Review: Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

 Time to swing across the Multiverse

Okay, let’s talk Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. The film is the sequel to the 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which followed the death of a Peter Parker and the raise of his successor Miles Morales. Along for the ride were Peter B Parker, a burnt-out version of Peter from another universe that needed to get the spark to try again, Gwen Stacy, a Spider-Woman pulled into this universe that need to learn to be open again, and Peter Noir, Peni Parker, and Peter Porker, three more Spiders from alternate universes pulled in by a super collider. Said collider was built by Wilson Fisk and Doc Olivia Octavius to try to bring an alternate version of Fisk’s recently deceased wife and son back to him. Miles learned to be a Spider-Man, befriended his Spider-peers and said goodbye to a Mentor and friend-he-definitely had a crush on. Great movie, great animation, now let’s talk about the sequel. Let’s get to it.

 

The film opens with Gwen Stacy, the Spider-Woman or Ghost Spider depending on the story, telling the general backstory of the first film. Miles Morales, bitten by a radioactive spider, uncle the Prowler died, big dimensional portal, and all that jazz. As she’s talking, she’s working through her feelings by drumming her heart out. We get a quick text flash telling us what universe we’re in, 65, as MJ and the rest of the band chew her out for getting so lost in playing she didn’t notice the song was over. Her bandmates try to get her to talk it out, but she’s bottling up her feelings too much to talk, so storms off. She remembers her backstory. She started off as Spider-Woman, her dad already clocked Spider-Woman as a menace, but her best friend Peter thought she was cool. Peter was being bullied, and in his desperation to make it stop and feel special, like Gwen, he concocted a serum and became Earth-65’s Lizard. On Prom night. Gwen fought the Lizard and ended up killing it by dropping scaffolding on him, only to discover it was Peter. He died in her arms and her father found him over the body and assumed the worst. She escaped and the hunt for Spider-Woman began. She laments the fact she only made only one friend since then, and he, Miles, is about as far from her as Peter is now.

 

She returns home and tries to move past her dad without talking. George, trying to make her feel better, tells her that he’s got a break in the Spider-Woman case and that he’ll bring her in and things will be okay. Gwen is evasive and defensive about Spider-Woman, really should have tipped him off just saying, and tells him that catching her won’t bring Peter back. They hug and then George gets a call about Vulture causing trouble downtown. He heads out, she suits up and follows.

 

Gwen arrives just as her dad does, webbing all the cops before heading inside. She gets attacked by a literal Renaissance era Vulture. They battled, Gwen deducing that he was pulled into this dimension and started wrecking stuff. Vulture’s tech is old timey but puts Gwen on the ropes, she’s almost sliced to ribbons, but is saved at the last minute by Miguel O’Hara, Spider-Man 2099. After some banter where Gwen uses her spider whit to annoy him so much that he answers her questions. Namely that he’s a Spider-Man from another dimension and that he’s leading a team of Spiders to help protect the multiverse. The Vulture gets back up and they all start fighting again. Miguel blames Gwen for her part in the Kingpin supercollider that led to these holes in space and villains being sucked through to other dimensions. Miguel cuts off one of the Vulture’s wings, but he quickly rebuilds it, revealing he has access to Hammer-Space. It’s an extradimensional space where one can store infinite amounts of objects. Did Spider-Ham pull a hammer as big as himself out of a pocket? Hammer space. Miguel has his AI assistant Lyla call for backup. Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew, drives in on her Spider-Cycle and slams into Vulture before webbing him some more. Jessica and Gwen meet, Gwen geeking out a little bit at how cool Jessica seems, and then marvels at her fighting while at least 6 months Pregnant. They all start fighting the Vulture again, Jessica taking a moment to ask Miguel if they should recruit Gwen, but he says no. And when asked why he says, “you know why.” A disruption starts going through the museum, warping it and Miguel says something about disrupting a Canon Event. He rides Vulture outside, almost bites him like a damn Vampire, but Vulture escapes by shooting a helicopter. They all crash. Gwen quickly leaps around, webbing all over the place to slow the copter down while Jessica and Miguel clear some of the civilians and then all three stop the copter from crashing. Miguel grabs a roped-up Vulture and he and Jessica give Gwen the spider-bro nod. Gwen, injured, tries to get away, but her dad corners her. She tries to talk to him but he’s bringing her in. Desperate, Gwen takes her mask off. While shocked to realize she’s Gwen, George continues to read her Maranda Rights. Jessica and Miguel arrive, stopping George and taking her with them through a rift, giving her a wrist device that’ll keep her from glitching out in other realities.

