Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (watched December 14, 2018)

Cartoon movies have always been plentiful; but, when it’s a superhero cartoon movie there’s often times a lot of hype and hope behind it because of the expanded set of chances and risks that can be taken as opposed to with real life superhero films. And, while Spider Man: Into the Spider-Verse certainly stretches the realm of cinematic possibilities, it also goes a long way to do the same culturally. Where almost all iterations of Spider-Man films and stories center around Peter Parker as the masked crusader, this film introduces its audience to a world in which alternate realities from parallel universes intersect on our planet and pave the way for Spider-Persons with different identities to meet, interact and work with each other towards common goals.

Those audience members like myself who recently finished watching the third season of Daredevil on Netflix will again be treated to an oversized villain who functions as this story’s main antagonist and, in this cartoon film, seems even more larger than life, as the original Spider-Man comics portray him. But, what’s even more satisfying than seeing a villain portrayed in his original form is seeing our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man portrayed by a handful of different personalities, each one of which is the “one and only” Spider-Man in his/her respective worlds/realities. While this “impromptu meeting of the Spider minds” is confusing at first (for both the characters and the audience members alike), the group quickly works to make some sense of their situations and plan a way to both thwart their enemy’s current scheme and get everybody back to their original realities safely. The films runs for 2 hours; but, once the somewhat confusing beginning is ironed out, the action helps move the film along.

What we see throughout the group’s mission is a very unique group of Spider-Persons, each with his/her/its own set of ideals, beliefs, standards and strengths joining forces in a way that no one voice drowns out another’s. The film essentially reiterated the notion that ANYBODY ANYWHERE can be a hero because we all have it within us to be so, it just takes tapping into our abilities to do so. I give this cartoon Spider-Man film 4 out of 5 reps; and, it should definitely be watched in theatres sooner rather than later by audience members of all ages.

Have you ventured into the Spider-Verse yet? What did you think of this new, risk-taking version?