The best animated film of the year.

Rating: 8/10 (28 December 2018)

'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse' is a surprisingly mature, yet constantly entertaining animation that never loses its sense of fun despite the serious themes that it explores. At its core, the film is an origin story that hits all the beats that we have come to expect from films of its kind, however these elements are fused with the completely new 'multiverse' aspects and this ensures that the generic elements of the narrative don't prove to be much of a problem. The excellent character development also helps to keep the film fresh. While a few of the 'Spider-People' aren't really fleshed out further than their basic character traits, the majority of core characters have believable arcs that allow us to care for them. Peter B. Parker was a surprisingly nuanced character and his Spider-Man story is probably the most realistic one that we have ever seen on the big screen. Although it initially seemed distracting and some of the shots looked like you were watching the 3D version without the glasses, the animation style was overall excellent and really brought the comic book aesthetic to life, in a way that has never been seen before. The character design was also generally good, except from Kingpin's as he looked way too big and didn't really fit with the aesthetic style of the rest of the characters. Unlike a lot of recent superhero flicks, the film knows when to use humour and when to be serious, never confusing the two, allowing for both laugh-out loud comedic moments and genuinely tense and exciting action sequences. Overall, 'Into the Spider-Verse' is a fantastic film that knows exactly what it wants to be, and will appeal to children and adults alike thanks to its humour, action, and fleshed-out narrative. 8/10