Year of Release: 2023
Director: Joaquim dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson
Starring: Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Brian Tyree Henry, Luna Lauren Velez, Jake Johnson, Oscar Isaac, Jason Schwartzman, Issa Rae, Daniel Kaluuya, Karan Soni, Shea Whigham, Greta Lee
Genre: Action, Adventure, Animation
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 7
Watch it on Amazon
Synopsis and Review:
After the resounding commercial and critical success of "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" it was only a matter of time until a sequel was set in motion. This narrative picks up right after the events of the first film. Miles Morales is still dealing with his challenges of finishing high-school and preparing to go to college, while still having a crush on Gwen Stacy, the Spider-Woman from a parallel universe. Gwen in the meantime is dealing with a version of the Vulture, who came into her universe wreaking havoc, and finds some help courtesy of other universe travelers, Miguel O'Hara and Jess Drew. Her father in the meantime, police captain George Stacy thinks Spider-Woman is a criminal, unaware that he is actually pursuing his own daughter. Miles also has additional challenges, courtesy of a new villain, someone who goes by the name Spot and has the ability to create portals and navigate through them. Spot blames Miles for his condition, since he was just an average scientist, and suddenly developed those abilities as a result from an explosion that took place in the previous film. As Gwen travels to Miles' universe with the intent of also tracking Spot, and while they pick up their friendship/love interest right where they left it, they find themselves going into yet another universe in pursuit of Spot, only for those actions to start having dramatic consequences. Their action force the Spider-Man society to intervene and in ways that none of them were expecting.
One of the most interesting aspects of the "Spider-Verse" films has been their obvious superior animation and aesthetics. Both films are astonishingly well done, with a superlative use of color, transitions/editing, animation styles, all assembled in what feels like a frantic momentum, but one that is actually sensical, and eventually demonstrates the high energy and stakes that the central characters face. These films have successfully branched out beyond the traditional and have demonstrated the potential that modern animation can actually have in storytelling. However one of the big challenges with these narratives are the storylines, and in this case in particular, the multiverse plot point which is starting to sound tired and repetitive. The multiverse aspect of a storyline is something comic-books have used many times, and at some point writers have always found ways to press the reset button, since it's a plot device that becomes complex and frankly, tiresome to tackle at the same time with a considerable amount of characters to expand upon (multiple versions of the same character, with different families, and relationships, and so on). DC Comics legendarily tried to solve some of these Multiverse issues with the iconic series "Crisis on Infinite Earths" in the mid 80s to much success. Marvel however is still persisting on this journey, as can be witnessed from Sam Raimi's "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness", though based on their filmic output of 2023, they may also have to rethink their storylines. All this to say, while this iteration of the "Spider-Verse" is aesthetically stunning to look at, and everything does align, from an art direction, character design, score, voice cast, the narrative itself is starting to wear itself out. Miles Morales essentially treads on topics that have been tackled before (in the other "Spider-Man" features), with the biggest difference for this film being the drama faced by Gwen, and her relationship with her father. But these aren't the central topics of the narrative, with the attention being pulled into this multiverse storylines. And that just isn't enough anymore. It's a film worth watching, but one that also questions what else could have been told about these characters that doesn't necessarily revolve jumping around different universes.
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