 

And after that lengthy intro we catch up with the Titular Spider-Man, Miles Morales of Earth 1610. He’s racing across town to get to a meeting with his parents and the school counselor to get the jump on college. He’s distracted by a weird guy attempting to steal an ATM. Well, first he tries to open a portal into an ATM to just take the money, messes up, and then decides to try to steal the whole thing. While the store owner tries to beat him up with a bat, Miles heats up a beef patty. The dude makes a lot of complaints, saying he used to be a scientist (handsome by scientist standards) but got turned into white thing covered in spots and now can’t get a job so turned to a life of crime. Miles and the dude finally face off, the dude introducing himself as the Spot. He claims to be from Miles’ Past, but Miles gets a text from his dad to get to the school, so has to hurry past that without comment. He tries to web the Spot, misses and because portal ends up Webbing himself as he struggles to go after the Spot and get the web off, we get the info dump.

 

It’s been a year and four months in universe since the last film and he’s had a few ups and downs. He’s gotten bigger, got a new costume, Aunt May moved to Florida, he guest hosted Jeopardy, endorsed Baby powered, apologized for endorsing the baby powder, improved his venom strike (knocked out the power to the city, and is generally stressing about his double life and lying to his parents. He says he’s not thinking too much about his extra-dimensional friends but makes a ton of art dedicated to them (especially Gwen). Miles is continuing to fight the Spot. He’s a particularly skilled or even dangerous fighter, but the holes in reality on his body and that he spreads around makes it very hard for Miles to actually hit him. Ultimately, Miles gets a web on him and then ties him up in a web pattern through the wormholes, trapping him. Miles runs off to get to his appointment.

 

Miles swings through his dorm room, telling Ganke about the Spot and asking him to please call it in, but this universe’s version of Ganke Lee is totally uninterested in being the guy in the chair. This might be an awful version of reality. Miles gets his Jordans back from Ganke and then rushes to his appointment. He arrives and gets a high-speed scolding as from his parents for being late, and then again when it’s discovered he’s getting a B in Spanish and missing classes. Miles claims to have a lot going on. It’s revealed that Miles wants to go to Princeton to learn quantum physics and learn to travel across dimensions. He impresses his parents and the councilor with his passion, but immediately ruins it when he has to rush off to get a freed Spot. He got a Spider-sense tingle and saw him out a window. HE rushes off, his father following when he gets a call about the Spot too. Left alone with the councilor, she tells Rio, Miles’ mom, that he’s lying to her and that she thinks that Rio knows that. Miles quickly changes in his room and starts battling with the Spot, his father, Jeff, following him.

 

They fall through a portal and end up at the Alchemax site, now under reconstruction. The Spot dives at Miles and knocks him through a portal. Jeff considers leaping through the portal after them but takes the stairs instead.  Like son, like father. The Spot reveals that he was an Alchemax scientist, the one that brought the Spider that bit Miles through the dimensional rift. He was also the scientist that got hit with a bagel when Miles and Peter B raided the Alchemax facility in upstate New York. HE was in the collider room when Miles and the others blew it up and turned him into this. He screams at Miles for turning him into this creature, saying he will respect the Spot as his nemesis. He rushes at the Morales’s but ends up opening a portal in the wrong place, kicking himself in the ass and falling into a portal, disappearing.

 

Jeff starts yelling at Miles for causing so much damage. They have a heart to heart, Jeff saying that he knows Miles is smart, but he does dumb stuff. He’s worried that he’s going to mess his life up. Miles tells his dad to maybe lay off a little. To let him spread his wings a little. Miles leaves, Jeff telling him to catch that holes guy.

