Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

 

Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) is struggling to keep her identity as Spider-Woman hidden from her police captain father George (Shea Whigham) when they encounter a villain displaced from another universe. Gwen is recruited by Miguel O’Hara/Spiderman 2099 (Oscar Isaac) and Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman, themselves from alternate universes, to help them track down such anomalies. Meanwhile, in yet another universe, Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) finds that his activities as Spider-Man have made him appear secretive and distant to his concerned parents. His problems are compounded when Dr. Jonathan Ohm/The Spot (Jason Schwartzman), a scientist whose body became infused with spot-like portals following a lab accident, blames Spider-Man for his disfigurement and vows to make him suffer.

 

The follow-up to 2018’s successful Into the Spiderverse, Across the Spiderverse is nothing if not ambitious. It’s the longest American animated feature, and it’s packed to the gills with alternate versions of Spider-Man from the British anarchist Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya) to Spider-Man India (Karan Soni) to the classic Peter Parker (Jake Johnson, playing him as a middle-aged dad). Each universe explored has its own distinctive art style, and the film is a treasure trove of easter eggs and references to comic book lore. As such, Across the Spiderverse walks a thin line between being a labor of love for Spider-fans and a study in excess.

 

The central idea here is one of fatedness: would the Spider-heroes be the heroes they are if they were not shaped by tragedy? Miles seems determined to find out, but for Miguel, privy to deeper losses than the average Uncle Ben, it’s too dangerous a possibility to ponder. This is both mature turf for an animated comic book adaptation and a conceit on the verge of becoming hackneyed (The upcoming Flash movie is the latest of several properties to play around with the consequences of disrupting fate to prevent tragedy).

 

This weightiness and Isaac’s intense voice performance aside, Across the Spiderverse still manages to be solidly entertaining. The animation is varied and kinetic, taking us everywhere from a Lego dimension to a teeming Mumbattan of Spider-Man India’s realm. The early Spot sequences are pure slapstick as Ohm is a bungler who has no idea how his powers work, but a later escape sequence is full of tension-pumping adrenaline.

 

Across the Spiderverse is the middle film in a planned trilogy, and it ends on a shamelessly blatant cliffhanger, a frustrating lack off payoff for the 140-minute run-time. And yet, it offers hope that the next installment can be entertaining and visually daring just the same.