Some of the Spider-Men and -Women are flesh-and-blood humans, others are talking animals, and one is literally a walking Lego figure. Yes, they each look different, as do their worlds. When Miles is taken to the land of Spideys and taught their ways, he keeps rubbing up against an insidious underlying notion-that they’re all inherently the same. Just as important as the aesthetic creativity is the narrative intrigue. But Across the Spider-Verse avoids seeming like a physics lesson because its visuals are consistently thrilling the most static bits of dialogue still pop because of how daring the animation is. With all these heroes (and many others) come stern council meetings and endless exposition, the kind of script sludge that has stopped other cross-dimensional films (such as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) in their tracks. “Spider-Man 2099,” a grim and gritty vigilante from a dark alternate future who leads the team. Parker (Jake Johnson), a charmingly bedraggled take on the first film’s character Jessica Drew (Issa Rae), a pregnant and motorcycle-riding Spider-Woman and Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac), a.k.a. Read: Spider-Man: Far From Home satirizes the way Marvel movies are madeĪcross the Spider-Verse reunites Miles with his erstwhile crush, Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), a Spider-Woman from another timeline, who’s now part of a crew that is trying to restore order to the multiple universes. But the film also took pains to underline that he is a different character from Peter Parker, the usual Spider-Man, and he has endless potential to not follow the same hero’s journey. Miles dealt with renditions of these problems in Into the Spider-Verse. Most of them have at least gestured at the notion of great power coming with great responsibility, and sacrificed a beloved uncle for the sake of a grander lesson. This is the tenth major feature film to star the character since the director Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man in 2002. Instead, what’s impressive about Across the Spider-Verse is how it challenges the essential structure of a superhero narrative.Īudiences are probably painfully aware of Spider-Man’s character beats by now. The story is part two of a three-film arc-the next edition is slated for release in spring 2024-so don’t go in expecting a neatly tied-up conclusion.

So what possible new depths can that movie’s sequel, titled Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, plumb? The epic picks back up with teen hero Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), who travels across realities with five other Spideys, who are all connected through their shared insectoid prowess. Yet no character is more conversant in the metaphysical and narrative implications of the multiverse than Spider-Man, who has been hopping through portals for years, both in the live-action film No Way Home and in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, an animated delight that pushed every limit of the medium to smoosh seven very different spider-stars into one adventure. Films about extra-dimensional travel and parallel versions of ourselves aren’t restricted to the realm of comic-book nerdery the reigning Best Picture winner at the hoary Oscars is all about “verse-jumping,” after all.

Multiverses are, at this point, familiar ground for Hollywood.

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