Xtreme Vogue Mumbai Desk: Komal Qureshi
Star Cast: Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Brian Tyree Henry, Luna Lauren Vélez, Jake Johnson, Jason Schwartzman, Issa Rae, Karan Soni, Daniel Kaluuya, Oscar Isaac
Director(s): Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson
What’s Good: Even if you don’t understand a single thing happening on the screen, you’d still want to stare at the visual astuteness of the art from the first minute up until the last
What’s Bad: Many would skip watching this in a theatre (where it’s meant to watch) & watch the live-action bland attempts like Quantumania, only to complain about the Superhero fatigue
Loo Break: Wear some adult diapers!
Watch or Not?: Watch, even if you haven’t watched a single superhero film in your lifetime and watch it on the best screen possible
Language: English
Available on: Theatrical Release
Runtime: 146 Minutes
User Rating:
A lot before the expected reunion of Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) with his ‘Gwen’ Stacy (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld), we are thrown into the latter’s reality first to go through the ‘disagreement’ phase she’s having with her policeman father (Shea Whigham). She battles with a Vulture (Jorma Taccone) who’s sucked into her universe because Spidey & friends broke the multiverse last time around.
Gwen meets Miles only to let him know he can’t be a part of an ‘Elite Spider-Society’ led by Miguel O’Hara/Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac). Imagine Spidey’s girl coming in from another universe to tell him she’s part of a group that can’t accept him; he’d, of course, go across the spiderverse to prove things. He does the same while facing Spot (Jason Schwartzman), a bizarrely off-kilter baddie constantly fighting to be more than a ‘Villain Of The Week’. While on the quest to solve a ‘multiverse’ problem, Miles meets a large bundle of Spider-Men from different universes. Are they helping in any way to reach a conclusion? That’s the crux of the story.
Script Analysis
Phil Lord, along with his other filmmaker, half Christopher Miller is the only person who has managed to jump from the prequel in the writers/directors team. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ writer David Callaham complete the writing trio for this one with three more people, Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers & Justin K. Thompson, directing it.
For those unversed, Joaquim Dos Santos usually credits himself as a ‘storyboard artist’ before a director, which translates when every scene of the film looks like a painting you’d want to keep staring at for a long time. Kemp Powers has worked on Disney-Pixar’s ‘Soul’, answering how you could manage to make the film look so good, along with taking care of some hardcore emotional arcs of the bazillion characters.
When you have a magnanimous task of matching the prequel’s cinematic brilliance, the sheer pressure of it could make filmmakers overstep, making some crazy decisions (ahem… Matrix… ahem), but ‘Across The Spider-Verse’ is a notch above ‘Into The Spider-Verse’. From Chuckimation,
Paint-on-glass, Realistic Cartoon-style to Japanese Manga, makers explore not a couple but way too many styles of animations to produce this hallucinogenic psychotomimetic trip which is set to blow your mind you didn’t know a film could do.
xStar Performance
Shameik Moore’s Miles, in a way, gets a Star-Lord-like treatment in which he beautifully balances his character arc without overstepping the broader scheme of things. Hailee Steinfeld’s Gwen finally gets a chance to narrate her side of things, and it mixes well with the ‘star-crossed’ relationship she’s currently sharing with Miles.
Jake Johnson, as Peter B. Parker, gets a daughter to add a cute layer to his otherwise confused, mismatched character sketch. Jason Schwartzman, as Spot, takes a rollercoaster ride from being a worthless ‘Villain Of The Week’ to annoying the sh*t of Spider-Men but returning to being worthless again, only because he might return mightier in the next round? That’s to see!
Issa Rae, as a pregnant African-American Spider-Woman, who not only loves to ride bikes but also eliminates bad guys with it, doesn’t get as fleshed-out characters as the others. Karan Soni’s Pavitr Prabhakar gets considerably more limelight than expected. Good for Indian cinema, but the fictional ‘Mumbattan’ (a weird mishmash of Mumbai & Manhattan) showcases the expected cliches of road traffic and messed-up cable wires covering a good portion of the sky altogether, avoiding the visually appealing pieces of the city. I’m not at all denying not getting traf*cked or seeing the chaotic mess of wires, but then also, let’s show (even a glimpse) of the things beyond the mayhem.
Daniel Kaluuya as Spider-Punk is one character many would immediately demand a spin-off story owing to the limited hysteria he creates with his screen space. Oscar Isaac as Miguel or ‘the Spider-Man who doesn’t get any joke’ is passable, or maybe waiting for his turn to explode in the next part.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Movie Review: Direction, Music
Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers & Justin K. Thompson, along with the trio of writers, have not only matched the prequel’s magic but also set the bar too high for ‘Spider-Man: Beyond The Universe’. The team would need to go ‘beyond the universe’ to imitate this experience again for the third time.
Music is the only department that stays behind because there’s no single track to replicate the ‘Sunflower’, ‘What’s Up Danger’ level of melodies. Metro Boomin is the new addition, along with the retaining champ Daniel Pemberton, but the soundtrack remains strictly average.
The Last Word
All said and done, why is this better than part 1? It’s more than just Miles Morales exploring his side of the story; it’s a conglomerate of anomalies coming together to create this wholesome experience that might not end the way you would like.
Four stars!
