Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Movie Review

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

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Written by: Phil Lord & Rodney Rothman (screenplay by, )Phil Lord (story by), Peter David, Steve Ditko, David Hine, Stan Lee, Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Latour, Rick Leonardi, Fabrice Sapolsky, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Tom DeFalco, Mark Bagley, Sara Pichelli, Robbi Rodriguez (comic characters created by), Dan Slott (creator "Spider-Verse"), Meghan Malloy (story consultant)
Directed by: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman
Starring: Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry, Lily Tomlin, Zoë Kravitz, John Mulaney, Nicolas Cage, Kathryn Hahn, Liev Shreiber, Chris Pine
Rated: PG
Watch the trailer

Plot
Teen Miles Morales becomes the Spider-Man of his reality, crossing paths with five counterparts from another dimensions to stop a threat for all realities.

Verdict
This is the best Spider-man movie. The art style and direction are amazing. At times it looks like a comic. The story is bold and engrossing, and at times it's quite funny. This embraces comic books, from the look to how wild the stories can be. It's an absolutely spectacular movie that takes risks while being cohesive and not leaving us hanging for a sequel.
Watch it.

Review
There is so much to love about this movie. The animation and style is great. They worked on this to make it look more like a comic book and the style really shines. At times it looks like CGI, other times like a comic book page come to life. It's very stylized and even the art direction looks great. The shots are framed perfectly. The colors are spectacular. Making the look less realistic, really sets this apart. Don't let it being animated make you think this is for kids. Text boxes and text are added on screen, not constant, but at certain points for emphasis. When it appears it's natural, and highlights a moment. As great as the style is, the story backs it up.

This starts with Peter Parker relaying the origin story we saw in the 2002, 2004 movies. Then we cut to Miles Morales. This is Miles origin story. This story takes a bold choice early on and it's a great move. This movie is daring and bold, upending the typical super hero movie.
Miles is distraught at what's happening and then Peter Parker comes in to mentor Miles. This connects the opening monologue. I really like seeing an older, jaded super hero. He's tired and we see everything that can go wrong with the super hero life. It's a truer look, and I like it.

This story gets wild, with various iterations of Spider-man. This explores a few of them. All of these characters have appeared in comic books. At first I didn't like Peter Porker. It just seemed too comical, but it's a bold move just like a lot of the plot points. I'm sure many people don't like an old and jaded super hero.
It's really cool to see all of these iterations in one movie. Noir Spiderman is really funny, all of his lines are 30s/40s style talk. He's mesmerized by the Rubix cube, as he's drawn only in black and white. This is really funny at times.

While this has some of the super hero movie moments, there's a lot to this that's a very different take on the genre and what we've seen in Spider-man movies. The big battle at the end is visually awesome. Multiple universes converge. The soundtrack is also awesome.

Phil Lord also worked on Lego Batman (read my review), that movie, as does this one, really knows the super hero and character. This comically exploits what makes Spider-man funny while also dialing in the character. It's clear the creators know Spider-man very well. We get a well thought out and plotted story that looks amazing.