When I
first saw the trailer for this movie, I thought it seemed neat but probably
warranted a rental rather than the big screen.
The more I saw, though, the cooler it looked, and the voice cast was stacked.
So, by the time it opened, I’d come around to thinking I had to see it in the theater and, what’s
more, I probably had to see it opening weekend.
Choice well made.
Miles
Morales is a smart but ordinary kid from Brooklyn, struggling to adjust to his
new private school and designing graffiti in his free time. However, Miles’s life is about to take a turn
for the bizarre, terrifying, and amazing.
It starts with a radioactive spider bite, but it kicks way into
overdrive when a supercollider opens up a portal to multiple parallel worlds
and Miles quickly discovers he’s not the only Spider-Person in the
multiverse. As the Spider Gang teams up
to stop an evil plot (there’s always an evil plot,) Miles digs deep to see if
he has what it takes to accept the great responsibility that comes with great
power.
What a
terrific movie. First off, the animation
is incredible. It really has a look
that’s all its own, one that shifts to accommodate the ever-expanding worlds of
the story. Various Spider-People have
their own animation style that they bring with them from their Earths (i.e.,
Spider-Man Noir is in black-and-white, Peni Parker and SP//dr have an anime
style,) and the trippier the story gets, the crazier the animation gets. Everything is color and motion, highlighting
Miles’s tumultuous journey in a visually-arresting way.
I haven’t
had much exposure to Miles Morales in the comics (he popped up in a volume of Ms. Marvel a while back, but I haven’t
read any of his own adventures,) but the Edge of Spider-Verse book I picked up some time ago introduced me to several of
the Spider-People featured here. That
helped, but it really wasn’t necessary; the film does a great job introducing
all of them in fun, expedient ways, and they immediately pop with one
another. I like how they’re all so
different, but there are still core traits that they share. One of my favorite moments is when they
realize one person needs to stay on this side of the portal so the others can
return home, and they all simultaneously volunteer to be the one to sacrifice
themselves.
But no
matter how many Spider-People are onscreen, Miles remains at the center of the
proceedings. His
nervous-kid-learning-to-be-a-superhero stuff is so fun, funny, and endearing,
and two relationships form the heart of the film: his quippy back-and-forth with his would-be
mentor, a jaded parallel-Earth Peter Parker, and his loving but fractious
dynamic with his father, who’s trying to understand Miles but doesn’t always
know how to give him what he needs. And
of course, there’s Miles himself, because this is his story and, parallel
Spider-People aside, he ultimately needs to learn how to be his own hero. It’s just wonderful to watch him step up and
figure out who he needs to be.
I’m not
familiar with Shameik Moore, who plays Miles, but he’s fantastic. The character bursts with heart and humor,
and all the emotional scenes land in an enormous ways. Similarly excellent are Jake Johnson as the
parallel-Earth Peter and Atlanta’s
Brian Tyree Henry as Miles’s dad. The
rest of the film is peopled with all kinds of awesome folks. In Miles’s world, we’ve got Mahershala Ali as
his uncle, Liev Shreiber as Kingpin, Chris Pine in a small but very effective
role as this world’s Peter, and Lily Tomlin as a particularly
don’t-mess-with-her Aunt May. And in the
greater multiverse, we get the always-great Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy,
Kimiko Glenn (Soso from Orange is the New
Black) as Peni Parker, Nicolas Cage as Spider-Man Noir, and John Mulaney
(Andrew from Big Mouth!) as
Spider-Ham, something I didn’t know I needed in my life until this movie came
along.
Warnings
Comic
book violence, scary moments for kids, and thematic elements.
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