Rambling about Into the Spiderverse (With Spoilers!)

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This has honestly been the greatest animated film that I have ever seen. That’s the one thing that I want to make clear in this review. The art in this movie is absolutely stunning. Sometimes I had to remind myself that I was watching an animated film and not a live-action movie. The characters just seemed so alive. They all had their own personalities, their own personal quirks, and this was shown both through the voice acting and the animation. Each character had their own way of speaking, moving, and interacting with the other characters on screen.

To be honest, I haven’t read many of the comics, so I wasn’t sure how old Miles was supposed to be. When I found out after seeing the film that he was supposed to be 13 I thought that the age fit him, but to be honest, anywhere between 12 and 15 could have fit him. He goes to a private boarding middle school in NYC, away from all his friends, and he is extremely smart. One of my favorite parts of the movie was when he cheated his way into getting a failing grade by figuring out what the right answers were just so he could put the wrong ones down and try to fail out of the school. The teacher caught on and assured him that he would eventually fit in at his school and that he just needed to give it time.

What I thought was a little strange at first was how he didn’t talk to his roommate at all. We don’t even get the roommates name, they just completely avoid each other in the tiny dorm room. This didn’t seem realistic to me, especially for 13-year-old guys. From what I’ve seen, most 13-year-olds instantly make friends with each other at day camps and that sort of thing, and I’m sure that the school would have had icebreakers on the first day. Even my COLLEGE had icebreakers. I feel like there was originally going to be a scene about this that was deleted so I will be waiting for the deleted scenes to be released and see.

I LOVED Miles’ relationship with his uncle. His uncle was so cool and supported his art. He DID kinda bring a 13-year-old kid into some sort of abandoned subway service area to graffiti, which wasn’t the best idea, but he was supportive. He was like the cool older brother to Miles who only had his strict and not very emotionally available policeman father. I was absolutely CRUSHED when he turned out to be helping Kingpin. That scene where Miles was hiding in the apartment and listening to his uncle talk to Kingpin, I was just shocked. That scene had me nervous and I was just watching it! And then he found out that he had been fighting his nephew the whole time and got killed for it. I may have hated what the uncle was doing, but he didn’t deserve to die, and this hurt the family so much.

I also think that they did the romance well in this movie. Since Miles is supposed to be so young, he doesn’t have any relationship experience. He likes Gwen and his uncle tries to give him advice, but he ends up just ruining everything anyways. Then she turns out to be a Spider Person from another universe, and they decide to just stay friends. This was way better, as having a 13-year-old relationship scene would have just been awkward. They have future movies to start being romantic if they decide to be romantic at all.

I also loved that we got to see different Spiderpeople. Gwen was a female Spiderwoman, then we had a Spiderpig, and SpiderNoir from the 1920s, and a grown SpiderMan, and then a Japanese Spiderwoman. The movie wasn’t just about a “black Spiderman.” It was about everyone seeing themselves in the mask, saving their own communities and universes. And this was so cool!

The only thing I wish we had seen was more of Miles in action! He is just figuring himself out for most of the movie, so we only see a few of his Spidermanning skills put to good use. Most of the time he is accidentally getting stuck to buildings or to Gwen’s hair, rather than actually doing stuff “on command.” This is definitely a more realistic portrayal of a superhero, as it doesn’t make sense that you get powers and all of a sudden know how to make a suit and web-shooters and stuff. But I can’t wait for the sequel to see how he will be when he has full control over his powers.

I’ll admit, this movie is rather dark for a PG film. Yes, Into the Spiderverse is PG! I personally think it could have been PG13, as the scene with Peter Parker’s death is really dark. You literally see Peter on the ground, in pain, and then the giant KingPin just slams his fists down on his body, instantly killing him. I mean, there’s no blood, but that was still pretty intense. Plus Miles’ uncle is shot right in front of him. Comparing this to another PG film like Frozen or Finding Dory, and you see how this is a bit more intense. Parents still take their little kids to see PG13 Marvel movies, so nothing would change. But if you have a sensitive child, this might not be the movie for you. I cried for hours at Baloo’s death in Jungle Book when I was like 5 or 6, no way I would have been able to handle this one as a little kid.

The scene where they were transporting all the different Spiders back to their own universes was so intense. I felt as if I was in some sort of light show, there was just so much going on. The universes were colliding with each other so there were colors all over the place, and then there were different enemies that needed to be defeated. I don’t know how long it took to animate that one scene, but it was more intense than any other part of the film. And it came out beautifully. I can’t wait to rewatch the movie when it comes out on Netflix just to see that one scene!

I would recommend this movie to anyone looking for an amazing Marvel animated film.

Overall Rating: 6 out of 5 paintbrushes