A great Spider-Man movie, but it's rushed, with underdeveloped characters.

Rating: 8/10 (20 December 2018)

Woah this movie was actually really good. Into The Spiderverse follows Miles Morales as he has to stop a machine that is combining dimensions, and becomes the next Spiderman. I gotta say, I was really impressed. The animation is absolutely stunning, and there's a ton of animation jokes. I'm not really gonna talk anymore about the visuals, because that's been said to death, but the movie is just gorgeous. The action was also really engaging, it's all very fast paced, and while it can get weird at times, you can still follow it with ease. For an animated film this movie was surprisingly mature in some moments, and I think that's what makes it great. I mean damn characters actually die, and there are many emotional moments. Also there's themes of divorce, depression, among others. However I don't think this movie is the best Spider-Man movie, or even an amazing movie. I do have to say this movie definitely understands the character of Spider-Man, and I love the theme of everyone can become Spider-Man. My real problem comes with some of the characters. Miles is the only character that gets significant development in the movie, and in the respect it's excellent. Miles has some really great emotional moments and Shameik Moore does a great job voicing him. In fact the whole voice cast does a phenomenal job. However apart from Miles no other character gets significant character development. I mean I get it, this is Miles movie, and they should develop his character the most, but the other characters are really 1 dimensional to me. While all the other alternate dimension Spider-Man were very entertaining, I really don't care about them. The older Spider-Man was done really well though. He does have his own little arc in the movie. He's definitely well developed. You can see he's reluctant to mentor Miles, but he knows it's the right thing, and Miles needs this. Again apart from those characters we get the most basic information of everyone else. Each character just gives their origin, and that's it. We don't know anything else about them. Those scenes were handled very well though, without making them too repetitive, but the other characters barely have anything to them. The same thing unfortunately happens with the villains who are all severely underdeveloped. The only 2 villains we know anything about are KingPin and Prowler. We get KingPin's motivation early on, which was done once again very well, but that's the only thing we know about him. The same thing happens with the prowler, except we don't even know his motivations, he just has a connection to a character. This really hurt the movie for me because while Miles, and the older Peter were well developed, everyone else kinda fell flat for me. They aren't bad, but they just feel like a shell. However characters like Miles' Dad, KingPin, Prowler, and Gwen were good despite this. Now I know that's a significant flaw, but this movie is still great. I'm focusing on the negatives because everything else is so good. Like the soundtrack, which is brilliant. I do think some music choices were odd, but the Prowler's theme is fantastic, and so is most of the score. Also The humor, which is done well. However Another issue I have with the film is it being kinda cliche. I mean removing the Dimensional travel stuff, this is the average coming of age, origin story. For example for most of the movie Miles has no idea how to use his powers, but when he needs it the most he now suddenly, and perfectly knows how to use his powers. Again though it's done very well either way considering this is an extremely fast paced movie, and it does feel rushed sometimes. Also there's some noticeable plot convenience, especially in the 3rd act. I have some other specific issues with the movie, these might be considered minor spoilers so you've been warned. In the beginning it's mentioned how they can't turn on the machine or else it'll end destroying Miles' dimension, however later on in the movie, it changes to letting the other Spidermen enter their dimensions quick enough. Also that part is very convenient. They use, basically a flash drive to stop the device, and that can somehow control which dimensions each character goes too? Anyways my final issue is a very specific one. There's this moment where KingPin shoots a certain character (which was an awesome moment) but it doesn't make sense that he wouldn't shoot Miles too. I mean he probably could've dodged the bullets with his spider-sense, but KingPin doesn't know this, it just didn't make sense. However I do think overall this movie is great. It's very mature for an animated movie, it's animated extremely well, it has great voice actors, it's just great overall.
8.3/10