Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Year: 2023
Rating: PG
Length: 140 minutes / 2.33 hours
Without fail, I have watched wildly successful movies gain sequels that were too big for just one movie. The latest entry in this Trilogy Conundrum is none other than the animated Spider-Verse series. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) was a stylish and refreshing animated film that won the Best Animated Feature Oscar. Its sequel, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), is equally good in both storytelling and animation. However, the size of such a story being stretched over two films affected some of this movie’s pacing.
I am increasingly becoming a fan of the “stylized” animated movies like Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse. Pixar can show how realistic CGI animation can be, but I found truly creative CGI animation in other studios like this one. This “cartoony” style lends itself to the humor of the fight between Miles (Shameik Moore) and Spot (Jason Schwartzman). It’s also versatile enough to be serious when it needs to be. If anything, it is able to highlight the visual differences between the different universes.
Superfans of the Spider-Man franchise likely got tons of references from decades of Spider-Man iterations. Even if this is your first introduction to the character, it’s likely you already know about the “canon events” that make up the central theme of this movie. Although it was enjoyable to see Spider-Man in different settings, the film’s second half was sluggish as it built up to the next movie’s premise. Not knowing where they were going to cut to a “To Be Continued” card made the last bit seem endless. Still, I’m excited to watch the last part of this trilogy since the first two parts have been solid.
A solid Trilogy Conundrum entry in the Spider-Verse saga, I give Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse 4.5 stars out of 5.
1/2
