Short version: it’s AMAZING, SPECTACULAR, everything you’ve already heard, basically. The comic book style direction is thrillingly inventive and it’s filled with heart and humour. Wonderful. Can’t wait to see it again.

The following review originally appeared on Hero Collector (RIP).

Marvel's flagship character receives the mother of all reboots with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, a wildly entertaining animated adventure that breathes new life into the character and opens up a multi-verse of infinite possibilities. Matthew Turner spins a web, any size.

Ever since the first teaser trailer revealed the face of Miles Morales, anticipation has been sky-high for Sony's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, an animated Marvel superhero adventure unlike anything you've seen on screen before. Thrillingly, the movie delivers on the excitement of its trailers, offering a stunningly original take on an old favourite and leaving Spider-fans young and old excited for the future of the character.

The plot centres mixed race 13 year-old Miles Morales (a character first introduced in Marvel's Ultimate line of comics, back in 2011), voiced by Shameik Moore. Miles lives with his cop dad Jefferson (Brian Tyree Henry) and his nurse mother Rio (Luna Lauren Velez), but he's drawn to his shady uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali), which is how he winds up getting bitten by a genetically enhanced spider, after accompanying Aaron to a disused subway tunnel to do some graffiti.

When he suddenly develops spider-powers (all the traditional ones, plus a couple of extras like a venom blast and a camouflage ability that's basically invisibility), Miles investigates and in doing so, witnesses the death of Spider-Man / Peter Parker (Chris Pine) in a battle with the Green Goblin. Miles decides to become the new Spider-Man, but things quickly get complicated when he meets an older, paunchier Peter Parker (Jake Johnson), swiftly followed by four other spider-people: Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage, in a stroke of casting perfection), anime-like Peni Parker and her spider-robot (Kimiko Glenn) and Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham (John Mulaney).

Working together, the spider-quintet discover that The Kingpin (Liev Schrieber) and his mysterious scientist sidekick (Kathryn Hahn) have opened a portal to multiple other universes, that threatens to collapse reality. In order to return his spider-friends to their own realities, Miles has to step up as a superhero, master his powers and embrace his destiny. If only he could get the hang of web-slinging.

Produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, it's perhaps not surprising that Into the Spider-Verse emulates the dizzyingly inventive pace of The Lego Movie. There's a boldness to the story-telling that is simply breath-taking, fully embracing the complex madness of fifty plus years of comics continuity (including Marvel's own Spider-Verse run) and trusting audiences to go along with it, without necessarily being all that familiar with the source material.

What really leaps out though, is the visual style of the film, which feels like a comic book come to life, brilliantly reproducing panels, thought balloons, sound effects, captions and other effects. (In a further inspired touch, that element of the film only kicks in once Miles gets his powers). In addition, each of the spider-characters has their own animation style (Spider-Ham is straight out of Looney Tunes, for example), and, incredibly, Lord, Miller and co-directors Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman (the latter of which co-wrote the screenplay with Lord) make all of that work, even managing to be faithful to the various source materials in the process.

The film moves at a rapid rate that befits the characters on the screen, firing off barrages of great gags, both visual and verbal, while throwing in so many references that you actually start to feel sorry for whoever ends up writing the 'All the references and in-jokes in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse' pieces. One of those jokes has an unintended sadness to it this time round, however – the obligatory Stan Lee cameo has him saying “I'm really going to miss him” about Spider-Man, sentiments which now apply to the man himself.

The action sequences are thrilling to watch, even if they do eventually get a little repetitive, especially with five spider-people slinging webs and punching things. There are also plenty of treats for comics fans, including some redesigns on classic characters it would be unfair to spoil here.

The voice performances are exceptional. Johnson is pure perfection as the jaded, but still wise-cracking version of Peter Parker, while Moore is exactly right as Miles and their bond forms the beating heart of the film, as well as delivering the funniest gags. Similarly, Cage and Mulaney are both very funny as spiders Noir and Ham, while Steinfeld is so good that you instantly want a Spider-Gwen sequel. There's also a great comic turn from Lily Tomlin as Aunt May, in a version of the character that will be familiar to readers of the Ultimate comics. On top of that, Ali does great work as Uncle Aaron, while Schreiber makes a great Kingpin, the effect of which is heightened by the superb character design, which has Fisk as a huge wall of body with a pink round head in the middle.

Of course, this wouldn't be a Spider-Man film without a strong moral message (the “with great power” gag gets perhaps the film's biggest laugh) and Into the Spider-Verse duly delivers, making the touching point that anyone can be a hero, while simultaneously taking great strides for representation.

In short, this is an utterly exhilarating and brilliantly animated adventure whose imminent success opens up an exciting new direction for superhero movies in general and Marvel movies in particular. Make sure you stick around for a genuinely hilarious post-credits sting, as well as some very funny audio over the credits.