Visually innovative, but has a lack of focus and is overstuffed.

Rating: 7/10 (4 January 2019)

As much as I enjoy this movie (and as an animator/storyartist I love the visuals!) I have to honest and say it is a bit of an unfocused mess. The reason why you should see this movie is because it is the first in what will hopefully be a trend of innovative and creative animated movies that aren't just looking over the shoulders of what Disney and Pixar are doing. This movie is its own creature and I think it deserves to be seen just for the visuals and the opportunity to hopefully support this trend...
However, I would only say that if the movie has some substance to it.... which it does. I recommend people see this movie, but it should be noted that I think this movie may be getting the "Kubo" treatment where an animated film is visually impressive to such a degree that people gloss over bad writing because everything they are looking at is so cool.
The first half of this movie is brilliant. I think just about everything in the first half works really well and is super effective. Miles Morales felt like a real kid with some real kid issues, Peter B Parker was funny, tragic and fleshed out, and Gwen... existed (we'll get to her later). My eyes were glued to the screen and I was excited for where the story would go as I was genuinely surprised at a couple twists and turns in the story.
Then, a certain moment happened in the movie where I was taken out of the film and went, "Wait... oh shoot this is going downhill real fast." It was the introduction of all of the other spider-verse characters. At that moment the film shifted gears into an entirely different film from the first half. Does Miles Morales fit in with the professionals? Can Miles Morales impress them? Everyone seems to hate him due to his lack of experience! Can Miles Morales take a leap of faith (which he already did in the beginning of the movie)??!?! Is Miles Morales even relevant to the story?!?!?!?! All of these sudden new themes and plot developments completely derail what the first half of the film was setting up to such a degree that it felt like a giant schism cut through the film and the second half of the film was waving goodbye to the first half.
I'll be clear that I have no issue with other spider-verse characters sharing screen-time in the film, the issue is that they don't add much in terms of character development or interaction with Miles. The characters should serve to help Miles grow, but in this movie they just seem like another pair of fists to punch bad guys, and there is no better example of this than...
Gwen Stacey.
Gwen Stacey has the unfortunate issue of being completely irrelevant to the story when she should be an important and vital character to Peter B Parker's/Miles Morales' character growth and should have an arc of her own. This is a character who witnessed Peter Parker (her best friend) die and Peter B Parker is someone who witnessed Gwen Stacey die in her universe! WHY DON'T THEY DISCUSS THIS!!! Peter B Parker should be surprised and excited to see someone he knew as dead alive again and she should be happy to see her best friend once more! Instead, the two characters just... punch bad guys... like everyone else. No growth or development between the two.
To make matters worse, Gwen doesn't even really work to help Miles Morales develop as a character. In the beginning of the film she is built up to be one of the main characters, but in the second half she doesn't develop any further than she did in the beginning. She experiences no character growth nor does she help develop any other characters. She just exists in the film.
I could go on for a while about all of the different weird pacing issues in the second half of the film such as Miles Morales suddenly getting super powerful and skilled out of nowhere (it's odd that people complain about "Mary Sues" in film but don't complain about Miles Morales going from zero to hero in one scene), or a single cut from a comedy scene to a tragic "friends splitting up" scene, some loose character threads such as Miles' dad telling cops to chase spider-man but we never see them do it, and many other instances of odd pacing choices and poor juxtapositions of emotional story beats.
But, I will end this on a positive note: All of the characters are enjoyable when they get their moment and I think the writing on the father was really good. He wasn't your typical "larger than life" father but a very honest, strong, but stubborn dad who has his flaws yet is very likable and reasonable. I wish him and Uncle Aaron had some scenes together and their dynamic was a bit more fleshed out, but as is I still like them regardless of the additional scenes they deserved.
Go see it if you want to support innovative and risky animation, but be warned that it is not a perfect film (other than visually).