A Darkhorse Candidate for My Favourite Movie of the Year

Rating: 9/10 (23 December 2018)

I didn't think much of the animation style of this movie when I saw the trailer, it didn't catch my eye and before I learned more about who was involved, my first thought was that it might be a straight to VOD or Blu Ray release. Getting to see it in the theatre, I was blown away. The animation is fantastic, it has its own sense of style, but the colour palette is bright, and the movie is constantly moving throughout its environments. It looks as good as any big studio animation movie for kids if not better. What makes it even more amazing is how the action scenes are put together. They're stunning, the movie is inventive with how they use their characters and you never lose focus of what's happening, but you feel the hits and each character gets bad@$$ moments to show what they can do. In a bloated superhero movie landscape, to get something that kept me this engaged from a visual standpoint is impressive.
I prefer my superhero characters to have rough edges and to have some flaws when they dole out justice. Its one of the reasons superheroes like Ironman or anti heroes like Deadpool work so well. I liked Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) as a character because he has a hard time picking up how to be Spiderman, because he has a hard time making the tough choices and because he's so new to this job. He also has some relatable problems (being homesick, trying to live up to expectations, having to choose between what's right and what's easy) that help endear him to the audience. He's a good kid at a difficult time in his life. I also like the fact that they have other superhero characters like Jake Johnson's Peter Parker, Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) and others to provide some contrast to his style of being Spiderman. But you also have more human characters such as Jefferson (Brian Tyree Henry), Aaron (Mahershala Ali) that present more real-world consequences and represent the different branches he could take depending on what he chooses to do. Especially with his family, things get dark and they really sell the drama of what's going on with Miles and the consequences of his actions.
You've got both the action and the drama but the best part of Into the Spider-Verse is the comedy. This movie is gut-busting hilarious, the dialogue is razor sharp and they aren't afraid to get meta or to poke fun at the genre. I saw this with a friend and she described it as Deadpool for kids with the film pointing out dialogue boxes, going into comics for visual representations of origin stories and pulling scenes out of the Sam Raimi Spiderman movies and making jokes about them. So much of the funny content in this movie comes from the alternate universe Spidermen and Spiderwomen and more specifically the Jake Johnson version of Peter Parker. He nails line after line and left me giggling every time. One of the small complaints I had about this movie is that it was so entertaining as a comedy, when it got dramatic (and to be fair those parts are done well too) I waited on the edge of my seat till the jokes started flying again.
The voice cast is good across the board and other than my continuous praise for Jake Johnson, everyone does at minimum a descent job. Again, some of my favourites were the alternate universe Spidermen with Nicolas Cage, John Mulaney, Hailee Steinfeld (Gwen is in that category) and Kimiko Glenn all doing unique takes on their characters to round out the cast. Chris Pine is solid in his all too brief appearance as Peter. I really like Mahershala Ali and Brian Tyree Henry as Aaron and Jefferson. Liev Schrieber does what he can as Kingpin, he doesn't get many dialogue heavy scenes, but he gets the job done. I also thought while Shameik was decent as Miles, he gave more of a nondescript performance.
This movie was an outright joy to watch. I had heard it was good going in, but it surpassed high expectations. My advice is don't just lump Spider-Verse into the group, it represents what superhero movies need to do to avoid plateauing. You have to change things up and try new things and I think this version of Spider-Man did that for sure. I'm eagerly awaiting a sequel from the same team and although I was late to see this, don't make the same mistake if you love this genre. I wholeheartedly recommend Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and I was close to giving it a 10/10 but I'll still go 9/10 for a couple of small missteps.