 

The Spot materializes in a white space surrounded by holes. He believes he kicked himself into himself. He sticks his head through a hole and sees into a 1950s style universe. He sticks his head through another, Lego universe, and another Venom’s film universe. He falls through another hole and ends up back at the Alchemax. He realizes that his holes are the answer to getting revenge on Spider-Man, toddling off. Back on Lego Earth, Spider-Man-13122 sees the damage caused by the Spot and calls it in to Miguel.

 

Back on 1610, the Rio is looking for Miles during the party they’re throwing for Jeff’s promotion to Captain. Rio is forced to make a speech, buying time while Miles needs to make his way to them with the cakes. It’s a bit awkward. Miles is slowed down multiple times by villains and crooks popping up. Jeff takes over the speech and toasts to his brother, then to Rio and finally to Miles, just then realizing Miles isn’t there. Damn. Miles finally arrives, changing quickly as he runs and leaps up the stairs. He tries to dodge his parents but they’re too fast. His parents try to scold him while also mingling at the party. They ask Miles about the “friends” that he’s running with that they’ve never met. Miles tries to placate them by talking about his friends Peter and Gwanda that left town. Miles gets frustrated and says ‘whatever’ to them and gets grounded. A fight breaks out between them, the DJ does his best to cover them, but they just yell louder. Miles storms off and gets told he’s got two months of grounded.

 

Miles goes to his room and tries to decompress with his headphones on, but his stuff starts floating and he gets called out of his music by Gwen calling out to him through a portal. She leaps into his dimension and hugs him. They both comment on their changes, he got taller, she dyed her hair. She nabs his sketchbook and sees so many drawings of herself and tries to play it off as not TOO weird. They head out in their Spider-suits and catch up. His parents come in, find he’s gone and a girl’s hoodie in the room and Jeff angrily says 3 months.

 

They leap around town, trying to impress each other with swinging techniques as Gwen catches Miles up on what’s been happening with her. Spider-Society, Jessica Drew, Miguel, and her new buddy Hobie. She says that they’re strict about where she goes, or she’d have visited sooner. She slips away for a moment and sets up a camera pointed at the Spot’s apartment building.

 

They stop at the Williamsburg Bank building to chat. They end up sitting upside down in the building and enjoy the scenery. They bond about being young and spider powered. Gwen reveals that in every other universe, Gwen Stacy falls for Spider-Man, and it ends badly.  Miles says there’s a first time for everything and they rest against each other. They head back to the party as teens and talk, Miles’ parents not loving this seemingly older white girl their son is hanging out with. Miles wants to go with Gwen on interdimensional missions, but she claims there’s not a lot of slots. His parents interrupt, Gwen calling them by their first names which they hate. It’s awkward but Gwen gets an alert on her device and runs off to handle it. Miles is obviously depressed to see her go, and his mom stays behind to try to talk to him. Miles still can’t bring himself to reveal he’s Spider-man despite wanting to. He almost does it but turns it into “I’m sorry for being late.” Rio, wanting to be supportive, says go after her. She says that her biggest fear for him before he leaves is that wherever he goes won’t have the support she wants for him. She makes him promise he’ll come back and sends him off. Oh, and when he comes back, he’s still grounded.

 

Miles changes and swings after Gwen. They arrive at the apartment and find Spot holes blown in it. Gwen goes in and Miles follows, invisible. Gwen uses future tech to scan the room and replay what happened. In the video, the Spot arrives and reveals he figured out that he needs more dark energy to make more portals. He jerry rigs together a device to give him just enough power to get out of this dimension and into one with a full-sized collider. He turns it on, gets a portal and swears to get revenge on Spider-Man. He touches the spot that was made and vanishes to another universe. Gwen get a call from Jessica Drew. She tries to play off losing the Spot, saying he’s just a villain of the week. Jessica scolds Gwen for seeing Miles, saying that she knows he can’t be part of this. While they argue, Lyla tracks the Spot through realities, seeing that he’s stopping in places with Alchemax colliders. Miles intuits that he’s doing that to make himself more powerful. Gwen asks for another chance and gets it. She’s being sent to Earth-50101. Jessica gives her one more chance, giving her an hour to fix this and opens a portal for her. Gwen heads towards it, stopping long enough to say goodbye in the direction of Miles’ house, not realizing she’s saying it to invisible him directly. Miles almost goes back home but runs through the portal at the last second.

