Too many spiders!
Directed by: Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson
Written by: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Dave Callaham
Cast: Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Brian Tyree Henry, Luna Lauren Velez, Jason Schwartzman
Swift shot: I really enjoyed this one, despite the umpteen thousands of Spider-People or what they call the Spider Society, which sounds like a horrible secret sect coming out of an Ivy League. It’s like, I love Spider-Man, but the more of them you add the less value the real character has. One look at some of the freakshows passing as “Spider-People” in the Spider Society, and you’ll see what I mean. Still, that isn’t all the movie is about, thankfully.
You get a lot of cold opens for this one movie, where the various characters and their respective universes’ styles and motifs are explored. Starting off with Gwen Stacy (Steinfeld) who has a kind of ’90s grunge style to her universe. In her story, her dad is the police Captain and he is convinced Spider-Woman killed one of Gwen’s classmates. Turns out, he’s not entirely wrong. He just doesn’t know anything real about his daughter.
You get a solid look into the father-daughter dynamic and how it will be important later on in the film.
Then you catch up with Miles (Moore) as he is preparing to start his adult life and choosing a good school. It’s essential to his parents that he takes it seriously, but unbeknownst to them, he’s dressing up in tights and beating up bad guys all around town. He’s a little preoccupied, to say the least!
Things are only going to get more complex for our young hero. He knows about the Spider-Verse, but he doesn’t quite understand his role in it, yet.
One night he encounters a very odd Vulture (Jorma Taccone) who looks like he was ripped from the pages of Da Vinci, and his weapons of choice are just as archaic – but quite effective. He’s flying around and just generally destroying the Guggenheim Museum.
Meanwhile, a very pregnant chick shows up on a motorcycle and joins in the fight against the winged whacko. She’s Jessica Drew (Issa Rae), the Spider-Woman from Earth-332, apparently. She doesn’t leave her motorcycle the whole movie.
And I was annoyed with her being so pregnant and fighting crime, especially when you realize later on in the movie that there are THOUSANDS of other Spider-People who could be out there letting her take a few months off! Spare me the comments about how she can still fight crime while she’s seven months pregnant. I will destroy you down there.
Anyway, the super cool biker chick [eyeroll] is working with Gwen to send this Vulture anomaly back to his universe. And Miles is pretty thrilled to see Gwen again, duh.
But when it’s time for them to return, Miles soon discovers that they don’t want him to join their little Spider Society. The nerve!
Miles has his own problems now, as he discovers a new “villain of the week” called Spot (Schwartzman) who takes major umbrage with that slight and will spend the rest of the movie making Miles pay for it.
Thing is, I really liked Spot, and you can also see how actions have consequences and that playing around with cosmic forces is not something to take lightly. I don’t want to ruin anything about Spot, except to say that his origin makes sense and you might side with him . . . for a while anyway.
As all this major drama is unfolding around him, Miles is having problems with his parents. It’s the standard superhero issue, he doesn’t like lying to them, but he doesn’t think they’d understand or support his endeavors.
And, there are also some real-world dynamics playing out here, if you have a teenage son (or daughter) you can relate. You want the best for your kids, but you don’t want them to fly too far or too fast, and when they shut down and won’t talk – it’s torture.
Interestingly enough, this is exactly how Miles feels when he is eventually told he is not permitted entry into the Spider Society. What is worse is it is his crush, Gwen delivering the bad news.
The overall leader of the Spider Society is Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac) and he is adamant that Miles can’t join. But, he never really explains why until the very end when Miles has to struggle with doing what is right or doing what is best for him.
With these Spider-Man movies, we are expecting to be blown away by the music and graphics and just overall delivery of every aspect of the film. And I have to say I was not disappointed. And I even dug the weird Indian alternate New York (Mumbattan) featuring Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni).
I was not a fan of Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya), because I don’t like punks. You aren’t punk, you’re just a punk!
And, the movie does have one major flaw in that it mentions the importance of canon in a way that seems hypocritical at times. Once it happens, you’ll know what I mean. I rolled my eyes but chalked it up to the writers forcing some of this story to make sense in the Spider-verse.
Overall, I look forward to the sequel they set up in this movie, and where they will be going with Miles.
If you liked the first Spider-Man movie featuring Miles and Gwen, you’ll want to swing into theaters and see Across the Spider-Verse before it’s gone from our universe!
