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MOVIE REVIEW: FTN reviews Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse

December 9th, 2018 by Marc Comments

Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse (PG)
Directed: Bob Persichetti & Peter Ramsey
Starring: Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld

Miles Morales becomes the Spider-Man of his reality and crosses paths with his counterparts from other dimensions to stop a threat to all reality.

Oh, boy… you know the way you’ve been hearing the reports that Spider-man: Into The Spider-verse is fantastic? Yeah, well fantastic doesn’t do this movie justice.

It’s a sublime delight that engages on every level: characters, humour, action… everything just clicks here.

The movie focuses on teenager Miles Morales (Moore) who is bitten by a spider that infuses him with super-powers and who then has to come to terms with how exactly he can use these powers, all the while dealing with the fact that not only is there already a Spider-man in his world, but there’s many, many Spider-men/women/pigs out there in different universes.

He also has to deal with a complicated relationship with his dad who wants to push Miles hard so he makes something of his life.

And, while this sounds like pretty much every superhero movie in the history of the world, ever, it’s not.

Into the Spider-Verse doesn’t really mess around with establishing the universe… here’s Spider-man, here’s Kingpin, here’s villains, here’s alternate worlds, because, ultimately it knows that by now, in the world we live in that is infused with comics and comic movies, you can deal with all this stuff without being patronised.

And it’s glorious; the cast are so on point here, especially Moore’s Miles and Jake Johnson’s Peter Parker/Spider-man, who have chemistry together that immediately humanises the characters and makes them identifiable and vulnerable. Special mention too to Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen/Spider-Gwen and a super-menacing Liev Schrieber as Kingpin who, while hasn’t got too much to do, really delivers a version of the character who is as terrifying in his own way as the Netflix version.

And yes, Nicholas Cage’s Spider-man Noir is wonderful too.

The animation style is just incredible, with every single frame feeling like a living, breathing comic, and yet making the world identifiable and realistic.

Honestly, I could just gush about this movie all day… there’s nothing I didn’t love. It ticks every box and, along with the success of Venom earlier this year, the MCU is going to have to grip really tight to keep Spider-man and, honestly, after this, Sony might finally have a proper direction for Spidey.

On a side note, in a world that’s full of movies and TV shows who give us diverse characters and then insist on telling us how awesome it is that  woman can be a hero or a black kid can be a hero, this one feels like the movies of the past that didn’t have to tell us, but rather just gave us incredible characters like Blade or Sarah Connor. Here, Miles is just fantastic. Gwen is just fantastic. More of that, please!

Bright, funny, exciting and completely relatable, Into the Spider-verse is arguably the best/most pure comic book movie ever made. It’s certainly the best Spider-man movie.

5 out of 5 Nerds

Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….