Immersion in the theater gets a little harder as you get older. You might find yourself watching a film while simultaneously thinking about the myriad of other things going on in your life. Still, every once in awhile a certain film resonates at a frequency that breaks through all of your mental blocks, liquefying solid walls built up around your pleasure center. You installed them solely to keep you focused on your future, forgoing the comforts of the present to secure a brighter tomorrow. But then, out of nowhere, that bright future flashed across the screen with a comic book pop, zap, and zang, pulling you into a world of pure, complete fantasy. The weight melted from your shoulders, you are able to feel the full immersion of the thick, gooey sights and sounds of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse, the most unexpected and deeply welcome new entry into the Sony owned Spider-properties. Tl;Dr: See it on the big screen, you won’t be disappointed.

Right out of the gate, the film blinds you with a bonkers title intro that knocks your eyeballs around a few times before it sets you in for simple but engaging story. This is one of those films that is difficult to explain, but easy to understand. Spider-verse follows the young Mike Morales (Shameik Moore), an aspiring street artist of Black and Puerto Rican descent who innocently finds himself bitten by a radioactive spider that gives him the powers of Spider-Man. Yada Yada Yada, he finds himself at the center of colliding universes, calling radioactive spider bitten beings from alternate versions of the same New York City multi-verse. This includes, Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), Gwen Stacy/Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn), and Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage). They found a way to control all of this talent and give them all the screen time each character deserved. The script pens some great gags and scenarios that will have you busting a gut while being totally believable despite its very cartoon heavy design. Sony let seasoned animated feature directors Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman  really flex their stuff. They found a way to translate the unique perspective of comic book panels and spray them across the screen with a lighting pace that never feels rushed or out of place. Writer and screenplay creator Phil Lord was able to approach this story with an arch that only animation could have done. Real human bodies would have slowed the story with their flailing limbs and their inability to escape that indefinable presence we call reality. It really reminds you of the raw power animation brings to the storytelling table.

What makes this film really shine is that it found the perfect place between rehashing the same old story and bringing you something more modern. Basically, it casts a wider net. The 1990’s Fox Kids cartoon is in the rearview. The earnest neighborhood Spider-Man from Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire’s outing now a little outdated with the rise of nerd culture into the mainstream. No one seems to want to acknowledge Andrew Garfield’s attempt, though it has a couple of its own moments. Miles Morales is a completely fresh take, replacing Peter’s well trodden past with a new ethnic direction that most of Marvel has been lacking possibly since its inception. Peter’s deepest relationship to culture was being from a borough of New York. He really only ever represented one side of New York’s multi-ethnic populus, which is fine, but even the other characters in his life rarely had different roots. For the most part Spider-Man as a comic rarely faced any other cultures in any meaningful way. Into the Spider-verse retraces all the ways Spider-Man as a series has recreated Peter and his universe and juxtaposed a completely different point of view with Miles, his family, and the other Spiders. But I think what I loved the most was how this movie put on display how many different ways we can see the world, and even through all of our differences, we have so much more in common.

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-verse was the biggest surprise of last year. There are so many ways it could have gone wrong or could have been the same. Last year also saw Black Panther, a power in its own right, but it comes from a completely different arena and supported the multi-ethnic world cause in a very different way. Spider-verse is much closer to home, smaller in size, but just as much an important stone in the world of diverse storytelling. It would be a tragedy if you didn’t see this film on the big screen because it takes advantage of the size in a very meaningful way, in a way only animation can. I am really looking forward to more collaborations from the animation team that put this all together. They packed in more surprises and imagination into a superhero animation than I have seen in years. Grab a ticket, take a seat, and keep your eyes on the screen. Every second is worth it.

~* 10/10 *~