The whole time watching Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, I kept getting distracted by the feeling that I had seen something like this already. There's a bit of Deadpool's metafictional gags, a bit of Big Hero Six's Western take on Super Sentai heroes, but there was something major that I wasn't able to put my finger on until the closing credits. Then I saw Phil Lord was the writer, and it all made sense. Of course, the Lego Movie guy!
This movie is exactly like the Lego Movie. Well, maybe not exactly, but the familial resemblance is clear as day. It's a vibrant, funny, hyper-kinetic, animated movie thing with a heart of gold and a message about how you - Yes you! - are a super awesome chap. This time around, the Lord leans more into the diversity aspect of that exact same message - the idea that a great person can look like anyone, and in the case of Spider-Man, that person can be a black-Latino kid. Once again, Lord is mostly successful at this. As with The Lego Movie, this feels like a deeply sincere story, doing a masterful job of successfully disguising the giant, child hungry corporate beast behind the screen.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is about Miles Morales, a kid who isn't Spider-Man, but who never-the-less gets bitten by a spider. Before he can get into the swing of his own super hero origin story though, alternate dimension versions of Spider-Man start dropping in all around him, and together they must fight to stop Kingpin's blackhole generating doomsday machine. One you look past the self-referential fractal madness of a setting where both Spider-Man and comic books about Spider-Man both exist, you find a fairly simple story. Again, Phil Lord mostly manages to distract you from it with laugh a minute gags and breakneck action, but the skeleton of the plot structure shows through. A kid might not notice, but anyone a little older will see the story beats straight away, and feel a little more bored for it.
Outside of occasionally intrusive blurry filtering effects, this is a triumphantly beautiful piece of animation that is able to do far more than any live action movie. So many moments look like they deserve their own poster. The finale alone looks like a perpetual explosion of colour and motion. I came away from Spider-Verse having had a really good time. My only major complaint is that having being created outside of Disney Marvel, this movie gets a fraction of the publicity it deserves.
I Want More of These Pictures!
The whole time watching Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, I kept getting distracted by the feeling that I had seen something like this already. There's a bit of Deadpool's metafictional gags, a bit of Big Hero Six's Western take on Super Sentai heroes, but there was something major that I wasn't able to put my finger on until the closing credits. Then I saw Phil Lord was the writer, and it all made sense. Of course, the Lego Movie guy!
This movie is exactly like the Lego Movie. Well, maybe not exactly, but the familial resemblance is clear as day. It's a vibrant, funny, hyper-kinetic, animated movie thing with a heart of gold and a message about how you - Yes you! - are a super awesome chap. This time around, the Lord leans more into the diversity aspect of that exact same message - the idea that a great person can look like anyone, and in the case of Spider-Man, that person can be a black-Latino kid. Once again, Lord is mostly successful at this. As with The Lego Movie, this feels like a deeply sincere story, doing a masterful job of successfully disguising the giant, child hungry corporate beast behind the screen.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is about Miles Morales, a kid who isn't Spider-Man, but who never-the-less gets bitten by a spider. Before he can get into the swing of his own super hero origin story though, alternate dimension versions of Spider-Man start dropping in all around him, and together they must fight to stop Kingpin's blackhole generating doomsday machine. One you look past the self-referential fractal madness of a setting where both Spider-Man and comic books about Spider-Man both exist, you find a fairly simple story. Again, Phil Lord mostly manages to distract you from it with laugh a minute gags and breakneck action, but the skeleton of the plot structure shows through. A kid might not notice, but anyone a little older will see the story beats straight away, and feel a little more bored for it.
Outside of occasionally intrusive blurry filtering effects, this is a triumphantly beautiful piece of animation that is able to do far more than any live action movie. So many moments look like they deserve their own poster. The finale alone looks like a perpetual explosion of colour and motion. I came away from Spider-Verse having had a really good time. My only major complaint is that having being created outside of Disney Marvel, this movie gets a fraction of the publicity it deserves.