Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is an enthralling adventure that transports Miles Morales, Brooklyn’s one-and-only Spider-Man, across the Multiverse to join forces with Gwen Stacy. Together, they will join a new team of Spider-People to face off with an antagonist more powerful than anything they have ever encountered.
Packed with jaw dropping visuals and chaotic action sequences, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a worthy sequel that double down on its artistic impulses. Setting a new benchmark for animated films, the Into the Spider-Verse sequel is a fully realised animated film that is charged by its mesmerising aesthetics, dazzling landscapes, as well as intricate worldbuilding.
Narratively, Across the Spider-Verse takes a more extensive path to set up its story by presenting Gwen and Miles as dual protagonists. The film positions Miles and Gwen as individuals that are cordoned off by the absurdity of the Spider-Verse, but whose shared story is intertwined with themes of fate, individualism, and longing. It’s through their relationship that the movie slows down from sensory overload, allowing its audience to connect with the characters on a deeper, emotional level.
Written by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and David Callaham, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse takes everything that made the first one an instant classic and builds upon it with ambition, depth, and surprisingly darker themes. By the end of the film’s 140-minute-runtime, audiences will be left anticipating the next instalment, and it earns its cliffhanger ending.
At a time when multiverse storytelling is now too stale of a narrative device, the latest instalment in the Spider-Verse saga swings in with style and wipes the floor with its peers by delivering a sequel that is both narratively exhilarating and deeply emotional. Blending the perfect mix of character development, emotional stakes, and frantic action, the latest Spider-Man film has all the makings of another animated masterpiece. Breathtaking, charming, and emotionally invigorating, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse expands upon its audience into yet another fantastical dimension of superhero filmmaking.
