A pyrotechnical must-see for Marvel fans

Rating: 8/10 (30 December 2018)

This is a fun, dazzling ride, no doubt at all. It's a Superhero Origin Story (young Miles Morales gets the radioactive-spider bite, but with some different results than we were expecting), an alternate-universes story (several Spideys from different universes all piled together), and a warm-hearted family drama (Miles learns his favorite uncle isn't to be admired after all, and snaps back to realizing how good his parents are after all). And it's an ultra-dazzling CGI display with style to burn. I came out of the theater with the feeling that I'd been immersed in an actual comic book for 2 hours. There's clever use of visible word balloons and sound effects (e.g. 'Thwip!" appears on the screen as Spidey shoots his webbing) and lots of split-screen action as if you're seeing several panels on a comics page at once.
It's dazzling and innovative by playing to the strength of its chosen medium (animation rather than live-action). The most fun for me was the interaction of the multiple heros. The Spider-Man from the first alternate universe is a middle-aged Peter B. Parker who still has his moves, but who is now overweight, divorced, and jaundiced. Spider-Gwen has a cool black-and-white suit and in action is elegant and balletic. Spider-Man Noir is a hard-boiled PI with a black trench coat (always tossing artistically in a breeze) who talks like he's straight out of a Raymond Chandler novel. Peni Parker, a young anime Japanese girl, has kept HER radioactive spider to help run her robotic Spider-armor. And looniest of all we have Spider-Ham from a kids' cartoon universe (who walks onto camera just as Peter B. Parker finishes saying ("this could literally not get any weirder"). They all have to combine to beat the villains led by the evil Kingpin, who's about the size of an elephant with a piggish head below his shoulders and seems to be about as strong as the Hulk. Although the Spidey comics traditionally had lots of weird villains, unfortunately I thought Kingpin and his crew were kind of overdone even in the context of this movie.
The jokes and situational humor, complete with self-referential in-jokes about Spider-Man's comic book history, come thick and fast. Add to this the riot of special effects and explosions of color during the final scenes and we get something that starts to collapse of its own weight. I had a great time watching it, but in the end it seemed like this movie couldn't quite decide what it wanted to be below its dazzling surface. (Not that this doesn't make it worth seeing, though. Yes, it's sheer fun living inside a superhero comic for that two hours.) As for the musical score -- kind of heavy-handed, I thought; we were being pushed into sensory overload.
One thing that I particularly liked was the first-rate cast of actors doing the voices. Shameik Moore has the youthful Miles voice and style down pat, and Hailee Steinfeld is a perfect Gwen (I wanted more). Jake Johnson nails the soft-spoken, world-weary Peter B. Parker persona, Nic Cage pulls off Spider-Man Noir (I wanted more of him too), and the best surprise of all was Lily Tomlin as the best-sounding Aunt Mae I've ever heard (and we've have good ones in the previous live-action Spidey films).