Words by Kasey Blondell
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse swings high, puts family first, and executes a flawless landing, serving as the perfect sequel to a cultural phenomenon.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is every bit as good as its predecessor. The first film may be more self-contained, but Across the Spider-Verse still shines in its meandering moments. With the scale heightened, and the multiverse being more expansive than the audience could have ever imagined, it’s no surprise that a story this massive is being told in two parts.
The sequel offers more depth to Gwen Stacy’s character, exploring her relationship with her father and drawing parallels with Miles’ relationship with his own. Gwen’s character development makes the blossoming romance between her and Miles all the more believable, and her character more three-dimensional. Still, this is very much Miles’ story.
There’s also a more prominent focus on Miles’ relationship with his mother. Miles’ desire to reveal to his parents that he’s Spider-Man creates an interesting tension, and his uniqueness as a character is one that forms the main plot of the story. Miles’ resistance against Spider-Man 2099’s (Oscar Isaac) enforcement of the established tragic canon makes Miles a hero worth rooting for. Not only is Miles Morales as loveable as ever, the animation is gorgeous too, and the character design impeccable.
We are introduced to a whole new cast of Spider-People, with Daniel Kaluuya’s Spider-Punk standing out as the ultimate scene-stealer. Hobie Brown is a Black-British punk Spider-Man from another universe, acting as a humorous point of contention between Miles and Gwen. Issa Rae plays a pregnant African-American Spider-Woman who serves as a maternal figure to Gwen, whilst Karan Soni appears as Pavitr Prabhakar, an Indian version of Spider-Man. Old characters return too, with Jake Johnson reprising his role as Peter B. Parker, who shows up to the fight with his new baby daughter in tow.
Amongst all of this chaos, however, Miles Morales acts as a focal point to the narrative. With the extent of his importance revealed to Miles and the audience in tandem, it becomes clear that we are mere passengers in his story. Ending in a show-stopping twist that left the entire audience in my screening complaining in frustration, perhaps the only thing wrong with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is that it couldn’t fit the whole story in one film.
We’ll have to wait a whole year to see how Miles gets out of this one, but there’s no need to worry too much, with the memory of Hobie Brown’s exclamation “Man like Miles” reassuringly ringing in our ears. Miles Morales might end the film in a bind, but this Spider-Man can always find a way.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is in cinemas now.