Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Rating: 5/10 (19 January 2019)

We've seen the live-action versions with Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland, and there was the cartoon TV series in the 1960s, and a revival in the 1990s, but this was the first animated full-length animated feature for the web-slinging Marvel Comics hero. Basically teenager Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) admires Spider-Man, he struggles to live up to his parents expectations, his father Jefferson Davis (Brian Tyree Henry) is a police officer and sees Spider-Man as a menace. After Miles meets a new classmate who calls herself "Gwanda" (Hailee Steinfeld), he gets advice from his uncle Aaron Davis (Mahershala Ali), who encourages him to pursue her. Miles and Aaron hang out in a disused subway station painting graffiti, while there Miles is bitten by a radioactive spider and develops spider-like abilities. Miles later returns to the station and unintentionally finds a particle accelerator built by Wilson Fisk aka the Kingpin (Liev Schreiber) to access parallel universes to connect with his deceased wife and son. Spider-Man (Chris Pine) arrives to disable to accelerator, and fights against the Green Goblin (Jorma Taccone) and Prowler, Spider-Man and Miles meet during the battle and sense they are alike. Green Goblin tries to kill Spider-Man forcing him into the accelerator's energy stream but instead causes it to malfunction, he is killed while Spider-Man is injured. Spider-Man gives Miles a USB drive to disable the accelerator and warns that the city could be destroyed if the machine is turned on again. Spider-Man tells Fisk that his family is gone forever and that his plan will fail, Miles watches Fisk kill Spider-Man from a distance before escaping. The news of Spider-Man's death spreads all over New York, while Miles buys a Spider-Man costume and tries to master his own abilities, and inadvertently damages the USB drive. Miles meets Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), an older and slightly podgy Spider-Man from another dimension, at the grave of the original Spider-Man. Peter has been brought out of his dimension by the accelerator and needs to return home, but he begrudgingly agrees to train Miles, in exchange for help stealing data to create a new USB drive. While breaking into Kingpin's research facility, Miles displays the unique abilities of invisibility and an electric "venom blast" that can disable enemies by touch. Fisk's Chief Scientist Dr. Olivia Octavius aka "Doc Ock" (Kathryn Hahn) confronts them and reveals Peter will slowly deteriorate and eventually die if he is not returned to his own dimension. "Gwanda" rescues Miles and Peter, her real name is Gwen Stacy, an alternate universe female version of Spider-Man, another dimension-displaced hero, she takes them to May Parker (Lily Tomlin), who is sheltering other dimension-displaced heroes. They are Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), a dark and monochromatic version of Spider-Man from a 1930s universe, Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn) and SP//dr, a Japanese-American teenage girl from an alternative anime-like universe who co-pilots a biomechanical suit with a radioactive spider that she shares a telepathic link with, and Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), an alternate funny animal version of Spider-Man from an anthropomorphic universe. Being out of their own universes, they are also deteriorating, so Miles offers to disable the accelerator to send the other Spider-People home, but he is shocked to discover Prowler is his uncle Aaron, moonlighting as an enforcer for Fisk. Peni repairs the drive, but the group attacked by Fisk and his enforcers: Prowler, Octavius, Scorpion (Joaquín Cosio) and Tombstone (Marvin 'Krondon' Jones III). Miles flees during the battle but is captured by Prowler, who prepares to kill him, until Miles unmasks himself, causing Aaron to realize he has been hunting his own nephew. Aaron refuses to kill Miles, so Fisk shoots and kills Aaron, Jefferson sees Spider-Man over Aaron's body and mistakenly believes he has killed him, he radios in for the capture of Spider-Man. Miles angrily returns to his dorm, the Spider-People arrive and tell him that they, like him, have all lost someone they love. They leave to face Fisk, but Peter restrains Miles, leaving him behind for his own safety, deciding to sacrifice himself and taking Miles's place to deactivate the accelerator. Jefferson arrives outside Miles's door to tell him about Aaron's death and wants to apologise for his mistakes, Miles has finally gained control of his powers and heads out, spray painting one of Peter's suits as his own. He joins the other Spider-People at the accelerator and helps them defeat Octavius, Scorpion and Tombstone, though Peni's SP//dr is destroyed. Miles then activates the USB drive and sends all the Spider-People back home through the accelerator portal. Fisk and Miles fight throughout the accelerator, Jefferson arrives and realises Spider-Man is not the enemy, he encourages him, giving Miles the motivation to withstand Fisk's attacks and knock him out with his venom blast, which also destroys the accelerator. The authorities arrest Fisk and his enforcers, Jefferson recognises Spider-Man as a hero and Miles embraces the responsibilities of his new life. Back in their own dimensions, Peter attempts to reconcile with Mary Jane Watson (Zoë Kravitz), Peni rebuilds SP//dr and Gwen finds a way to contact Miles across dimensions. In a futuristic dimension, Lyla (Greta Lee), assistant to Miguel O'Hara aka Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac) informs him of the crisis and gives him dimension-hopping technology, he decides to "go back to the beginning", and ends up arguing with the 1960s universe version of Spider-Man. Also starring Luna Lauren Velez as Rio Morales, Natalie Morales as Miss Calleros, Lake Bell as Vanessa Fisk, rapper Post Malone as Brooklyn Bystander and Stan Lee in a posthumous cameo as a character named Stan who sells a Spider-Man costume to Morales. The voice cast are all great, and most of the characters are good, especially the 1930s gumshoe take on the lead character, and the Kingpin who is both menacing and in moments sympathetic, the Porky Pig style cartoon version of the hero is a little weird and makes almost forced laughs. It does get a little over-complicated at times, and maybe it is much more style over substance, in animation style, special effects, and big-scale sequences, I'm not sure where it fits in the world of superhero movies and it may confuse viewers, but the kids should have fun, an unusual but not bad computer-animated superhero action adventure. It won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film, it won the BAFTA for Best Animated Featured Film, and it won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Animated. Worth watching!