Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – Film Review

I wasn’t super bothered about Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse when it was announced and promoted because I just thought ‘Urgh, another Spider-Man movie’ – but it’s not just another Spider-Man movie, it is excellent. It’s got 99% on Rotten Tomatoes for a reason!

When we think of Spider-Man we think of Peter Parker, but this time the lead is Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), who lives alongside Parker’s Spider-Man and becomes the second one when he’s bitten by a dodgy spider. When Kingpin (Liev Schreiber) opens up a portal, Miles is joined by a bunch of other Spider-Man iterations including an older, flabbier Parker (voiced by Jake Johnson), Gwen Stacy/Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Noir (Nicolas Cage) and more. They team up to take Kingpin down, get themselves back to their rightful dimensions and close the portal.

The film is one of those rare gems where the quality of the visuals is as good as the storytelling. No style over substance here. Spider-Verse looks gorgeous in its fun, colourful, comic book-inspired glory – but has the story to boot. It is funny, heartwarming, uplifting and so, so entertaining.

I did prefer the first half more than the second. I loved being introduced to Miles and his world and him meeting the other Spider-Men. The storytelling was strong and it was more about character than action. I tend to tune out when watching big CGI end battles in superhero films and this one was no different, even though it was animated. There was so much to look at, there was colour splashed all over the place and I stopped caring too much about following every move.

But that is my only niggle. I loved everything else about it. The script is super smart and funny and has a lot of heart, I loved the characters and the voice cast – which also includes Zoe Kravitz and Kathryn Hahn – the animation style, the soundtrack and even the title graphics. Oh, and remember to stay for the post-credits scene!

In cinemas Wednesday 12th December