Geek Review: Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse

People love Spider-Man.  People love animation.  The two have been combined many times.

Why not combine them for something feature length, and maybe base it off a popular recent Spider-Man story covered extensively by one James J. Impossible?  That gives us Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is a teenager being sent to a fancy private boarding school and a fan of big time superhero Spider-Man (Chirs Pine).  One night while out with his cool guy uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali), he gains some spider powers, and just in time as the Kingpin (Liev Schreiber) is up to something with a super-collider that can open gateways to other dimensions.  Miles doesn’t know much about being a Spider-Man, but when he meets a sad sack, fortysomething version of Peter Parker (Jake Johnson), he might have the perfect mentor.  But whatever Kingpin was doing, he wasn’t finished yet, and some other Spider-folk are hanging around in the form of Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Man Noir (Nicholas Cage), Peni Parker and her Spider-bot (Kimiko Glenn), and Spider-Ham (John Mulaney).  Can the combined might of the Spiders, with newcomer Miles, save the multiverse?

Much like The Lego Batman Movie, this movie comes from producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, and it works as much as a love letter to Spider-Man as that other movie acted as a love letter to the Dark Knight.  The animation style here evokes many of the different eras of Spider-Man.  Some of the Spiders are clearly done in different animation styles befitting the individual Spiders and their origins.  As befitting a Lord and Miller movie, it’s exceedingly clever, funny when it had to be, and with the sort of deep character work that makes each of the characters distinctive.  Many longtime Spider-Man foes are given creative re-imaginings, and many longtime Spider-Man fans will be incredibly pleased.  Heck, this movie might have the most badass version of Aunt May (Lily Tomlin) ever committed to film.  Check this one out.  It’s good for kids and adults alike.  9 out of 10 goobers.