Movie Review: Spider-Man - Into the Spider-verse (2018) *No Spoilers*

Movie Review: Spider-Man - Into the Spider-verse (2018) No Spoilers

I didn't go see Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse in theatres because a) Sony, and b) Animated movie... and if there's a c) Sony + Spider-man.

Then I started hearing all this word of mouth that this movie is really good so I thought, 'yeah, still not going, I'll wait for the home release'.

Then it won all these awards including an Oscar for Best Animated Feature... so I guess this movie must be good...right?

I rarely see animated features in the cinema because I have little faith in them to deliver enough entertainment at an adult level. Especially movies like Into the Spider-verse which you know is skewing for a younger demographic (as all Spider-man films in general do due to the popularity of the character with kids).

Having bought this movie on DVD (which is why I'm reviewing it now) I don't regret not having seen it in theatres, even though it would have looked amazing on a big screen.

The animation style is what really makes this film stand out. If I were to attempt to describe it I'd say it's meant to be a very retro version of a printed motion comic. i.e. it combines elements of poorly registered print comics with an effort to simulate 12 frame per second, hand drawn animation, and comic book style panels etc. It's very much a mix that gives the whole look of the movie an individual style overall.

Hence, it would look amazing on a big screen.

The story, whilst centered around Miles Morales, has to juggle a lot of characters, which for the most part it does fairly well but at the expense of putting all the characters on a kind of sliding scale of importance. For example, we get to know Miles, Peter Parker, Peter B. Parker, and Gwen fairly well, then there's three other versions of Spider-man who just arrive all at once. You get glimpses into their story but not enough to get you invested in them.

Which I understand why, but then you get even less from the rogues gallery and their stories. I'm not sure you'd even fully understand Kingpin's motivation on the first viewing if this was your first introduction to Spider-man.

Speaking of which, if this is your first introduction to Spider-man, it's a great introduction to just some of the incarnations of Spider-man there is in the comics. Though I'm not sure you'll find much on Peter B. Parker in the comics (I don't know maybe there is a run for washed up, mid life crisis Spider-man?).

I've always wondered how Spider-man's feet stick to things
even when he's wearing sneakers?

The general story revolves around Kingpin trying to access the multi-verse to bring back his family. In the process he somehow manages to drag a bunch of Spider-men/women into the current timeline. From then on it's all about how they get back, whilst thwarting Kingpin's universe wrecking scheme.

For me this was a fun movie but I did find it dragging somewhat in middle and feeling it was a little overlong. I put that down to the action sequences (yeah I know, but let me explain).

The thing I dislike the most about animated superhero movies is the action sequences. They're nearly always so over exaggerated that nothing about them feels real. You never feel a punch... and, when you do, chances are that character has survived much worse earlier in the fight/movie that you question why they suddenly don't seem to bounce back now.

As such lengthy fight/action sequences in animation tend to lose me, where as the character moments are the parts I enjoy the most. Into the Spider-verse's character moments are mostly really great. There is one exception that I felt wasn't necessary but it would spoil a bit of a plot twist moment that didn't really seem necessary in the big scheme of things.

Overall, if you're a fan of animation, this movie is one for the collection, as it's a style that very likely will be imitated and inspire future animation to be more experimental and different.

You'll certainly enjoy this if you're a superhero, and specifically a Spider-man fan. If you have pre-teen kids or older into this stuff it's one you can definitely enjoy with them.

My hope is that this movie will inspire Sony to do better with Spider-man (come... on? A Venom movie without Spider-man? What are you doing Sony?). Maybe they let Peter Parker continue to play in the Disney MCU and Sony can work on a live action Miles or Spider Gwen movie... those I would see in theatres! I'd even consider a seeing a live action Peter B. Parker movie with Tom Hardy's Venom as the villain.

I'm just saying I don't have a lot of interest in Spidey villains without Spider-man.

Anyway, Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse. If you're one of the few who didn't see it in theatres you probably should kick yourself, it would've been great. That aside it's still great on a smaller screen, and is probably in the top two of Spider-man movies made by Sony (I mean Spider-man 2 is pretty great if you forget it has virtually the same beats as Spider-man 1 and 3).

It's a fun watch and a great glimpse into the wider multi-verse of Spider-men (and women).

