Spider-man: Across the Spider-verse - A Greatly Done and Even Grander Sequel to the Already Wonderful Original Spider-man Animated Movie

As this film was the sequel to a highly rated animated movie back in 2018, I was obviously interested in seeing this, especially when it involved Spider-man. It actually had advance ticket sales since last week but I thought there were not too many audience who would be fearing on missing out, so not that hard to get the tickets during the weekend. Which was why we could still get them yesterday, though not our most favorite seats. OK, I will get on with it now.

Brief Story Line

Almost 1.5 years since the event of the first movie, Miles  Morales (Shameik Moore - Wu-Tang: An American Saga TV series, Cut Throat City etc) was doing fine as the new Spider-man in Brooklyn. However, his parents the police Liutenant Jefferson (Brian Tyree Henry - Bullet Train, Hotel Artemis etc) and  Rio (Luna Lauren Velez - Shaft, Dexter TV series etc) were worried about Miles sometimes missing out classes and planning to leave for university soon. Miles had been fighting many villains during that time, but the latest one who called himself The Spot (Jason Schwartzman - Fantastic Mr. Fox, Saving Mr. Banks etc) proved to be a more difficult enemy than he anticipated.

Meanwhile on another earth, Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld - Hawkeye TV series, Barely Lethal etc) was having a huge fallout with her police father George (Shea Whigham - Vampires vs the Bronx, F9 etc). After an incident, Gwen decided to join Spider-man from other universes who were trying to fix the anomalies, led by Miguel O'hara (Oscar Isaac - Moon Knight mini series, The Addams Family etc) together with Jessica Drew/Spider-woman (Issa Rae - The Lovebirds, Insecure TV series etc). Pretty soon, Gwen could not help herself and decided to search for Miles. And that was the beginning of many problems she and Miles had to face.

So what would happen to them? You can find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Wow that was amazing! To be honest, my wife and I did not really remember the whole story of the original film, but as we went along, we were reminded little by little. And it was not that difficult to do so since this time the focus was on fixing the anomalies which linked to the first movie but quite easily understood. However, I do think that it was still complex and I stood by my opinion that these films are more suitable for teenagers and above, not for all ages like the Indonesian censorship body determined. 

During the whole movie, I felt the story was well told and very captivating as I was fascinated with Miles' character development and I also liked that Gwen/Spider-woman was given more screen time as her story was very interesting as well. Their relationship was the highlight of this sequel. But the most incredible thing was definitely the Spider society where countless version of Spider-man were shown, with some looked great and a lot looked really weird. It was half joked in one of the scene where audience chuckled. It was only one of the plenty of humorous scenes in here.

However, this film was not just for fun as the plot was quite deep. I think this one might be a bit darker and heavier than its predecessor (quite a lot of dark and dramatic moments here). There were few twists which were shocking and brilliantly thought of. I really admired the writers Phil Lord & Christopher Miller (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street etc) and David Callaham (writer of The Expendables, America: The Motion Picture etc) who came up with the awesome plot.  It was co-directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson in their brilliant directorial debut.  

One of the factors that made this movie great was the voice characterization as they felt so real. And like the original movie, this one also combined some 2D animation (that had strong comic book feels with those small boxes like you would see in the comics) and 3D computer animated that looked amazing during the action sequence like when Miles was swinging around New York. But the best was definitely the spectacular chasing sequence before the end. I was probably too absorbed with the movie that I did not realize it was almost ending so I got a bit of surprise when it ended the way it did (though my wife was not that shocked as she already had a feeling). The ending only made me more excited to see the third movie which is scheduled for year 2024 release. Btw, there was no mid or post end credit scene at all. So we'll just have to wait till then to see more of Miles and Gwen.

I said above that there were many versions of Spider-man in the Spider society that also included other characters from the Spider-verse. This would mean there were a lot of additional cast in here. The ones who were quite important were Daniel Kaluuya (Nope, Widows etc) as Hobie, Karan Soni (A Strange World, Superintelligence etc) as Pavitr, Jake Johnson (Stumptown TV series, Tag etc) reprising his role as Peter B. Parker. Some other well known people were Mahershala Ali (Green Book, House of Cards TV series etc) as Miles' late uncle Aaron and many more in minor capacity/cameos. 

For an action adventure movie about the young Miles Morales living up to his potential and the harsh reality he had to face as Spider-man plus the story of Gwen Stacy/Spider-woman and the Spider society, this one really stood out. No wonder critics adored this movie with so high ratings in various platforms and supported by audience as well, though I do not know if casual audience would have trouble in enjoying this. My wife and I though were really entertained by it and found ourselves to be captivated by the whole story. So if you are fans of the original, surely you would love this as it had all the great things and make it even better. Let's just hope the final part of this trilogy would live up to its expectation. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars