Fresh spin on stale franchise

2002’s ‘Spider-Man’, directed by Sam Raimi, is often considered a land­mark movie for the super-he­ro genre. It tasted glory way before Hollywood struck gold in the box-office with the Avengers and the X-Men series. It was able to break the jinx on expensively-produced and CGI-heavy comic book hero flicks that had a tumultu­ous history of underperform­ing commercially and anger­ing comic book fans. Then, as the situation improved for the comic book-based mov­ies, the ‘Spider-Man’ movies ironically took a bad turn. After Raimi’s three ‘Spi­der-Man’ movies, the series was rebooted once in 2012 under the direction of Marc Webb, and then again in 2017 with Spider-Man gracing the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The idea of having yet another ‘Spider-Man’ ori­gin story can bring only one question to mind: How many more Spider-Man can we take? Enter ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’, the latest animated film, and believe it or not, the movie’s basic premise revolves around the same question. That much is evident from the film’s fun trailer but the film goes much beyond.

 Who should watch it?

The animation style and the superb visual and dialogue driven humor gives this film a repeat value. This is a thoroughly enjoyable family entertainer for both hardcore Marvel fans and general audiences who want to have a fun time at the movies with their kids. Make time for this!

The humor is complimented by an equal doses of dramatically touching moments and exhilarating action sequences

We get a new Spider-Man in teenager Miles Morales (voiced by Shameikh Moore) who has to work together with five more Spider-Men from alter­nate dimensions. These other Spider-Men are a potbellied middle-aged Peter B Parker (a terrific Jake Johnson), a sassy Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), an anime inspired Penny Park­er (Kimiko Glenn), a noir pri­vate eye (Nicholas Cage) and a cartoon pig (John Mulaney). They are thrust together after a massive collider operated by the evil Kingpin ruptures the space and time continuum. Miles has to learn the ropes to master his newfound super­powers as well as gel with this ragtag team of Spider-Men so that everyone gets to their respective homes.

At one glance Miles is no different from the young Peter Parker, except that he is of mixed race, his cop father is African-American and his nurse mother is Latino. Miles is a geek, enjoys spraying graffiti art and is awkward when it comes to talking to girls. He also shares a close relationship with his uncle (Mahershala Ali). And just like Peter, he gets bitten by a radioactive spider. But within these stark similarities Miles embodies the spirited hero of the ghettos. He continues to take pride in where he comes from, even after his father urg­es him to take scholarship at a private school as his ticket out of the ghettos. Amid all the other Spider-Men stuff that’s going on, the story gives us plenty of reasons to feel strongly about the raw Miles as he earns his right to don his Spidey suit.

From its uniquely stylized animation design to the clev­er screenplay that incorpo­rates meta-humor and funny dialogue exchanges, ‘Into the Spider-Verse’ gives us plenty to enjoy. It coolly makes fun of itself and is self-referential to the Spider-Man franchise. Lately the super-hero genre flicks have grown a bolder sense of humor, so much so that this style is getting rath­er tiring to see. That is not the case here. The makers and the voice actors genu­inely make the ride fun and light-hearted.

The humor is compli­mented by an equal doses of dramatically touching moments and exhilarating action sequences. Even with so many characters and story threads, the film never feels bloated or hard to follow. The seamless writing and direc­tion make the story coherent and pack in plenty of surpris­es and twists, leading up to a deeply satisfying finale.

‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ is success­ful in accomplishing a rare feat. It gives an energetic and fresh spin to the deadbeat Spider-Man uni­verse and actually pumps new blood in the franchise to make us more excited about what’s next to come from Miles Morales.

 

 

 

 

Movie: SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE

Genre: animation

CAST: Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Mahershala Ali, Hailee Steinfeld

DIRECTION: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman