Is “Across The Spider-Verse” a great sequel ? Yes.
One thing to know about me, is that I’ve always been a spider-man girlie, granted I wasn’t even born when the Raimi’s trilogy dropped, and it took me twelve years after to discover that Spider-Man was not actually blonde (my younger brain always thought he was for some reason) but there’s no denying that Spider-Man has always been a pop culture symbol, even if you don’t know his story, there’s no way you haven’t heard or seen pictures of the masked vigilante who swings around the city with his webs.
And although there were different interpretations to his story, he was always the ordinary kid in Queens (or in our case Brooklyn) who’s got too much power in his hands and is struggling what to do with it, to later become the masked vigilante who saves people and understands the responsibility he have toward his people.
When Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse dropped in 2018, people had mixed reviews on the subject, (and I was a middle schooler who stumbled upon the trailer by accident but was intrigued nonetheless) I think people were afraid that this was going to end up not meeting their expectations, and boy did it exceed them!
The movie did very well (and for good reasons!), and managed to re-introduce the story of The Spider-Man with a twist, in this case introducing the Spider-Verse, and everyone went nuts about it, from the music to the animation to the well-crafted story. The movie was one of the best movies of that year, if not of all times.
But what happens when that movie has a sequel ? 4 years later and with a very enthusiastic fan-base ? Will it be a disappointment or another win ?
Today, I’m ready to say that Across The Spider-Verse is as good if not better than the original, and here’s why…
Hello and welcome to Butterfly Scribbles, I am the Butterfly in question, and today we’re going to cross the multiverse…I mean the Spider-Verse, my bad!
So ladies and gentlemen, let’s do this again one last time!
(This review may contain spoilers for the movie, so If you haven’t seen it, I highly encourage you to do so, and then read my review after, have a nice time!)
PLOT:
Miles Morales, is very much accustomed to being “Brooklyn’s one and only Spider-Man”, he loves his job, but him leading a double life starts to interfere with his life as Miles and his relationship with his family (and his grades), which leads to him feeling the loneliness this job imposes and starts terribly missing his spider friends.
After that he gets a visit from his best friend Gwen, and learns that there’s a whole universe full of Spider-people teaming up to protect his very existence which leads to a great conflict and a “Spider-hunt” to stop him from going to change his fate and protect the people he loves most in his life, all while redefining his story and doing what he thinks is his role as a hero.
I think the plot of the movie does a really great job of solidifying Miles as his own hero, he is constantly put into situations that tests his morals and beliefs of what he thinks he is doing right, while everyone is treating him like some ignorant teenager, there’s even a great scene where miles stand up for himself and says: “Everyone keeps telling me how my own story is supposed to go, Nah, Imma do my own thing” which is nothing if not great character development.
The twists at the end of the movie are also sure to leave you feeling blown away!
Characters:
Miles:
Like I said before, this movie gives the best arcs to its main hero, Miles goes through a journey of self discovery and finding himself all while struggling with the distance he creates with his family, especially his mom whom he keeps lying to, and her trying to understand what is going on with her son, to the point where she’s scared of him moving away from her.
Miles also feels like an outcast even with his peers, when he discovers the Spider-Verse, Gwen and Peter are against him joining the team for his safety, Miles then feels pressured to prove himself in order to gain respect and inclusion, which does not end up really well.
In the end, he chooses to do it his way, and decides to have fate in his powers and do what perceives to be the right thing, and save people when he has the chance to do so, even if it means having to deal with bigger consequences.
Gwen:
Gwen was one of the fan favorites after the release of the first movie, but the sequel gives more depth to her character, and expands upon her struggles, how she lost her best friend, peter parker, how he looked up to her and wanted to be “special” like she is, also justifying her choice to not be involved in friendships anymore.
Gwen also has an ongoing conflict with her dad, the captain of the city, who hates Spider-Woman and is leading a manhunt against her, blaming her for the murder of Peter, and how that creates a conflict with her father as Gwen, which leads to a confrontation and an identity reveal.
I think it was very smart to include Gwen as one of the protagonists of the movie for obvious reasons, now we know more about her, we sympathize with her as a heroine, and its show
the similarities her and Miles are experiencing, establishing her role to be more than a love interest and I’m all here for it!
Other characters:
I think the highlight of this movies is the hundreds of Spider-people we see, each with their own personality, costumes and very funny cameos too!
My favorites have to be Spider Girl (Peter’s baby), Spider-Woman, Pavitr and Spider-Punk!
Animation and Music:
I think it’s necessary to have a whole section on this review dedicated to praise the animators and the song mixers for this movie, and It’s safe to say that without these two, the magic of the film wouldn’t be the same, I mean just imagine if It wasn’t an animated movie! and If it didn’t have such great singles like “What’s Up Danger”!
truly a tragedy.
The animation for this movie specifically was really amazing, they combined multiple coloring styles to create the personality of each story like Gwen’s watercolor world in the start of the movie, the battle scenes are epic especially in the Spider hunt scenes with Miles and Miguel.
For the Score of the movie, I personally like the last track “Across The Spider-Verse (Start a Band)” track,I think the music really fits the last and best moments of the movie!
In conclusion, and If you haven’t got it yet, I’m In LOVE with this movie! (I mean, why else would I write a whole essay about it right ?) It’s the perfect sequel to a perfect first, and I’m convinced it’s the best movie of the year and one of the best superhero movies ever !
So if you haven’t watched it yet, I highly encourage you to do so, because It is a great watch even for people who know nothing about Spider-Man.
If you did, well let me know in the comments so we can talk about it even more, cause I’m not even close to being done with it yet!
I am a huge Bookworm, so here are some of my reviews of the books I read and loved or (hated) hehe...
(Link to Reviews will be added as I write them and this list will be expanded depending on new books I’ve read and been inspired to write reviews about) 🦋
My name’s Butterfly (Not really), and I'm very excited to embark on this journey with all of you here on Tumblr!
This blog is a space where we can talk about things that we’re passionate about, be it Books, Movies and series/anime/Kdrama, Otome Games, music/Kpop and a lot more!
This is my personal blog where I’ll be mainly focusing on reviews of the different topics I mentioned above, reviews of Books, Movies and so on. I will be consuming different types of media I like and giving you guys my honest opinions about them, in a constructive manner and a subjective approach.
I will also be creating main masterlists of the different topics I will be treating in this blog, Hopefully there will be everything for everyone!
I've always wanted to write and express my thoughts and feelings about different things I love, so this would be my humble approach on the subject!
With all that being said I’m really hoping everyone would enjoy my content and join the discussions that I’m going to start here, and I'm really excited to give it my best!
*I am definitely not a professional reviewer, I am merely a passionate art consumer, and this account is for fun purposes only, so kindly take that in mind.*
