The best Spider-Man film ever? Across the Spider-verse dazzles
Animated Spider-Man sequel is worth the price of admission in this four-star movie.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (PG)
In cinemas
★★★★
The opening scene of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse encapsulates why this superhero action-adventure spins animated movies to a new level. It is visually spectacular, edge-of-seat thrilling and laugh-out-loud funny.
The villain is a “flying turkey from the Renaissance” – fans will recognise him as regular Spider-Man antagonist Vulture – and he’s causing havoc in the streets of Brooklyn.
The authorities, including local teen Miles Morales, aka Spider-Man, join forces to clip his wings. They receive unexpected help when Gwen Stacy, aka Spider-Woman, and a Spider-Man from 2099 materialise.
The animation is extraordinary and the witty script backs it up. There’s a mid-air dogfight that leaves a helicopter dangling centimetres from the ground, held up by spider web. An onlooker says, “Yeah, I think it’s a Bansky.”
This extended sequence – before the opening credits appear – opens the doors to what follows. The first film in this series, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), tells us that there are different dimensions in time and space that exist parallel to each other. Hence Michael Keaton can be Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and, in another universe, Vulture can hang out with Leonardo da Vinci.
This sequel takes it further. There are holes in the multiverse that mean villains and heroes – and the line between the two is beautifully blurred – can pop from one place to another.
“I am stuck pulling everyone back where they belong before all of time and space collapses,’’ huffs the Spider-Man from 2099 (voiced by Oscar Issac).
That sounds like important work but it has ramifications for our main superheroes, the mid-teen Spider-Man and Spider-Woman, who come from different dimensions. Shameik Moore and Hailee Steinfeld return in the roles.
On one level, this a story about young people working out their identity and moving away from their parents, a process made trickier by having to disguise the fact they are superheroes.
On another, it’s about realising that there are times when we face two bad choices. Fifteen-year-old Spider-Man faces the ultimate trolley problem: save one life or save the worlds, plural. “Being Spider-Man is a sacrifice,’’ his somewhat totalitarian 2099 comrade tells him.
This movie has three directors — Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson – and three screenwriters – Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and David Callaham.
This makes perfect sense as it has hundreds of spider-people (and some who are not people). Spider-Man 2099 runs an elite organisation where Spider-Beings from the infinite number of dimensions gather to plug the holes in the spider-verse. The holes are growing due to the second villain we meet, scientist-gone-bad The Spot (Jason Schwartzman). He is hilarious and refuses to follow the usual baddie plot line.
When teen Spider-Man – a mix of superpowers and anxiety – is zapped to HQ to meet the elite of his kind, what happens is an extended comic highlight. “This is unbelievable,’’ he says.
There’s a punk anarchist Spider-Man (voiced by Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya) who looks like the child of Johnny Rotten and Jimi Hendrix. “It’s a metaphor for capitalism,’’ he says of an anomaly in the spider-verse.
There’s a pregnant motorbike-riding Spider-Woman (Issa Rae). There’s an Indian Spider-Man (Karan Soni) straight out of Bollywood. And then there’s the non-human web-spinners. This watch and watch again sequence brims with the joyous quality that defines the whole movie.
The dialogue is sharply funny, with lots of Marvel jokes, including a dig at Dr Strange, as well as nods to the non-comics world, and the plot is full of twists, including a final one that sets up the third movie, due in March 2024.
At 140-minutes, this is the longest American animated film to date. It does not feel too long; I was captivated, as was my 17-year-old co-viewer. We were caught in an ever-changing web that set our minds free. As with the first film, it is not a comic book transferred to the screen. It is the viewers transferred to another world that is both comic and real.
It’s not that common for a sequel to be better than the original. Only two sequels have won a best picture Oscar: Godfather II (1974) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). The Dark Knight, the second film in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, for which Heath Ledger won an Oscar, is a masterpiece. The first film in this animated Spider-Man series was dazzling entertainment and this sequel is even better.