 

He starts glitching almost immediately as he falls through a very Indian inspired New York. It’s dubbed Earth 50101, Mumbattan. It’s a mashup of Manhattan and Mumbai. Miles finds Gwen chasing after the Spot. He’s gotten much better at hopping through portals and portals fighting since yesterday. Miles distracts Gwen and he breaks free of his restraints. Miles catches Gwen when she falls and then almost drops her again when he glitches out again. They’re both saved by Pavitr Prabhakar, Spider-Man India. He’s been a Spider-Man for six months and he’s in the “this is awesome phase” of that lifestyle. He’s got powers, is naturally fit, has amazing hair, a girlfriend and is in general very happy with his life. The first time he seems angry is when he hears Miles refer to Chai as Chai tea, as Chai means tea. After his intro they get back to the fight. The Spot is revealing in getting kind of good at fighting, saying that he's on a journey of self-discovery. This pisses off Pav, who says that coming to India for that is a western cliché and not to “Eat, Pray, Love” me bro.” He slams Miles through several portals before slamming into a billboard. They follow the Spot to Alchemax and arrive just as he’s powering it up. They can’t get to it because of an energy barrier. Miles tries to use his Venom strike to overload the barrier, but he can’t get enough juice into it. They’re interrupted by the intro of the best character, Hobie Brown. He runs in and shatters the barrier. Hobie leads the others in fighting the Spot.

 

He gives us his quick background, he’s Spider-Punk, a Spider-Man from a Fascist version of London. He’s a rocker, anti-establishment type, and is just in general cool dude. The Spiders do well again the Spot, but he eventually throws the others back with a portal. He tells his Spider-Man, Miles, that this’ll be good for them, that they’ll finally live up to their potential. Miles will have a villain worth fighting, and he won’t just be a joke to him. They almost stop him, but the Spot enters the collider and super charges himself. It takes a minute but then it explodes. Miles gets a vision of the Spot’s life and of what looks like his father (it flashes between Jeff and Inspector Singh, Pavitr’s police officer) being crushed by debris. Miles asks what that was, and the Spot claims it’s their future. He’s much weirder looking now, being all black with a white spot for a face and looking like something out of a cosmic horror story. He tells Miles, “See you back home, Spider-Man,” and vanishes. The spiders race out of the collapsing Alchemax building.

 

Miles tells Gwen and Hobie to hold the building up while he and Pavitr clear civilians. They delay the fall long enough to get a lot of people out of the way and then all four swings through to save more. They end up on a bridge and see Pavitr’s girlfriend Gaytri on a bus begin to fall. Lyla contacts Gwen, saying a canon event is incoming. Inspector Singh runs in and tries to save a child. Pavitr sees him and knows he’ll die without help. He says to himself that he can save them both and tries to pull the bus up more quickly. Miles runs in and grabs Singh, despite Gwen telling him to stay back. He’s seemingly crushed by rubble with Singh as Hobie helps Pavitr pull the bus up. Pavitr hugs Gaytri and pretends to not know her, and Gaytri and Singh hug. Singh and Pavitr shake hands and Pavitr and Hobbie sing Miles’ praises. They have a moment of cheering, but then a giant hole forms in space beneath them. A Spider drone lands full of Spider-people who set about trying to seal the anomaly. Jessica tells them all they’er ordered back to HQ.

 

They land in the 2099-dimension, Nueva York Earth 928. Hobie taking off his mask for the first time and we get to see his afro and piercings. So cool. We’re shown the full Spider-Society, a giant building built for Spiders. Hundreds of Spider-Men, Women, people, and objects are all over the place. Miles is brought through their lock up, which contains villains that got stuck in other dimensions. They’ve got several Doc Ocks, Moosterio, Ms. Sterio, Pixilated video game baddies, Kraven, a literal Rhion, and Childish Gambino… I mean Donald Glover… I mean Prowler from the MCU. He’s introduce to Margo Kess aka Spider-Byte, who runs their “Go Home Machine” the device they use to return people to their correct dimensions. She’s from an advanced future world and her body is a physical digital avatar. Neat.

