A wonderful web of infinite spider-people and possibilities.
When he accepted the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for Pinocchio earlier this year, Guillermo Del Toro declared to audiences everywhere that animation is not a genre — it is a medium for art, film, and storytelling. This has always been true, but if you need another reminder, let Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse serve as your latest example. Not only is it visually dazzling, eye-catching, emotional, and impactful — it makes the best use of its animation, delivering an unparalleled superhero epic unlike anything we’ve seen before. Not only is this film better than most live-action Spider-Man movies — I genuinely doubt a live-action adaptation can even come close to reaching the cinematic highs that Across The Spider-Verse does.
Taking place after the events of Into The Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse follows each of our fellow Spider-Men (and women) after they returned to their respective dimensions. Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) is back to juggling her life as both Gwen and Spider-Woman. Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) is raising a daughter with MJ named MayDay, whose adorable name is matched only by her bubbly personality. And Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is busy protecting Brooklyn as the one and only Spider-Man.
But across the Spider-Verse, an alternate Spider-Man from 2099 named Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac) is creating a new multi-dimensional organization called “The Spider-Society.” You see, when the Super-Collider went off in the last movie, it sent ruptures throughout the Spider-Verse and put other parallel worlds in danger. With a new multiversal threat on the rise, Miguel assembles a new team to save the Spider-Verse, and Miles has to figure out his place in all of it.
The biggest thing Across The Spider-Verse has working against it by far is the power of expectation. When Into The Spider-Verse came out five years ago, nobody expected it to be the smash hit that it was with its pop-art animation, layered world-building, emotional storytelling, and exciting action sequences that were on par with most live-action movies. That’s because it was made with love and care for the source material and with what Spider-Man means to so many people. It was such a lightning-in-a-bottle experience that everyone wondered if the Spider-Verse team could capture that same magic again.
Well I’m relieved to say that Across The Spider-Verse is just as amazing as its predecessor is — potentially even more so. While Into The Spider-Verse had six Spider-Men and women to focus on, Across The Spider-Verse focuses on a nearly limitless amount of Spider-people that are uniquely different and stand apart from each other. You have the Indian Spider-Man Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni), who is just so happy, fun, upbeat, and has a deep love of chai, while the rebellious Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya) rocks out on his guitar while rebelling against the establishment. There’s a pregnant Spider-Woman (Issa Rae) who is something of a motherly figure to Gwen Stacy, there’s Scarlet Spider (Andy Samberg), a clone of Peter who is way, way, WAY too obsessed with his biceps, and there’s a cowboy Spider-Man who calls himself the Web-Slinger. There are others that are even more ridiculous, including a Cyborg Spider, a Spider-Cat, and even a Spidersaurus Rex.
I list all of these characters to show the depths that the Spider-Verse team goes to explore this vast and infinite playground of possibilities. While Into The Spider-Verse dips its toes into its multiverse concept, Across The Spider-Verse dives headfirst into the whole thing like it’s cliff diving into an infinite sea of Spider-Men. And it would be one thing to just arbitrarily toss these characters into the plot like action figures into a play set, but each of them has their own animation and art styles that speak to their characters and the worlds they’re from. Pravitr looks like he jumped directly out of an Indian painting, while Spider-Punk looks like he was ripped straight out of a rock magazine. Surprisingly, a few live-action Spider-Men make up some cameo appearances as well, though probably not the ones you’re expecting.
My favorite of all of these new Spider-Men, however, is Miguel. As Peter himself observes, he isn’t like the rest of the Spider-Society. He isn’t quippy, funny, light-hearted, or anything friendly neighborhood. He’s a much grimmer, darker, more serious no-nonsense Spider-Man, so much so that others question if he’s even a “good guy.” That makes him so, so interesting because it exemplifies the idea that being Spider-Man is not a privilege or a pastime — it is a burden. It is a responsibility. That responsibility weighs down on Miguel harder than any other Spider-Man, and at times, his fear pushes him to make the wrong choices.
This is yet another multiverse film in a long pattern of recent multiverse films, from Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness to the upcoming Flash movie. So just like the superhero genre itself, I understand if people are somewhat tired of seeing this trend in movies overall.
But the fact is Across The Spider-Verse utilizes its multiverse concept so much better than most other movies do. In fact, Across The Spider-Verse shares more similarities to Everything Everywhere All At Once than it does to its live-action counterpart, No Way Home. That’s because like Everything Everywhere All At Once, it uses its alternate realities to challenge its characters and ask them who they are under the mask.
Here is a movie that just works on every level. The script by Phil Lord, Chris Miller, and Dave Callaham is fleshed out, fully realized, and completely understands every character and the arcs they need to go through. The voice acting by Shameik, Hailee, and Oscar Isaac is passionate and even more compelling than their first time voicing these characters. The animation is jaw-dropping, deftly blending several different art styles and making it all feel seamless and cohesive with each other. There are some shocking plot twists that completely flip the narrative on its head and leave a waking impact on everyone watching. And the movie offers some smart commentary on Spider-Man fandom overall, with an especially scathing critique of those ignorant enough to claim “Miles Morales isn’t Spider-Man.”
But the most impressive thing by far is that by the time the movie ended, I wasn’t thinking about the fast-paced action or the visual effects. I wasn’t thinking about the vast wealth of Spider-people and how awesome they all looked. I wasn’t even thinking about this movie’s jaw-dropping revelations. No, by the end, I was thinking about Miguel and the weight of the multiverse quite literally being on his shoulders. I was thinking about Gwen and how she struggles between her double life of a growing teenager and a multiverse-jumping superheroine. And I was thinking about Miles and how he struggled to fit into this big and wonderful universe that says he doesn’t belong there.
Six years ago, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse proved just how fitting animation works for the web-slinger and how it could be used for greater feats of storytelling. By every definition, Into The Spider-Verse was a miracle in comic book moviemaking. Now we have another, and it is across the Spider-Verse.
DAVID DUNN 