It always fits, eventually.

Unabashedly a distillation of the mythologized conception of Spider-Man - that anyone can be behind the mask - Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is simultaneously a love letter to the character and a segue into a new generation of who and what Spider-Man can represent. A film about Miles has been in demand for some time and this first foray into depicting the character on the big screen does him justice, with the trio of Shameik Moore (as Miles), Brian Tyree Henry (as Miles' father, Jeff), and Mahershala Ali (as Miles' uncle, Aaron) are the heart of the narrative. That Miles eventually learns from both of them rather than coming to see one of them as definitively "good" and the other as definitively "bad" (a simpler choice many other animated films would have taken) elevates the film. Though the third act moves too far from that central thread, delving into goofier Spider-Gang antics and late stage attempts to flesh out too many supporting characters, the first two acts that focus on Miles' family dynamics and personal growth are the strongest.

Of course, where Spider-Verse truly succeeds is with its visual remediations of comic book aesthetics. The inclusion of Ben-Day dots are an obvious example of this, but there are other subtler, less direct translations, as well. For example, the "stuttering" movement of the characters resembles stop-motion animation while also serving as a cinematic form of what Scott McCloud calls "closure" (where the reader cognitively completes the "action" between two static panels) as the viewer and the inherent motion of cinema work together to "fill in the gaps" between the staccato gestures. An incorporation of text and graphics onscreen might be the most inventive aspect, however. Not only do scenes translate the two-dimensionality of the text box to the faux-depth of cinema (as characters run past text, it falls away into the distance), but also the temporality of space. When Miles and Peter are breaking into the Alchemax facility, there is a shot of Miles running down a hill as three dialog boxes trail behind him. In comics, those boxes would have all existed simultaneously in space adjacent to a static image of Miles, leading the reader's gaze from left to right, creating a sense of time through the gaze's traversing of space. The film, however, depicts the boxes 'popping' into place as Miles speaks the lines, containing them within a specific timeframe through the inclusion of motion.

All of those remediated aesthetic begin in earnest after Miles has been bitten by the spider, suggesting that he not only gains the powers of a spider, but those of a comic, too. Like all of the kids inspired by Spider-Man through the years, Miles eventually finds his confidence because of those comic influences. They always fit, eventually.