 

As they walk, they’re being watched by Miguel O’Hara via the cameras.  We see him take an injection of some kind, saying that he’s not like the other Spider-Men and that he doesn’t always like what he must do. As they walk toward Miguel, Hobie grabs random bits of tech off the wall, saying it probably doesn’t do anything and that he’s rebelling against propaganda or something. Hobie tells Miles that being a spider is about your independence and warns Miles not to sign up until he knows who he’s fighting. Gwen introduces Miles to Miguel. Miguel flips out at Miles and Gwen for causing another rip in space time, but he’s actively ignoring Hobie as he can’t deal with him. Peter B comes in and says to go easy on Miles, he had a terrible teacher. Peter B is in a bathrobe and baby Bjorn. Why? He brought his daughter, May “Mayday” Parker. Peter has become an extremely doting dad, showing everyone pictures of Mayday despite her being there. He scolds Miguel as being the only Spider-Man that isn’t funny, and they have a little argument about what it takes to protect the multiverse. Miguel tells Miles that he interrupted a Canon event. He explains Canon events, pivotal points in a Spider’s life that connects them. Different stages, different actors playing Spider-Man (Woman/etc), but with the same story beats. You know a lot of them, death of a father/father figure, great power/great responsibility, death of a police captain saving a child. That last one is important, as Miles interrupted Pavitr’s version of that. Miles is a little surprised it happened to Hobie too, but he says what of it. Miguel says that the canon binds reality together, but they can be broken and that leads to anomalies and instability in the multiverse. Miguel explains why he knows this and why he fights so hard to keep the universe together. This instance of Miguel O’Hara, while exploring the multiverse, found one where he wasn’t Spider-Man, and where he had a family and happy life. That Miguel was killed, so this Miguel stepped into that one’s life. He lived with this family, loved them, but the disruption to the canon caused that world to be destroyed. Break enough canon, save enough captains, and they could lose everything.

 

Miles realizes that his dad is about to become a captain and what that means. He has that same vision of his father dying by the Spot. He asks when it happens. Miguel tells him two days, according to their model. Miles wants to be sent home but Miguel won’t let him go. Miles tries to get support from the others, asking Peter if he’d stay if he knew Uncle Ben was going to die. Peter tells him that without Uncle Ben dying, most of the Spiders wouldn’t be there. Miguel tells him the old ‘lose one, save a thousand’ saying. Miles insists Spider-Man can do both, but the others disagree. Miles realizes that he’s surrounded by Spider-Men, including Peni Parker from the last movie. Miles realizes that this is some kind of intervention. Miguel captures him in a capture web and says they’ll just hold him a few days while things play out. Hobie reminds Miles about using his whole hand, and Miles does so, using his Venom strike to short out the cage. He runs. The Spiders chase after him, Peter tells Mayday that he’s sorry for doing this and that it’s bad parenting, and Hobie says that he quits, walking through a portal and dropping his watch.

 

An alert goes out to stop Miles Morales. Miles is chased by every Spider in the building, including Spider-Cat and Spider-Rex. During the chase, Peter asks Miguel to get a picture of this, as it’s Mayday’s first chase, she ends up webbing the button and getting the shot herself. Miles almost gets cornered but leaps out a window. They end up falling beneath the city into an underground section. Peter B webs miles and pulls him away. He tells Miles that it’s crazy to run. He insists that Miles hold Mayday and let them change the vibe so they can talk. He eventually says that he and MJ had her because he likes Miles and thought that if he could raise his kid to be as good as Miles that’d be great. Lyla tracks his location and sends the others toward Miles. He webs Peter up and then leaps through a machine to the street.

 

They end up on a high-speed train and going vertically towards the moon. Miguel takes Miles’ watch off and he starts shorting out. He and Miguel start brawling, him telling the future Spider-Man. Miguel tells him that he’s an anomaly, THE anomaly. That the spider that bit him came from a universe other than his own, so there’s a dimension that has no Spider-Man to protect it. He calls Miles a mistake, and that because of him, his Peter would have lived. Miles learns that Peter and Gwen knew about his status as an anomaly and that they didn’t know how to tell him. Miles reveals that he lured all the Spiders away on purpose. He then charges up on Miguel’s digital suit and then full palm blasts him out. He tells Miguel that he’s going to do his own thing and leaps off the train before disappearing. Miguel’s suit recovers and he dives after him.

