The last ten years has been crazy when it comes to being a Superhero in the world of movies. Before 2008 if you had super powers, more often than not you were being laughed off the screen or worse, completely forgotten. Then came The Dark Knight and Iron Man and the age of the super hero began and in the last few years we are living in their world as they dominate the box office. While most if not all are entertaining, for me there are the bench mark movies that raise the bar. The two I mentioned above, Marvel’s: The Avengers, and Logan, now comes Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and all I can say is get ready to look up to a new bar.
Sometimes being your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is not all receiving churros from nice old ladies. While he is saving the city regular guys like Miles Morales (Shamelik Moore) are living their lives and looking up to the web slinger. Miles might be a smart kid, but he also likes to spread his art around the city and during one such adventure he is bitten by a spider and it will change his life forever. When he is out and about he runs into a strange place where a fight between Spider-Man and Green Goblin is taking place and it is then that Miles and Spidey discover they are alike. Soon Miles discovers another Spider-Man named Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) who looks like Spider-Man if he was a middle age man who didn’t care about life very much. It doesn’t take them too long to learn that they are not the only other Spider-Men who are now in this world, as it now seems there is a spider army. Joining Miles and Peter is, Peni Parker (Kimiko Green) and her Spider Bot, Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage) and Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfield) who also has their own spider powers. Together they all help set Miles on the path to become the hero he is meant to be so they can take down Wilson Fisk (Liev Schreiber) and stop his evil plan from becoming reality.
With all the comic book movies that come out every year now it is easy to forget there are more movies that are influenced by comic books than actual comic book movies. Most don’t have that “comic” feel to them, which is not a negative, but there is a certain synergy to that way of story telling that looks and feels right on with a movie like this. What Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse does is open a whole universe, not only for animated films, but for the comic movie genre, period. And as the legend Stan Lee taught us, with great power comes great responsibility, so the choice in having filmmaker Phil Lord (The Lego Movie) as the writer makes for a special, unique viewing experience. Also getting the cast right was key and the only word I can think of that describes this cast is ‘perfection’. I feel that most of you will see this as an early Christmas gift as you can’t help but smile throughout the runtime, which includes the most clever post credit scene I have ever seen. Do yourself a favor and see this movie this weekend, as a matter of fact see it the next one as well, because as it did with me this movie will capture you in its web.