Comments

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices. My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe? Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

Second Sunday Skateboard Session Ep 2 - Some Improvements

TET heelflip - looking better but still not a land. A s of writing this I've stuck to my plan of filming myself skate every second Sunday. By the time this post goes up I will have three episodes done. As part of that goal I am also skating more between episodes, about every second to third day for an hour, practicing Braille's Skateboarding Made Simple, Volume 1. That said, I'm not posting these videos here immediately after they're posted to my @TETLife YouTube Channel because I only post an article once a week, and that would make every second article a Sunday Session post. These posts are really so I can add some additional thoughts after the fact, and, of course, because this blog is about all things that interest me, of which skateboarding is one of them. In episode two I had intended to speak to camera more than I do but my driveway is right next door to my neighbor's shed/workshop, and I get a little self-conscious if I'm not too sure whether he's th...

The Princess' Butterflies - Using an AI Image to Video Generator to Animate Art That Started as a 23 Year Old Rough Pen Sketch

B ack in October of 2023 I used Prome AI's Sketch Rendering feature to color a 23 year old rough pen sketch I did of a princess watching butterflies, sitting next to a waterfall in the forest. You can read more about that in my previous article, The Princess' Butterflies - Using an AI Art Generator to Color and Enhance a 23 Year Old Rough Pen Sketch The three images I used to create my final image (bottom right). Notice how closely the AI has followed my line art sketch (top left) but in the first image (top right) has misinterpreted the waterfall as some kind of large tree stump. Prome's render of the artwork was pretty good but I did end up creating a composite image myself from two of the best renders, to get my final image. Since then AI Image to Video has come a long way, particularly when it comes to creating animation from artwork and maintaining the art style for the whole generation. AI still does much better with turning photographic images to video but I found ...

Australian Federal Election 2025 - The Australian Democrats (Please Like Us Again) and The Greens

Image: Reve AI T here's not much to be said about the current Australian Democrats other than in 2025 Australian election, in May, they'll be out there hoping they win a seat... any seat... 'please like us again!' The Australian Democrats For just over two decades, from the late seventies onward, the Australian Democrats were the third most important party in the Federal government (if you don't count the National party since they've been on that coalition ticket with the Liberals for as long as I can remember). In fact, once I moved away from the Labor party, they were my top pick until the party slowly imploded in the early 2000's from a series of unfortunate events like leaders defecting to other parties, and a highly publicised incident of drunkenness, bullying, and abuse from a male party leader to a female colleague. It's been two decades since then (and that guy's with the Greens now)... please like us again! That aside, the party is still t...

The Australian Federal Election 2025 Could Be a Win For Independents

Australian Democrats founder, Senator Don Chipp, embodied the role of minor parties holding the balance of power with his quote of "keep the bastards honest." Photo Manipulated Caricature by TET. A s of writing this, the actual Australian Federal Election date has yet to be announced, as our Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, attempts to keep the focus on the fallout of severe weather events in Queensland, however it's looking likely that some time in May is the safest bet. Despite this, all parties have been hard at campaigning, with smaller parties, and in particular, conservative independent candidates, seemingly rallying together to make sure people know how much influence they can have just by preventing the two major parties (Labor and the Liberal/National coalition) from having a majority in either (or both) houses of parliament. They're also doing their part to make sure voters finally understand that preferential voting works in everybody's favor over one ...

Boom Crash Opera Born Classic But Not Again

Boom Crash Opera are an Australian Band that reached the peak of their popularity in the mid to late nineteen eighties. They are a band that I knew about at that time but was never really excited by until they released their ill fated double album Born and Born Again in 1995 (Album cover pictured). At the time of its release I was very much into emerging Australian musical acts and was also looking out for new sounds that were different and had kind of a futuristic/electronic sound. Artists that I was buying at the time included; Swoop , Nine Inch Nails and Pop Will Eat Its Self . As well as a really interesting release by David Bowie, the concept album, Outside . Born was a fairly radical departure for Boom Crash Opera (BCO). The first single, Gimme , was often compared to the sounds of Gary Glitter, particularly his single, Rock n Roll part 2 , because of the pounding drum loops. Watch the video below. My favorite single from the album is dissemble which probably went now...

Making an Effort to Be a President Trump Free Zone - Final Rant (I Hope)

I hope the American people, who voted for President Trump, get the full experience of what they thought they voted for along with what they're actually getting. Now may be a good time for them to learn to speak Russian because if World War Three does break out, it's not beyond possibility that it'll be the USA and Russia against the rest of the world, as Trump appears to be emboldening Russia to dig in on their attack on the Ukraine. China, may opt to stay neutral, or even join forces with the rest of the world because they've been quietly winning an economic war with so many countries, they may not care so much about the USA. Especially since President Trump wants to bring manufacturing back to America and impose tariffs on every country exporting anything to the USA. After that fiasco meeting President Zelenskyy had in the Oval Office with President Trump I've pretty much had enough. I'm not writing about what new dumb ass thing Trump's doing this week. ...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog