Holidays are done, misery once again returns, time to start
off 2019. After Incredibles 2 last year I had my fill of superhero films for
2018—so I skipped out on the likes of Ant-Man, Venom, and Aqua-Man. Some of
them looked decent, but after ten straight years of the superhero craze now, it
takes something that truly stands out for me to really get interested. Something
beyond the same old origin stories, something with an actual different
style…and, well, Sony Animation has actually given us that. Yes, it’s
Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse—and now is a good a time as any for me to
talk about everyone’s favorite superhero that shoots webs from his wrist just
like a spider can’t.
For many, Sam
Raimi’s 2002 film with Tobey McGuire was a landmark—together, with Singer’s
X-Men in 2000 and Blade in 1998, it helped birth modern comic movies as we
understand them. Seeing our part-arachnid hero actually swing through the urban
maze of New York, wrestling with a gloriously hammy Willem Defoe, all in
revolutionary new special effects…it certainly wowed my younger self. Looking
back on it…it can seem somewhat cheesy to our current sensibilities, but it did sincerely embrace its comic roots in a gleeful way that DC’s brooding misery-o-ramas or
Marvel’s winking at the camera presentation don’t really do. I mean for crying out
loud it has a Power Rangers villain reject as an all too serious antagonist, what’s
not to like about that?
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| "And then I'll make us star in a really embarrassing musical! Ahahahahah!" |
After that came the sequels—Spider-Man 2 is solid enough
even if I personally didn’t fall in love with it like others did, and
Spider-Man 3…well, it’s not as bad as
some make it out to be, in my opinion, but it wasn’t too great either. You’d
think the whole film was McGuire dancing in a dark suit for the whole thing
instead of just three seconds, in something that was probably meant to be goofy
anyway, but oh well.
Things didn’t pick up much after that; there was a reboot with
Andrew Garfield that was as average as a summer sidewalk, neither good enough
to wow nor bad enough to be mocked through the ages. Then a sequel to the
reboot that I didn’t bother with but heard nothing good about. Then finally
Marvel rebooted it again to fit it into the MCU, and then finally Sony is doing
another reboot a few short years later in a totally different style! Maybe this
is just part of the new ‘confuse the living hell out of the casual viewer’
marketing strategy they teach at Yale.
But fortunately, Into the Spider-Verse caught my attention
first of all by being an animated film that’s stylistically not yet more CG
play-doh. Then they bought on Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who gave us the
surprisingly passionate Lego Movie, which was far better and more exuberant
than any cinematic project about pieces of plastic that get stuck under your
foot has a right to be. And, instead of being yet another story of Peter Parker
being bitten by a critter and struggling with school and Mary Jane and the
usual crap, it focuses on one of his comic successors Miles Morales, whose
tribulations and problems are pretty different.
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| Been a while since purple's got some love, hasn't it? |
Off the bat, I really dig the animation for the most
part—not only does it provide a great sense of scale with bright colors and
vibrant scenery, but the touches of comic book sound effects and ink-like
shades that help it all stand out and pop. Occasionally, there’s a background
that looks somewhat out of focus, like it’s part of a 3D transition, but the
characters are all readily distinguishable, and you rarely lose track of what’s
going on even when things get really wild.
The story is…familiar but different. Morales is a schoolkid with
differences with his father, crushes on girls, but is bright and smart despite
it—not a supremely different protagonist but one that gets the job done. One
night, he stumbles on the machinations of the Kingpin, in battle with the
legendary Spider-Man…and we soon see that no, this isn’t just a straight comedy
like the Lego Movie. In fact, this film matches some serious dramatic moments
with its silly goofiness, and it’s something that blends better than you’d
think. There are a couple of further plot twists—one you’ll probably see coming
off the bat, but another that genuinely got me, so props to the writers for
that.
Eventually, walls between universes start breaking down, as
you’d expect, and the plot only ramps up in terms of characters, proceedings,
and bizarre jokes. Above all, and this is what really solidifies it for me, it
really takes advantage of its medium for insanely kinetic fight scenes, trippy
and twisted environments where reality is breaking down, and movement that
ranges from hyper-fast motion to Looney Tunes.
There are some flaws—there’s secondary characters introduced
later that, while good for jokes, are kind of throwaway as actual, well,
characters. Likewise, though Kingpin does have some actual motivation given,
it’s a little threadbare. Still, for the common audience, it probably won’t
matter as much, and as above, the presentation is more than enough for this one
to stand out.
I must also admit, the post-credits scene is also one of the
most hilarious I’ve seen in a while. It’s worth it, trust me.
Overall, with Oscar season around the corner, I’d certainly
not complain if this one takes Best Animated Picture. Sony has had its ups and
downs in the film department, fumbling around with the really generic Amazing
Spider-Man duology, but for this one, they’ve proved that you can still keep
this character fresh despite his endless rebooting and exploitation. It’s also
something of a worthy eulogy for Stan Lee, who makes his customary cameo.
I’m pleased to say I was pleasantly surprise by this one,
and recommend it if you want a superhero movie with something different to it.
Soon, of course, we get the monstrous juggernaut of Avengers coming up—but it’s
always good to spare some mind for things that come from unexpected corners….
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