles Morales' story. I look forward to seeing Beyond the Spider-Verse as soon as it hits theaters. If you like great animation mixed with humour that's done right and it actually breaks away from the typical Marvel cookie-cutter formula, gives this a shot.