Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Marcy Webb

Review by Marcy Webb

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

2018
★★★★★ Liked

Watched 28 Dec 2018

The BEST Spider-Man film (sorry, Spider-Man 2)
The BEST 2018 superhero film (sorry, Black Panther)
The BEST animated Marvel film (sorry, Big Hero 6)
The BEST Sony Pictures Animation film (sorry, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs)
The best film to explicitly use comic book aesthetics (sorry, Hulk, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, American Splendor, Sin City, maybe Watchmen)
One of THE most faithful comic adaptations ever
One of THE best films of 2018
One of THE best postmodern uses of memes within cinema
The best animated Stan Lee cameo of 2018 (sorry, Ralph Breaks the Internet)

Quick reading list (give me an omnibus!):
Spider-Man 1-3
Amazing Fantasy #15
Amazing Spider-Man wedding issue
Spider-Man Noir
Peter Porker: Spider-Man
Ultimate Comics: The Death of Spider-Man
Ultimate Comics All-New Spider-Man - #1-10 at least
Spider-Men
Spider-Verse
Spider-Gwen

Some other observations:
Spider-Man: Homecoming diversified the Midtown cast and lifted elements from Morales (Ned Leeds as the geeky, LEGO building, Asian best friend; Donald Glover playing a character with the alter ego of the Prowler), but Into the Spider-Verse is the best and OG rendition of this
Sony jammed together the elements alluded to in their leaked emails (thanks, The Interview) - an older, jaded, married Spider-Man; a Sinister Six of villains (kind-of) including Doc Ock, the (Ultimate) Green Goblin, some other more obscure ones, Spider-Gwen as a lead character!
Ugghhhh I need to see this in IMAX or 3D if that exists
Hardcore Marvel Studios diehard stans may reject any dissention - Sony, Fox continue to prove the strength of different and diverse films outside the universe
Sony embraces the best parts of their unfairly dismissed (sometimes) films - explicit visual allusions to the Raimi trilogy, the New York subway as an engaging and visual character (getting some Ghostbusters [2016] flashbacks) Aunt May as a badass played by my fave Lilly Tomlin), Spider-Gwen as a teenage rocker modelled on Emma Stone's rendition of the character. TASM2 was criticised for combining too many elements; Into the Spider-Verse proves this can be done effectively - multiple characters, locations, plot lines - but still world building a larger franchise and never feeling jumbled - and still deal with loss, mourning, kids rising to the mantel
Those glitch opening Columbia and Marvel logos!
The Bill Siekenwicz-esque Kingpin paintings! Miles' thought bubbles a la BMB's (currently enjoying things at DC) character internal monologue exposition
Amy Pascal deserves more love

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