Amph Spider-Man & SSU Films (Madame Web, Venom 3, Kraven, Beyond the Spider-Verse)

I wish. I have to wait until Sunday.

The the buzz I've been hearing is that Into the Spider-Verse is most likely going to be the front runner for Best Animated Film, and has a long shot (as opposed to no shot) of getting a Best Picture nomination.

If the Oscars want to be attract a younger and more diverse audience, they should really consider this film as well as Black Panther.

 

Holy heck this movie is gold. Watch out for Marvel to take the Oscars twofer with Black Panther for Best Picture and Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse for Best Animated Movie! Probably not but one can dream. And damn skippy both will be nominated. Oh, for me, and this is probably the best Spider-movie since Spider-Man 2. There's Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and then Spider-Man: Homecoming. All fantastic. But this is a podium finish for the Spider-movie series, easily.

Much longer and complete below in spoilertext! Read my reviews every week at www.veiwmag.com Plug!

Spoiler

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a truly exuberant celebration of all things Spider-Man and showcasing innovative and unique ways the animated format can collide with sequential comic art to make something really new and different. For all of the extradimensional bells and whistles and the cavalcade of deep cut Spider-Man continuity references, it actually has a nicely simple story about a kid relating to his family and friends and trying to figure out his place in a world. A world that has totally exploded all around him. This has a lot of classic Spider-Man movie tropes and then proceeds to flip them on their heads in a colourful, crazy ride.

Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is a high school student who is bitten by a super-powered spider which gives him incredible arachnid-like powers. This is exactly the same powers as the big time superhero, Spider-Man (Chris Pine). But one night, after a dimensional crossing super-conductor explodes, Miles sees Spider-Man killed by the Kingpin of Crime, Wilson Fisk (Liev Schreiber). Miles tries to honour Spider-Man by buying a Halloween costume (from Stan Lee! No refunds!) and protecting the city. Then he runs into an older, bitter Spider-Man, Peter B. Parker, (Jake Johnson) who was shunted to Miles’ dimension by the super-conductor. And then Miles and the alternate Spider-Man meet Spider-people from across the universe, the plucky Spider-Woman aka Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), the brooding Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), the anime girl Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn) and her giant robot SP/dr, and the animated pig, Spider-Ham (John Mulaney). With the Kingpin unleashing a cavalcade of villains to restart his dimensional portal, Miles tries to learn to be Spider-Man from his fellow Spider-people. But he also has to worry about his cop dad, Jefferson (Brain Tyree Henry) and his shifty Uncle Davis (Mahershala Ali), getting caught up in the tangled web of crime and Spider-folks. And save the entire universe too.

The kid in high school who gets Spider-powers has been a main point in all of the Spider-Movies but this one does something really different with them since he doesn’t have to navigate it alone and realizes that there are other people like him. It seems to be a slight remake of the classic origin story and then it literally explodes, first with the death of Peter Parker and then the arrival of the conflux of Spider-people. There is a whole lot of Spider-Man continuity stories all sort of shook up at once here, all of it very true to the source. The story of Spider-Verse in the comics was fairly different, hundreds of Spider-folks were taking on interdimensional vampires, and this is much smaller.

But the style, look, and characterization of each of the Spider-people is very true to the source. Miles origin is intertwined with the death of Peter Parker which happens here but since there’s Spider-folks jumping worlds, he is only without Peter Parker for about five minutes. The Pine version of Spider-Man that opens the film is the classic hero, he even has a Christmas album (that plays over the end credits!). So seeing him taken out is very shattering. This has it all together Spider-Man is contrasted with the schlub older Spider-Man that Johnson voices. He still has the classic Spider-Man wit and speed but he’s worn out by his life and doesn’t particularly care or seem concerned that things will go wrong. This distanced him from his wife in his universe, Mary Jane Watson, and there is a fantastically funny and awkward scene where the older Peter Parker pours his heart out to a different version of Mary Jane as his buddies literally facepalm in the background.

Even with all of dimensional different Spider-folks, the movie’s story is focused on Miles and how he’s reacting to it, which gives an anchor to the craziness. The relationship he has with his Uncle gets more complicated as the movie goes on and their final scene together is really emotionally resonant. The older Spider-Man makes for a great tutor, not that he’s very good or cares all that much, just that he slowly turns around on this kid who he wishes to ditch. Their big meeting scene where Miles and Peter walk up and down walls while trading barbs is really stunning to watch. Spider-Gwen is the one who has it all together and she and Miles have a great introductory scene where Miles tries to impress her, his Spider-sticking powers freak out and stick to her hair, and she ends having to shave half her head very annoyed. Kingpin makes for a good main baddie as Schreiber makes him sound like a goon from the Bronx with an unstoppable rage complex. It’s simply awesome to see Spider-Man fight Kingpin since he was originally a Spider-Man bad guy but the character in live action was shunted off to Daredevil instead so rightfully there’s some great Kingpin versus Spider-Man moments here. Kingpin has a cavalcade of super-powered baddies that he employs, one of the best ones is a classic Spider-Man villain given an unexpected twist so when they’re revealed, it’s a huge shock.

Visually, this movie is astonishing, taking a huge leap in CGI animation that actually looks different from the Pixar-style 3D CGI animation that has been the prevalent overriding CGI animation style for decades now. It sort of looks like a 2D comic book yet it looks especially astounding in 3D presentation, one of the few 3D movies lately that is actually worthwhile. It throws in a bunch of different things, like comic book panels and covers that show the history of the characters and when reality starts to fragment, the characters have red and blue lines around them like a crummy old 3D versions used to look.

There are a lot of comic book flourishes that pop up like word balloons or zip lines and the colour palate is bright and has little indentations that look like a printing press. The design of each Spider-person is respective of their genre as Spider-Man Noir, voiced with excessive gutso by Cage, looks like he stepped out of a newsprint with blotchy black and white patches. Peni Parker is basically an anime character in the Spider-Verse world with big eyes and her robot has an expressive LED face that conveys it’s emotions. Spider-Ham looks like an exaggerated cartoon character and Mulaney’s vocal performance is really broad which totally fits. The best joke animation style is saved for a post-credits scene that is totally amazing for Spider-Man nerds.

There is a lot of fantastic stuff constantly in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It pushes animation boundaries in surprizing ways, it has a good core protagonist to relate to, and it basically takes every Spider-Man piece of continuity and throws it all together. Spider-Man has had many different takes throughout the years to the point where it can get a little bit wearying but this is one of the best.

 

Hoping to see this tonight or on Sunday. I'm glad there's something out there to take away the sting of Mortal Engines' abysmal reviews.

 

How good would a Nextwave movie be done in this style by this team? Really this needs to happen.

 

Saw Into The Spider-Verse today. I liked it - it was fun, had good action, did not take itself to serious and Miles reality was interestingly different.

Hoping for a sequel, or even solo movies for the different spider (preferably SP//dr and NOIR since I want to see how different their realities are)

 

The post credit scene is one of my favourite post credit scenes in years. Easily the best post credit scene of 2018

Spoiler

"YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS POINTING!"

Hopefully if this gets a sequel they straight up add Spider-Man '67 to the roster and animate him the same way. They totally pulled it off with Noir/Pig and SP//dr with different animation styles, '67 randomly being there in cheap, repeating animation with the same basic 6 animation cycles would be genius

 

double post but dang this movie is great, should have a long X-Mas season run hopefully.

 

I haven't seen any of the Spider-man movies, just never had much interest in them, but with the animation and all the positive things I've heard about Into the Spider-verse, this is one I actually wanna see.

 

This is my favorite Spider-Man movie, which is kind of nuts because as a general rule, I'm a debbie downer with cartoon movies. I have to watch a lot of them with my kid and they almost always put me to sleep. This one was so superb, though. I can't wait to buy and rewatch it periodically.

