The cinema landscape for the current millennium is noticeably more infantile than the one that preceded it. Sexless good guys are stalwart and true, the bad guys are clearly definable by their giant purple heads and villainous 3rd act monologues, and the path to box office success is counting on adults embracing the childish joys of watching bad guys get smashed.
When Miles Morales (Shamiek Moore) first came to the screens in 2018 in Spider-man: Into The Spider-Verse, it seemed like it would be more of the same. But instead, it became the crown jewel in the superhero landscape. Slick animation that paid tribute to comic book art while playing with texture, frame rates and rotoscoping to create a heart-stoppingly gorgeous and lovely tale of an Afro-Latino Brooklyn teen teaming up with a cohort of Spider-people from parallel universes to save the day. The sequel has everything that made the first film so special, but most thrillingly, it puts away childish things. There’s moral ambiguity, meaningful stakes and commentary on race, capitalism and the state of cinema that have matured alongside its protagonist.
A year has passed for Miles. He’s shot up in height, gained notoriety (including a guest stint hosting Jeopardy and an ill-fated baby powder endorsement deal), and he’s trying to persuade his helicopter parents to allow him to go to Princeton. He longs to reunite with Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), but she is dealing with her own problems in her dimension, feeling alienated and alone as her police captain father is hunting down her alter-ego Spider-Woman.
We commence with a journey into Gwen’s world, which acts as a stunning mood ring, each colour palette shifting and abstracting in line with her emotional state. Gwen’s drum playing punctuates her turmoil, with taps on the snare in sync with her sharp wit, delivered with delicious snark by Steinfeld. When battling a Da Vinci-esque Vulture in a modern art museum who cannot believe that Jeff Koons is considered an artist, she fires back, “We’re talking about it, aren’t we? And it’s more of a meta-commentary on what we call art.” This sets the tone for what lies ahead.
The likes of Zuckerberg and Whedon have made “meta” seem like a pejorative descriptor. In the Spider-Verse, it thrives, everything from billboards for “generic soda brand” to speeches from Miles’ mother Rio (Lauren Velez), about university touch on coming-of-age, race, love, animation, the MCU and the comic book art. Similarly, there are ample interpretations of the film as a whole. Is it satire on the original film’s unexpected success? The suggestion is there. Is it grappling with the burden of low expectations that POCs face? Adds up. Is it about the fallacy of free will if you accept your destiny, the tactics of cults and a commentary on the overuse of trauma as character development? Also works!
The new universes introduced are an absolute riot. Beyond Gwen’s world, a trip to “Mumbattan” to visit Indian Spider-Man Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni) is a delight. New character-wise, MVP goes to Daniel Kaluuya’s Spider-Punk, who is part Basquiat, Part Sex Pistols album cover and all audaciously cool anti-establishment swagger. This is very much a middle chapter of a trilogy, and so it doesn’t conclude neatly, setting up that we will see if and how things can be resolved in 2024’s Beyond The Spider-Verse. But suffice to say, it comes down to much more than good vs evil and knowing who or what needs to be smashed for a happy-ever-after.
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ANTICIPATION.
Surely, this will cure my Marvel fatigue... 4
ENJOYMENT.
There is more care, craft and joy contained in Miles getting changed on a stairwell than in the entire Thor franchise. 5
IN RETROSPECT.
In every possible universe, and every interpretation, this slaps. 5
Directed by
Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K Thompson
Starring
Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Oscar Isaac
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