Due in large part to the fact that Across the Spider-Verse is only the first part of a two-part saga that will conclude with 2024’s Beyond the Spider-Verse, the new film simply isn’t able to match Into the Spider-Verse‘s narrative heart. There’s a reason why the What’s Up Danger sequence works so well it’s the perfect blend of aesthetic and narrative. The film functions much like a character study of one young man trying to find his place in the world, resulting in an up-and-down story of self-worth, love, and perseverance.Įach character is fully fleshed out and developed, from Jake Johnson’s down-on-his-luck Peter B.
It’s an origin story, yes, but an origin story that is exceptionally aware of itself.
One of the things that makes Into the Spider-Verse work is that it’s self-contained. Narratively, it’s difficult to say that the new movie is able to live up to its predecessor. Into The Spider-Verse’s origin story simply can’t be beatĪcross the Spider-Verse is a marvel, that is until it starts worrying too much about being Marvel. It’s pioneering something completely different. Together, the Spider-Verse movies have created something almost beyond conventional cinematic standards it’s as if someone made a comic book move and evolve in real time. Ambition is the name of the game, and Across the Spider-Verse is winning. Across the Spider-Verse bursts through those limitations, proving that the only real limit of animation is invention. Into the Spider-Verse felt like an adventure into the limits of animation. Strokes of watercolor images change with each shot, comic accents burst onto the screen, and each character brings with them their own visual style. Whereas Into the Spider-Versewas able to introduce and perfect a highly unique comic book-inspired visual style, Across is somehow able to one-up itself. It’s cliché to call every frame a painting, but it’s difficult to not just sit in awe at any moment. The animation brims to the edge with character and color. The film’s starting 60 minutes might just be one of the greatest hours of animation ever seen it weaves a multiverse of grief and anxiety onto an intoxicating canvas, one in which not a single centimeter of the frame is wasted. What Across the Spider-Verse is able to accomplish as far as its visual style is something that has to be seen to be believed.