 

Back at the Bace, Margo is distracted trying hair styles for her avatar when the Go Home Machine starts powering up. Miles, while invisible, gets the machine to recognize his dimensional signature and tells it to send him home. Margo tries to switch the machine off but can’t get it to shut down. Miguel arrives and tries to break the shell being woven around Miles. Margo gets to the point where she can reboot the system but lets him go.

 

There’s a little more to the movie, but I don’t want to ruin the twist. See the movie to find out.

 

This is a great movie. The plot was great, the animation amazing and I loved the cast. Shameik Moore is amazing as Miles. He’s grown a bit between films, both physically and emotionally. He’s more of the Spider-Man he needs to be that he was growing into in the first film. The fights with his parents feel authentic. They’re a loving family that is dealing with the compounding issues of Miles having to lie to keep them safe. All the Spiders were great, but Hobie Brown portrayed by Daniel Kaluuya is amazing. I didn’t realize this on first viewing, but I saw someone point out something interesting about him. He’s designed to be and played up as Miles’ romantic rival. The too cool guy that is probably just friends with Gwen, but Miles is threatened by him and continues to mess up because of it. Instead, from the moment he arrived he was Miles’ biggest fan. He gives him tips and advice, tries to warn him about the pitfalls of Spider Society, generally just being a helpful dude. I especially liked the bit where he was seemingly ripping tech off at random but was building something important for the finale. Karan Soni as Pavitr is great as Spider-Man India. He’s cool, confident, and just loves the lifestyle. I enjoyed him being upset about various Indian stuff. I think his design is the best of all the characters and a vast improvement on the original Spider-Man India suit. Originally, his suit is top half Spider-Man, bottom half a dhoti with a trailing sash. It’s just… not great. The redesign just feels more… authentically Indian. So yeah, he’s cool. I liked the expansion on Gwen’s story, showing us how she became Spider-Woman and the death of her Peter. I think it fleshed her out just a bit more to see the worst part of her origin before jumping into the main plot. Her universe is also beautifully animated, just saying. The chase scene is amazing, I just wish it hadn’t been spoiled in literally every trailer. Jason’s Schwartzman is great as the Spot. I read that the idea was he’s supposed to be Miles’ antithesis, as Miles grew into a better hero in the first film, The Spot grew as a villain in this one. But that leads a little into the bad.

 

I feel like the Spot is weirdly utilized in this film. He’s the main villain in the first half, a bumbler that becomes an eldritch horror, but then he just kind of vanishes halfway through the movie. I know that they needed to set up the Spider Society and to finish off the Spot in movie 3 but it’s just an uneven pacing to me. Also, when we get to the Spider Society, all but like 10% of which was used in the trailer by the way, it feels like we’re super rushing through that to set up all these Spider-Men/women/people. Part of me feels like they should have finished off the Spot in this film and then saved dealing with the issues that the Spider Society solves and maybe causes in the third one instead.  But that’s just me.

 

Again, I loved this movie, so I don’t really have much to criticize… From a story telling standpoint. It sounds like the animators were worked to exhaustion without proper compensation in order to get this out and that’s a serious issue in the industry. Just saying. The movie is great, but we need to do better for animators.

 

Great movie, solid story, heroes, and villains. There are minor pacing issues to it and a slight feeling like this is two different movies that are kind of stitched together to get the final product, but it’s an overall fun story. We’re in an era with a glut of multiverse stories, but this one stands out as one of the better ones. The Spiders are all well designed, well animated, and well-acted. The movie has me excited for the finale, and I have no real idea where it’s going to go, along with that twist at the end. Obviously with the writers and actor’s guild strikes still currently going on at the time of writing, it’ll probably not be out in 2024 like originally predicted but I’m more than willing to wait. Great stories need great writers to make them, and all writers need to be paid a living wage. Just saying. So yeah, good movie. Not sure how we’re going to close out this month. So, my next post will be a surprise. Have a good night, everyone. 

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