Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Changed Me

The first time I watched Miles Morales take his death-defying leap of faith off that Brooklyn skyscraper, I knew that something in me had just changed. My breath caught in my throat, and the hair on my arms stood on end as chills ran up and down my entire body. The thoughts weren't far behind the feelings, and I found myself breathlessly trying to put them into words that sounded a bit more academic and dignified than this is one of the greatest moments I've ever experienced in a film. To an extent, movie critics are supposed to examine a film with a level of dispassion not extended to a casual viewer, yet the paradox of this is that we are also trying to put into words the emotions of experiencing a movie that others cannot. If I'm not mistaken about the near-universal love for it, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is one of those special movies where the measured, learned process of analyzing a movie meets the universal emotional response to watching one.

In a sense, this is a story we've heard before, a story about a kid who gets bitten by a radioactive spider and granted both extraordinary powers and extraordinary responsibilities he never asked for. It draws inspiration from about every Spider-Man comic that has ever been published, and thus, I can't exactly call Into the Spider-Verse original in that sense. But make no mistake, this is a special movie, and in other senses, I'd be doing it a dire disservice by calling it anything short of revolutionary. This is a familiar story told in a way it's never been told before. It's a movie that's similar enough to the rest of Spider-Man's legacy to pay rich homage to it, but some of its best aspects set it apart from the rest of the character's history in the best possible way.

The first and most obvious difference between this movie and the rest of Spider-Man's filmography is that Into the Spider-Verse is animated. The slapstick and contradictory humor of Tom Holland's live-action movies never worked as well for me as it did for other people, especially when it came to his inevitable inclusion in the Infinity Saga and all of the tonal whiplash that came with a web-slinging comedian trying to prevent the otherwise-serious extinction of humanity. However, the medium of animation gives filmmakers a level of control over visual gags that live-action movies couldn't afford them, and Into the Spider-Verse is something so many other Spider-Man movies tried way too hard to be: it's funny. This is probably old news to you, but Marvel Cinematic Universe movies have a bad habit of undercutting profound moments with unfunny jokes, and because their filmmaking style subscribes to a template, both the things that work about their movies and the things that don't are amplified tenfold and applied to all of them as if they're on a factory assembly line. However, the humor of Into the Spider-Verse works because it knows it's an animated movie, and despite containing some more serious moments, it sells much of its jokey dialogue with beautifully exaggerated animation that perfectly complements the humor.

Now, on the level of mere style, I'll be clear: the animation of this movie is unlike anything you've ever seen. It's a love letter to classic comic books and the timeless passion of an artist unchained, a slap in the face to corporate greed and inoffensive meh. Into the Spider-Verse is just as visually meticulous and subtle as it is grandly beautiful and expressive, with an attention to detail as thorough as any you'll ever see in any movie, animated or not. It can tell you everything you could ever want to know about Miles and the rest of the Spider-Men with either grandiosity or mutedness. The technical direction of this movie is single-minded and visionary, and it accomplishes something that has genuinely never been accomplished before, bringing the entirety of Brooklyn to life as only an artist can.

Another issue I've had with Marvel is, outside of Black Panther, their perpetual refusal to acknowledge the larger culture of the places their movies are set in. However, Into the Spider-Verse is a brilliant exception to this rule. The hip-hop influences of its soundtrack are the expressive stand-out of this exception, and listening to it feels like Brooklyn came to life and started making music. It perfectly captures the essence of both the city and Miles's quick-paced, stressful life there, and doesn't give you a moment to breathe, in a good way. It doesn't just sound appropriate; it feels appropriate.

Last, and most certainly not least, my favorite thing about Into the Spider-Verse is that, in the midst of its revolutionary art style, its hectic inner-city setting, its multiple iterations of Spider-Man, and its rich references to the rest of the character's lore, this movie is more about Miles and who he is than it is about anything else, far more. When I say that this movie changed me, what I really mean is that I was changed by the simplest, most fundamental things about it. Yes, there's a dimension-ripping particle accelerator and an evil octopus woman in this movie, but the most important thing about it is not whether Miles will be able to stop what's coming, but rather if he will be able to bear the weight of the great expectations placed upon him. One of the running themes of this movie is that any of us could be Spider-Man, and what stands out to me about Miles is how ordinary he can be, from his basketball-shoe-wearing character design to his awkwardness around the girl he's crushing on at school. Miles is an unachieved ideal that all of us strive to be, but he's also a representation of the long, arduous, sometimes-tragic, but always-rewarding process of getting there, a thematic commitment to the fact that behind the mask, any of us could be Spider-Man.

This movie doesn't just state an ideal; it embodies it.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is one of my favorite animated movies of all time. It's ultimately a homage to Spider-Man's lore, but it still manages to feel like something entirely new. It's also a heartfelt and intimate window into the life of Miles Morales, who his treated here as so much more than just another version of Spider-Man. His story is a classic fish-out-of-water tale, and having once been an awkward, in-over-his-head high school boy, it resonated with me on so many levels. I am thankful to Sony for having the presence of mind to make both an animated superhero movie where neither the animation nor the superheroes are bland, like other movies in these genres have trained me to expect.

This movie will be talked about for decades to come, standing as a monument to the power of a risk-taking artistic vision. Inoffensiveness falls into cultural obscurity in its insistence on not stirring the pot, but movies with the ambition of Into the Spider-Verse, whether they succeed or fail, deserve to be talked about because of their willingness to take a leap of faith that others won't and can't.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse - 9/10

Psalm 94:16-19