Harry Situation Reviews: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is animated film by Sony and Marvel once again featuring everybody’s favorite wall-crawling superhero Spider-Man—and he’s not alone.

But wait! This isn’t the same Spider-Man story we’re all familiar with. In this movie, a young teenager named Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) gets bitten by a radioactive spider and takes on the role of Spider-Man after the death of Peter Parker/Spider-Man from his universe. At first, he struggles trying to find his place until he meets up the classic Spider-Man/Peter Parker (voiced by Jake Johnson) from another universe. When the Kingpin (voiced by Liev Schreiber) tries to use a device to open a portal to other universes, the two Spider-heroes team up, as well as interact with other web-slinging heroes from different universes such as Spider-Gwen/Gwen Stacy (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Man Noir (voiced by Nicholas Cage), Peni Parker, and Spider-Ham, and together they'll save New York of all universes.

As you all know, I am a huge fan of Spider-Man, with him being one of my all-time favorite superheroes. So this film was a definite must-see for me. Plus, it features Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy, two of my favorite Spider-Man characters that become heroes on their own, and it is great to see them in a film of their own. And yes, I'm aware that Gwen Stacy has also been identified as Spider-Woman and Ghost-Spider in other properties, but to me (and many other comic book fans) she will forever be known as Spider-Gwen, so I'm gonna keep calling her that throughout this review. Get used to it!

But I had to be cautious going into this movie. Sony already had their takes on Spider-Man before with films, and they were met as disappointments save Spider-Man (2002) and Spider-Man 2. Not to mention that Sony Animation also made the Emoji Movie, and you all know how I felt about that. Thankfully, this movie is leagues above Emoji Movie. Hell, in my opinion, it's one of the best Spider-Man films to date, even better than Spider-Man: Homecoming, which I really liked if you could recall.

First off, the animation is very stylish. It looks and feels like this is all taking place within a comic book. Even down to the textboxes on the corners when it's indicating someone's thought process, or the onomatopoeia sound effects that you'd see in comics which indicate a sound being made. Not to mention that all the animation flows vibrantly together, like it's all the action and character movements are done in one take. It's all fantastic.

I also love the characters and the voice actors that accompany them. It was great seeing each of the incarnations and different versions of the Spider-people. I loved Miles Morales, I loved Gwen, I loved Peter Parker. I loved them all to a point where I wanted to see them all get their own individual movies. The one that interested me the most was Peni Parker, who is drawn in a very anime style like her universe is all anime inspired. I really wanted to learn more about her and her comics, if there are any. If they are comics about Peni Parker, by all means, please leave a link in the comments because I would love to learn more about her.

But I do love that the main focus is on Mile Morales. This is a character I feel a lot of people will connect with. He's a smart kid, he has a rough relationship with his father, but he has a great relationship with his Uncle Aaron (voiced by Mahershala Ali). I also love his relationship with classic Spider-Man (identified as Peter B. Parker). Peter Parker is serving as this mentor to Miles Morales, and together they help build each other, which is something that's never been seen in any of the previous Spider-Man movies. Again, fantastic.

The villains are also great. There's two that really stand out to me. One I cannot for the life of me reveal because I was surprised as all hell when said character made an appearance. I was not at all expecting that character, or at least another rendition of this character, to appear in this movie. But I can talk about Kingpin in this movie, and he was great. People tend to forget that Kingpin wasn't always a Daredevil villain. He first started off being an adversary to Spider-Man, and it was so great seeing him fight against him. And you could actually sympathize for Kingpin in this movie too and understand why he's doing what he's doing even though he's the main bad guy. That's the great thing about Spider-Man villains. There was always moments where you could sympathize for them.

The comedy is great too. Each of the Spider-heroes have great one-liners, which is common for Spider-Man. And even Spider-Ham which is really just a parody cartoon pig of Spider-Man, delivers some of the best comedy in the film. They even make reference to the infamous emo Peter Parker dance sequence featured in Spider-Man 3. That got a good laugh out of me.

There's also some good music incorporated in this film too. Probably my favorite is this song "Sunflower" by Post Malone. I'm not at all a R&B kind of guy, but I can't help but move my body to the beat of this one song whenever I listen to it. Give it a listen on YouTube or something and you'll know what I'm talking about.

I do have a couple minor gripes about the movie. It's not that these are bad or anything, they don't do anything to take me out of the movie or like that. But they do leaving me questioning as to why they chose this. For example, Jake Johnson voicing Peter Parker and Nicholas Cage voicing Spider-Man Noir. It's not that they were bad, they were both great and servicable, but I do have to question why these guys were chosen in the first place. When I heard them on screen, they didn't quite scream Spider-Man, or Spider-Men, to me when I listened to them. Also, while the comedy is good, there were quite a number of slapstick moments. I mean, Spider-Man and slapstick? Just didn't seem to fit together for me.

Also what kind of made me question the most was after the Spider-Man from Miles' universe dies, everyone seems to know that he's Peter Parker. I mean, how? Was his identity revealed after his death? But then there are comic books in the movie that reveal his origin story. So did he reveal it before? Why? It's decision like that that makes me, a Spider-Man purist, question is all.

But like I said before this are just minor fanboy gripes that are not enough to sway my appreciation for this film. Again, I really love what they did with this film. It really took me by surprise. Also, I love the little Spider-Man easter eggs scattered throughout the film, like the various different Spider-Man costumes they show off in one scene, including two that are from the MCU Spider-Man and the PS4 game. It's all pure fan service in the best way. Oh, and dude, that Stan Lee cameo. That hit me where I live. I still haven't gotten over it and it's already been a month now. Rest in peace, Stan the Man.

What this movie truly is is a love letter to all that is Spider-Man, and it definitely gets Spider-Man right. Spider-Man is one of the most down-to-earth superheroes of all time. He proves that each and everyone one of us has a power inside ourselves and it is up to us to make the right choice in what to do with that power. Remember Uncle Ben's words, with great power comes great responsibility. Sometimes he can make mistakes, sometimes he can fail, but that's what makes Spider-Man the most human of all the Marvel characters. He's never going to stop trying to do what is right. He is never gonna stop fighting when things get tough. Spider-Man is a good representation of all out us.

If you're a Spider-Man fan, or a comic book fan, or just a casual movie-goer, this is a definite must-see film before the year is over.

Positives:

-Miles Morales

-Peter Parker & Miles relationship

-Amazing characters & voice over

-Spectacular animation

-Great comedy

-Great music

-Love letter to Spider-Man

Negatives:

-Couple questionable choices

-Some slapstick moments

Final Grade: A

So those are my thoughts on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Have you seen it? What are your thoughts of it? What's your favorite Spider-Man or Spider-Hero? Is it Miles, or Peter, or Gwen, or Spider-Ham? Please be kind, leave a like and comment, and check out more reviews here on Prose!

Best Quote:

Miles Morales: "How will I know when I'm ready to be Spider-Man?"

Peter Parker: "You don't. It's a leap of faith."

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