Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023 | USA | 140 minutes | Joachim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson)
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (AKA the MCU) has infiltrated popular culture so thoroughly over the last two decades that, even as far back as five years ago, comic-book adaptation over-saturation had begun to sink in for a significant portion of the population (myself resolutely included).
No less than three live-action MCU movies hit theaters in 2018, bringing the total number of feature films in the series to 17 over a ten-year period that began with the release of the first Iron Man movie in 2008. Add in the half-dozen Marvel-centric TV series running concurrently in 2018 (to say nothing of the DC comics adaptations likewise carpet-bombing multiplexes at the time), and superhero burnout felt inevitable.
Then Sony Pictures released Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse that year. This animated take on the beloved Marvel Comics hero, unrelated to the MCU films, turned out to be a stunner of a movie, delivering sharply-defined characterizations that just happened to be bracketed with some exhilarating action, jaw-dropping visual style, and a dense but involving plotline. It was such a home run creatively that its abject underperformance at the US box office (offset, thankfully, by bang-up business overseas and a flourishing afterlife on home video and streaming) marked a head-scratcher of epic proportions.
There’s a point (two, actually) to this rather involved setup: One, make a good enough movie and superhero burnout becomes irrelevant; and Two, Into the Spider-Verse’s brand-new follow-up, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, sustains its predecessor’s hat trick and then some. Simply put, I can’t imagine a better, more thoroughly satisfying mainstream movie emerging this year.
Across the Spider-Verse picks up a year after Into the Spider-Verse, initially zeroing in on Gwen Stacy (again voiced by Hailee Steinfeld). Her tragic backstory as Spider-Woman culminates in her joining a Spider Society of Spider-Beings from numerous dimensions, all dedicated to protecting the multiverse from catastrophe.
From there, the focus elegantly shifts back to Miles Morales (an affecting Shameik Moore), the Brooklyn-based teenage protagonist whose story centered Into the Spider-Verse, as he reconciles his increased confidence in his own powers as Spider-Man with the rigors of being an otherwise normal high-schooler. Amidst juggling crimefighting with shopping for a college education, living up to parental expectations, and getting to parties on time, Miles reconnects with Gwen, who’s revisiting Miles’s dimension to keep tabs on The Spot, a schleppy would-be supervillain whose recent tussle with Spider-Miles hints at a more significant threat than anyone realizes.
The reunion spurs Miles to follow Gwen back to the Spider Society’s sprawling inter-dimensional headquarters. And thanks to the efforts of brooding Spider Society leader Miguel O’Hara/Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac), Miles finds himself in the middle of an unexpected hero-on-hero conflict. The teenage crimefighter also comes face to face with his own issues, including the revelation that his personal heroics just might have universe-killing consequences.
Elaborating beyond that rough sketch would spoil the treasure chest of awesome things, large and small, served up by Across the Spider-Verse. Chief among those pleasures remains the continued development of the returning principals and their loved ones.
Miles may be fighting a new supervillain in The Spot (voiced with hilarity, then unexpected menace by Jason Schwartzman), fumbling his way through his relationship with his loving parents, and dealing with friction among his Spider-Brethren, but the broader underlying issues—when duty should give way to emotion and when it shouldn’t, navigating the uncharted waters of adulthood growing up as a kid in a hyper-accelerated world, and nothing less than the role of destiny vs. agency in human existence—remain refreshingly universal. Gwen’s given more screen time (and a lot more depth) in this go-around, and the script by Phil Lord, Chris Miller, and David Callahan manages to maximize the vividness of its supporting gallery of Spider-People with just a few well-placed verbal and visual brushstrokes.
You know you’re on solid ground with a comic-book movie script when the exposition and quiet moments genuinely feel like they’d work like a charm even without the action set pieces. And you know you’re seeing something transcendent when the same screenplay’s augmented by some truly trailblazing visual dazzle and knockout adventure. Across the Spider-Verse one-ups the original’s dizzying action and polyglot of animation aesthetics, lending a different visual execution to several new Spider-Characters without ever feeling like it’s retreading familiar turf. At times, the lightning-paced action and explosion of disparate visual styles (not for nothing are Leonardo da Vinci, Banksy, and Jeff Coons metaphorically and literally name-checked) almost feel like too much. But the movie’s total investiture in its characters, its twisty but always clear-eyed story structure, its welcome surplus of well-integrated belly laughs, and those smaller character moments lend just the right amount of leavening to the relentless pace.
There’s plenty more to savor in Across the Spider-Verse. The phenomenal top-to-bottom voice work from a pitch-perfect vocal cast includes indelible turns from Issa Rae as Gwen’s tough-love Spider-Mentor Jessica Drew and Daniel Kaluuya’s wryly funny, supremely cool Spider-Punk Hobie Brown. A plethora of Easter eggs awaits hardcore fans without alienating less-obsessive comic book civilians as well.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse also demonstrates the absolute best-case scenario when it comes to film as a collaborative medium. There’s a unity of vision here that could only come from a team focused on delivering the best possible end result, in the most fully-realized way. Consider superhero burnout thwarted as thoroughly as a low-level street crook on the receiving end of an ass-whooping from your Friendly Neighborhood Web-Slinger.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse opens nationwide in theaters everywhere June 2. Lead image courtesy Sony Pictures.