The state that you're in mentally can truly affect how you feel during or respond to a movie. For example it wasn't but almost two years ago that I watched Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird and it left me sitting outside the theater where I cried for an almost 20 minutes. In that moment I went back to a time where I remember going through exactly what Lady Bird had went through and it completely hit me in my soul. I've had a lot of great moments with movies in the cinema and sometimes those films became vessels for me to expel and confront my inner emotions that were just too strong to confront. This is why I say that cinema is sometimes more than just an artistic outlet, it has the power to overwhelm and touch us in ways we never imagined - or even tell us things we never knew about ourselves.

This was my 3rd time watching Into The Spiderverse and I have to be honest each time it only gets better. I really never had the words to express how this movie made me feel without being vulnerable and pouring out my emotions, something I hate doing. But I think I'm ready to really talk about why I really think this is not only the best Spider-Man movie but one of the greatest feats of cinema.

I can remember very vividly when I was young. A young immigrant boy of African, Cherokee, and British heritage moving to the U.S. in hopes that i could achieve or be something. I've been a racial minority my entire life, it wasn't something I chose it's just the way it is. For a long time I wasn't exactly happy with this reality and always wished I was more like the more intellectual and rich whites of my city. You see in my city minorities don't really live in the nice parts of town, in fact there are neighborhoods that will actively make sure blacks and latinos etc keep away from their neighborhoods. So all my life I developed this idea that success was for the white man, and that if I were to be successful that I was just lucky. I'm often haunted by those sleepless nights in the ghettos of third ward in Yellowstone on my uncle's couch where in another room his 5 children had to sleep. When I was a kid my parents were never around because they were constantly fighting to be something. We never really had anything in my youth. I've seen those faces of Yellowstone and I remember them all too well, the hopelessness on those beautiful but lost black faces is an image that will stick with me forever. I was once one of those hopeless and lost black faces. "I will never be worth anything" is what I always thought to myself. I'll never have money, I'll never be successful, I won't make good grades, I'll never have those nice designer clothes or those other material things I so desired. As my mom would say "we weren't living with the joneses".

Fast forward about 10 years and here I am in this lavish movie theater watching this movie Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse, a movie I would have never imagined ever existing. A movie that follows a young black/latino mixed boy, Miles Morales, who is simply just trying to be something of meaning and in his case that thing is Spider-Man. He doesn't belong at his "elitist" school, he's a black boy living in Brooklyn with two working middle class parents trying to put food on the table. There's a conversation between him and his father in the car close to the beginning of the film that is in fact a very racial conversation if you pay attention to what's being said. All odds are against Miles, he's not the hero the world needs or even wants. The world needs Peter Parker, not Miles Morales. He's not Spider-Man, and yet he is. This very concept hit me straight in my soul and I'm going to be honest I cried multiple times during this movie because I was so overwhelmed and touched. Into The Spiderverse uses its socially charged narrative, heartfelt storytelling, dazzling visuals, and tongue in cheek humor to get across that you have the power persevere beyond your obstacles. Ideas like this are really sappy and very optimistic, but when you see a brilliant movie that's this powerful you too feel like you can do anything. And that's where I related to Miles so much. I never imagined I'd be at one of the top ranked schools in the United States, or that I'd make my parents this proud, or that I'd be able to give back to my community and help those in need, or get to explore my passion in film and get to write in hopes that someday I'd have my work put on the big screen.

In the back of my head I'm still that very same black boy sleeping on his uncle's couch staring at the jagged white ceiling above him, hoping that someday he'll achieve something. I never imagined I'd be where I am in my life but I'm here, and there's really no other way to describe how it feels. I suppose I've always been a dreamer but I never thought dreams could become more than simply just that, dreams. But I can say they really can. Spider-Man ends on the note that anyone can put on the mask, anyone can be Spider-Man. A young blatino boy, a young blonde girl, a small child in love with her toys, a homeless snob, or even a pig. It's a beautiful message that speaks beyond anything that could be communicated in simply just words. Spider-Man Into The Spiderverse is a genuine showcase of the power of cinema and an innovative social commentary on humanity packaged into a high octane and enthralling action epic that offers thrills and a feast for the eyes.