Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Tonight I went and saw “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” which came out two weeks ago, and tonight I will let everyone know what I thought about it.

It’s not like we needed another “Spider-Man” movie, since there was the Tobey Magurie/Sam Raimi trilogy, the two starring Andrew Garfield, “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and the scene stealing parts in “Captain America: Civil War” and “Avengers: Infinity War.”

What could be left to tell that would make “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” worth checking out?

As the films story goes, plenty.

First off, the Spider-Man origin story (an actual myth) in here with an African-American boy, something the franchise should have done after the first trilogy.

Instead of Peter Parker, we have Miles Moralis (Shameik Moore), a private school kid with stress from his cop dad (Brian Tyree Henry) to stop drawing with graffiti spray paint and focus on his school.

While on a day out with his uncle Aaron, voiced by Mahershala Ali, to spray paint an underground wall, the famous part happens when a radioactive spider stings the school kid and everything changes as Miles sees he can climb walls, amongst other things.

Jim Schembri said in his review, “So far, so so. Then the big twist to the story hits with the introduction of a giant subterranean generator that opens portals to the multi-verse (alternate versions of reality, for those who have seriously never watched Star Trek or Family Guy.)”

Through the portals Miles teams up with other versions of Spider-Man from other dimensions, including Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), a Sin City-noir Spider-Man (Nicolas Cage), a pig version called Spider-Ham (John Mulaney) and an anime robot controlled by a teenage girl (Kimiko Glenn). Then we have the original Spider-Man, aka Peter Parker, voiced by Jake Johnson and Chris Pine. Their enemies are the ones controlling the multi-verse generator, the morbidly obese Kingpin (Liev Schreiber) and the multi-limbed Olivia Octavius (Kathryn Hahn).

Schembri said, “It’s a full-on, fun adventure, all ignited by the film’s rhapsodic animation, a dazzling collision of traditional comic-book style images and digital wizardry that give the film the warm feel of the pulpy medium from which the superhero genre sprang from.”

Opposed to many of the other films in this genre, this Spider-Man is really great to look at especially when the dimensions start to cross in the film’s extended finale. Schembri pointed out, “Don’t expect the sheen and precision you typically see in a digital animation; the images here have a vivid, vibrant texture all their own that apparently involved developing new techniques with hundreds of digital artists.”

Thanks to the directors (Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman, working from a story by Phil Lord) that they’ve made such a summary basis so easy to follow.

Schembri ended his review by saying, “Propelling it all is the value that runs through all the Spider-man films, that even superheroes need help and can spring from the most surprising places.”

Spoiler alert: the post-credits scene shows Miguel O’Hara, voiced by Oscar Isaac, learns about the crisis and starts his own dimension-hopping mission. O’Hara ends up getting into an argument with that universe’s Spider-Man, voiced by Jorma Taccone.

This is an absolute must to watch. If you love the Spider-Man movies, this one is an definite must for you. Definitely check this one out because it’s funny, entertaining, the jokes go by so fast it’s hard to keep up with them, with great action and great animation. All in all, it was a lot of fun. Let’s see what the future holds for this film, if Sony starts a franchise on the Spider-Verse before Disney buys them out and jumps on that idea. In the middle of the credits, there was a quote said by the late Stan "the man" Lee, which I shouted out "Rest in Peace, Stan Lee," and everyone in the theater applauded after reading the quote and after hearing my comment.

Look out tomorrow for the next installment in “Disney Live Action Month.”