Specifically, I love comic books and so maybe my favorite thing about it was that it felt like watching a comic book play out in the film medium. Most comic book movies don't feel like that, not really anyway. Some try harder than others, but most of the time they just put in little nods here and there.

Also loved the post-credits scene and was ridiculously happy with the actor I heard there. Is it too much to hope they would make a sequel where his character appears?

 

I think the post credit sequel bait is pretty much guarantees they'll be in the sequel if it happens.

This visuals in the movie are great, it actually looks like a comic book and doesn't look like the Pixar style or thereabouts animation we've been seeing for decades as the defacto standard of animation. The little comic flourishes are grand and it's like a 2D comic but rounded out. And the random cover / comic panel flashbacks are just a joy.

Anyway, here's John Mulaney talking about how he got the gig and his unused Spider-Ham improvs

 

also mega spoilery interview here about all them spoilery stuff

 

Saw it last night. Loved it! It was a joy to watch. The story was very well done. Lots of laughs and heart. Highly recommended.

 

Saw it last night too. It was sooooooo good. Amazing, sensational, spectacular, etc. Can't wait to see it again. I don't think this is spoilery, but man, I genuinely choked up during the Stan cameo and tribute.

 

Saw Into the Spider-Verse the other night, and it was excellent! Almost perfect in every single way! There were one or two little things that rubbed me the wrong way, but overall the positives outweighed the negatives by a landslide. Definitely the best Spidey-related film since the first two Rami films (though I did also enjoy Homecoming a lot, to be fair).

Can't wait for the sequel to this, as well as that supposed spin-off they're planning in which Gwen meets a few of the other Spider-Women.

...oh and the Stan Lee cameo in the middle of the film was pure gold, as was the after-credits scene!

 

Just caught this last night. I'm going to come right out and say it. Spider-verse is a masterpiece. Obviously opinions are going to vary, but for my dollar there are few movies that are beautifully paced, well scripted, and gorgeous to look at every frame. And I mean EVERY frame.

My only "critique" is that the soundtrack might age the movie in the future. It might've been a better call to go with more established lesser known classics in hip hop that have become timeless. However its not a real critique because despite to how I feel about guys like Post Malone and XXXTENTACION, I thought the songs were well placed, and rather good. Hell, Sunflower is now stuck in my head.

 

Right at the beginning of the film, when I saw the SONY logo on Miles' earphones, I rolled my eyes, but thankfully that was the first and last time I did. I don't recall any other branding and I got sucked into the world and the story, so hat's off to Sony.

BTW, the Marvel logo was at the front of the film as well, so this is a Sony movie with Marvel connections like Homecoming was a Marvel movie with Sony connections? I'm not sure where they are on their partnership, but wherever they are, they made this movie work beautifully.

I convinced my friend, Dan, to go see it last night and he enjoyed it as well. I don't think he loved the visuals as much as I did and he kind of wondered if maybe Pixar had done it how it would have looked. I thought that was an interesting thought, but I liked the comic book feel of it and told him that Sony is trying to patent/trademark it to use in future movies. I will say that there were parts of the movie where the background characters were colored in blue/red and I wondered to myself that if you were wearing the old school 3D glasses, if it would make certain parts look like it was popping in/out.

 

Yea, considering that the film cleverly changed names of known brands in Miles' universe, I thought they missed a golden chance to replace the Sony name with their earliest ones, like Totsuko, or Tokyo Teletech. I get it, synergy and all that, but it would've been a reference that would've tickled the hell out of me.

 

That would have been fun. Like seeing the Atari logo in Blade Runner 2049

 

Unfortunately, shareholders tend to be sticks in the mud. It's one of the reasons why Sony's movie making department is normally a complete **** show.

I haven't seen it yet but, judging by the reactions, Into the Multiverse is one of the few movies to come out of Sony in recent years that feels like it's driven by heart and passion, rather than just selling a product.

@Gamiel As fun as the reference was, there was an ulterior, more cynical motive for including the Atari logo in 2049.

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