RATING: B-
Look, I'm going to give full disclosure here: this movie never had a chance of 100% working with me. Allow me to explain why. You know how some people these days are feeling superhero-movie fatigue, and have been grumbling more and more about the Marvel Cinematic Universe lately? Well, generally this is not me. Except for one category: I have Spider-Man fatigue. There have been three iterations of Spider-Man in the past two decades, each one feeling less inventive than the other (though each actor has brought something good to the table, in their defense).
And now we're going to make a cartoon animated version? Where we're going to introduce the multiverse and have multiple Spider-Men/People on at the same time? To me, this was literally the worst idea they could've had. In a time where we've already had two many versions of Spider-Man in a short span of time, the last thing we needed was a movie with *multiple* people wearing the mask. And if you *were* excited about this prospect from the beginning... then you're probably better off not reading the rest of this review and finding a review from someone who actually was excited about this from the get-go.
I'll give them credit for at least trying to do something different, which the previous reboots have struggled to do. And that includes using a different Spider-Man--Miles Morales instead of Peter Parker. (It helps that it is canon in the comics.) This at least gives them room to do different things with the character of Spider-Man. Those things may not necessarily be that much better... but at least they're trying. The problem is, as passable as Morales is, he's not one of the most memorable things about this movie.
But before we get that far... let's do the quick premise. In this Spidey universe, Miles Morales--a young teenager struggling to settle in a new boarding school and not feeling totally on the same page with his father--gets bitten by the famous radioactive spider and becomes Spider-Man. Thing is, Peter Parker actually did exist in this universe as well--he's just dead. (The fact that he's dead is not a spoiler, because it was advertised... but *how* he came to be dead would be a spoiler, because that was not advertised.) Miles doesn't quite have the natural penchant for this Spider-Man business that Peter did, so he needs a mentor. Fortunately, he's about to get plenty of help there--because the Kingpin is opening a dimensional portal which manages to suck in other Spider-Men/People/Things--but not much else (don't ask why or how). And they all need to go back and the Kingpin needs to be stopped--along with his minions the Prowler, and... a female version of Doc Ock? Why is she not the one in charge here? Feels to me like she could kill the Kingpin easily if she wanted to and just run the multi-dimension project herself if she wanted. Oh well, whatever.
One of my biggest concerns about this movie was just how many iterations of the Spider-Whatever they were going to jam in here. The impression I got was that there was going to be a *lot.* However, much to my relief, it's only six including Miles--which is easier to keep up with. Three of them actually work better than Miles does. There's an older and more jaded version of Peter Parker, who has an interesting character arc of his own. There's Gwen Stacy/Spider-Woman, who actually has a pretty good backstory and is one of the more appealing characters here. Then there's Spider-Man Noir, who is voiced by Nicolas Cage. Perhaps the biggest problem with the movie is that Spider-Noir is not in it more, because every moment he's in it he steals the show--probably in part because it's Nic "Not the Bees" Cage voicing him.
It's the remaining two iterations where this movie gets really weird. There's a weird Spider-Pig like thing--and yeah, many of you are probably thinking of The Simpsons right now. "Peter Porker," as he's called, is probably also the most useless of the bunch. And *then* there's an anime girl version--complete with a mecha suit. Yes, seriously. Her presence definitely feels the most jarring here.
Probably the best thing about this movie is the humor it brings to the table. This film's pretty funny at times. From some slapstick to an amusing homage to the previous Spider-Man movies to every time Spider-Man Noir speaks to some fourth-wall leaning to one of my favorite post-credits scenes ever. Seriously, watch through the entire credits for that scene--especially if you keep up with memes.
The plot is alright, if nothing to write home about. It has a nice few tricks up its sleeve, such as a stunning twist regarding the identity of one of the baddies. But while the multi-dimensional thing makes enough sense at the time, it makes less sense the more you think about. And for a movie that actually has some pretty doggone good action sequences, it's rather unfortunate that the final act descends into incomprehensible madness for a fight in the midst of an unstable multi-dimension portal.
I guess I haven't commented on the art yet. While the comic-book style animation can be a little jarring at times due to it being quite fast-paced, in general it actually is pretty great. There are some parts that are just gorgeous. And it emulates an actual comic book pretty well--even including yellow thought panels and large words appearing out of thin air like "Boom!" when explosions happen.
This movie definitely has some interesting ideas and I do want to give it credit for at least trying to do something different. But the only thing that really sticks out about this movie to me is its humor... and this iteration of Gwen, I suppose. And of course, Spider-Noir... but he falls into the "humor" category. And even if I think that spin-offs for Gwen or Spider-Noir might be a better idea than an actual sequel to this... there's still a part of me that wishes they would just stop making anything Spider-Man related for at least a couple of decades.
Look, this movie is fairly hard not to like. Somehow they made this idea sort of work and not be a total disaster. And I'm sure anyone who's a Spider-Man fan and who's *not* Spider-Manned out will enjoy this. But at this rate, the character's going to be run into the ground eventually. Maybe not on the next installment, maybe not for a few years yet. The issue is that I'm already in that process of feeling some Spider-Man fatigue--just as some are feeling the MCU fatigue. All of that said, if they can keep writing good humor for these "Spider-Verse" movies (assuming there are more of them) then they might at least be good for the laughs--if not a whole lot else.
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