Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

Directed by: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman | 117 minutes | animation, action | Original voice cast: Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry, Lily Tomlin, Luna Lauren Velez, Zoë Kravitz, John Mulaney, Kimiko Glenn, Nicolas cage, Kathryn Hahn, Liev Schreiber, Chris Pine, Natalie Morales, Edwin H. Bravo, Oscar Isaac, Greta Lee, Stan Lee, Jorma Taccone, Joaquín Cosio, Marvin ‘Krondon’ Jones III, Kim Yarbrough, Lake Bell

It took Sony several tries, but they made it: a good superhero movie. After Sam Raimi’s trilogy, the studio didn’t seem to succeed. With ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’, which didn’t really come into its own, and ‘Venom’, which rather falls under the heading ‘so bad it’s good’, the quality has been mediocre in recent years. Sony more than makes up for this with ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’. In fact, the film industry will rarely get closer to a comic strip than this.

For this film, Sony went back to basics, Raimi’s films. With several nods to the original trilogy, the starting point is visibly taken from the old films, with Toby Maguire in the title role, after which this material is resolutely thrown out the window. Not only does this show the guts of the filmmakers, the message that this is a fundamentally different film comes straight through.

The producers are clearly aware of the bizarre concept, a multiverse with multiple ‘spider-people’ (including a pig and a film noir version), and fully embrace it. The creators hardly have to pay attention to the background of the characters, which becomes clear in a funny repetition of moves as the characters are introduced. In addition, the concept allows for interesting interactions between characters, such as the meeting between Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) and MJ (Zoë Kravitz). The different layers in such interactions are a joy to watch.

An animation film with superheroes has substantially different possibilities than a live-action film. ‘Into the Spider-Verse’ also gratefully uses this. Some movements, camera shots or facial expressions are so over the top that this would be physically impossible in a live-action film, but in an animated film it fits and is effective. A unfortunate side effect of this effect is that the action is sometimes difficult to follow. There is so much happening on the screen that it is sometimes too much for the viewer to process. In some action scenes, directors Persichetti, Ramsey and Rothman know how to deal with this cleverly, by focusing on an object or person. This keeps the chaos around it in the background.

In addition, exuberant color palettes and speech bubbles are often used, which give the film the character of a comic book. It really does seem like a comic strip has come to life on the screen. This effect means that this film manages to show the power of superhero comics on the silver screen in a masterly way.

‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ manages to hold its own in a market that seemed saturated for years. It’s quite an achievement to find a new niche in the genre in this time, after ten years of superhero movies dominated the box office. Using an animation style very close to the original comics, and an interesting concept, Sony has proven that the creative possibilities for this genre are virtually endless.