Review: Into The Spider-Verse (Spoilers)

First, if you haven't seen this, do.

Yes, even if you don't like "cartoons."

Are you back yet?

I honestly haven't been a fan of most modern animation. The desire seems to be to do things that can't be done live action, whilst making them as close to live action as possible. Most animators these days seem to want you to forget you're watching a cartoon. (Which has also killed much of the puppetry genre, sadly).

The team behind Into The Spider-Verse - directors Bob Persichetti (Puss In Boots, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit), Peter Ramsey (Rise Of The Guardians) and relative unknown Rodney Rothman, writers Phil Lord (The Lego Movie) and Rodney Rothman, and all the animators...played with this in a beautiful way.

One minute you're watching hyper-realistic 3-D animation and can almost forget it's a cartoon. The next...the next they're using everything you can do in animation. The philosophy was not "Let's do what we can't do in live action." It was "We're doing an animated feature. Let's remind everyone what the medium can do." Whether it was speech bubbles, interspersed motion comic frames, words following characters around the screen - Spider-Verse felt like this delightful mix of modern and traditional animation with techniques taken straight from online motion comics.

It didn't try to hide being a cartoon.

It reveled in it.

The story was one of the closest to perfect I've seen lately. There was one fight scene that dragged a little - and that was literally my only criticism. (When you want to yell "Just beat him already" at the screen, it's a bit too long).

The plotline itself was classic, true YA/MG (It kind of hovered at the edge between the two). It was an origin story, it was a coming of age story, and it was about how you don't start out great. You have to work at it.

It was about Stan Lee's assertion that anyone could be behind the mask. And in service of that, it made 616 Peter Parker...an older, somewhat gone to seed Peter who has lost MJ and is on the verge of despair...explicitly rather than implicitly Jewish. The set up for that was a blink and you'll miss it frame from his wedding, but it was clear.

Anyone can be behind the mask. A hard-boiled detective, a middle-aged guy with problems, a young girl (or two), even a pig.

And, of course, a black teenager who isn't sure who he wants to be. This movie, and Shameik Moore's excellent performance finally gave me the understanding of Miles Morales I needed. I'll always be a Peter Parker fan, but there can be more than one Spider-Man.

Which was the central message: There can be more than one hero. You are never alone.

By making 616 Peter a little bit washed up, the movie neatly skirted the risk of the White Mentor (a variant of the White Savior). In fact, it's Miles who saves Peter. From himself. The movie addressed race without a single touch of racism...my black friends all loved it. Miles Morales gives us a black-Hispanic lead whom I'm pretty sure white kids will have no problems identifying.

In short, this tied for best movie of the year with Black Panther. Not what I was expecting - I was expecting a fun afternoon. Not a movie that should be required viewing in animation school. The subtle style differences between the characters, the use of comic book elements, everything pulled together into a movie that only ever let you forget it was a cartoon so it could hit you over the head with Spider-Ham's mallet with it in a perfect way.

Oh, and the most perfect touch of worldbuilding - I don't know if this came from Ultimates comics because I avoided them to save money - but Miles' policeman dad doesn't work for the N.Y.P.D. - he works for the P.D.N.Y. This beautifully and subtly reminded the viewer throughout that they were in an alternate reality. Nice one, guys.

In other words, if you haven't seen this yet and you are into comics at all, you need to see this spectacular movie. Be aware there are strobe effects in a number of places - I wasn't triggered, but if you have migraines or a seizure disorder, be careful.

And let's set things up for it and Black Panther to cage fight in the Hugos?