Okay you guys, I finally sat down and watched this whole movie with my son, who shares a name with the main protagonist of this movie. He loves that fact. He's also seen the movie a dozen or more times - it used to be on netflix and well, sometimes dad's got to put on headphones and get work done in his corner office, aka the corner of the living room.

So sometimes I put on a movie for him. I'm always careful about what I select; so far he's never seen the likes of Paw Patrol or Caillou but he has watched a majority of the Ghibli films). I heard SUCH great things about this new Spiderman movie and since it was PG and looked cool in a preview, I pressed play for him.

He fell in LOVE, and it's pretty safe to say that Spiderman is his favorite fictional character... after Nausicaa. But they don't make Nausicaa toys or pajamas or nerf guns so he spends a lot more time with Spider-stuff. He's watched some of the questionable 1980s cartoon, he's watched a LOT of the 90s cartoon (still the best theme song), but he clearly favors this iteration of the character. Now that I finally watched, it's so easy to see why.

First of all, it helps that this is a stunning cartoon, one of the most visually inventive animated features I've ever seen, especially this deep into the age of smooth-cgi supremacy. Sure, every Pixar movie looks good and some are downright gorgeous, but nothing from the mouse house has looked so radical, aside maybe when the original Toy Story burst into theaters. It's hard to describe why it all works, but when you see it in motion you just *feel* it right away. The characters move at what looks like half-frames while the world swirls fluidly around them - combined with the wild neon color palette and palpable comic book panels come to life editing and shot composition, it's probably the most "comic book" a comic book movie has ever looked. The MCU and DC offerings look drab and unfortunately naturalistic in comparison; the only adaptations I can think of with a similarly dedicated aesthetic might be Sin City or maybe Dredd. Regardless of why, I'm super thankful I bought the 4k bluray for my kiddo. I've only got a handful of these so far and it's telling that half are animated features.

Secondly, the story is a really FUN way to introduce the newer Spiderman (he's been in the books for a decade now) to a broad audience while also weaving in the far more familiar Peter Parker, plus a handful of alternate reality Spiderpeople and a nice cluster - but not an overload - of supervillains to battle. Although I haven't read a Spiderman comic in a couple decades, I grew up reading The Amazing Spiderman and I'm fairly confident stating that this movie felt closer to the tone and feel of those stories than any previous film adaptation. Sure, Sam Raimi's Spiderman 2 absolutely rocks and still stands as one of the best superhero movies, but it didn't make me feel like a 12 year old absorbed in the books like this one did. It's just super zippy, funny, smart, self-deprecating, self-aware (but not self-conscious), and cut down to the essentials. There's a lot of story packed in here with not a wasted minute, yet it never feels rushed, even with a full team of ridiculous Spiderpeople weaving in and out of the frame.

The music, including the pop needle drops, is uniformly excellent. The voice acting stable is stacked with big hitters like Lily Tomlin as Aunt May and Liev Schreiber as Kingpin, but my favorites are probably John Mulaney's hilarious Spiderpig (seriously, he was born to voice cartoons) and Nic Cage as the brooding noir Spiderman. Oh and of course Shameik Moore, who I only knew from the movie Dope, as Miles Morales himself. I'm just going to stop naming more aspects that I like because it really did everything well that it needed to succeed, and then some. I'm leaving discussion of the exceptional story themes for next time, because honestly I could talk a lot about why it made such an impression. Basically, it does to superheroes what The Last Jedi tried to do for Star Wars before Disney got cold feet and retconned it in the next movie: it tells us that anyone can be a hero, can do good in this world - it just takes making the choice to do the right and often more difficult thing and, more importantly, it takes the resolve to get back up. I like that a lot more than the whole destined-to-be-great narratives that come borrowed directly from Greek mythology. (even when their movies are super fun, looking at you Aquaman)

It's just one of the best iterations I've seen of maybe the most popular superhero of our time and it's so stylish, crisp, and most of all fun that I couldn't help but totally surrender to its charms. This is probably boring to say because seemingly everyone has already seen it, and everyone told me it'd be fantastic, but here I am showing up very late to say you were all right.