Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Grade: C+

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is like spending a whole film inside the cartoon world of A-ha’s “Take On Me” music video. It’s a movie that needs more focus, in more than one way. A few of us at last night’s showing thought there was a mistake with the projection. It looked like we got a 3D version, but we didn’t have the glasses, and it wasn’t supposed to be a 3D showing. I went to the lobby and said something to some employees. They assured me it’s meant to look like that, and the way they responded made it seem like I wasn’t the first person to bring that up. I hope they’re ready to field comments like this several times a day for the next few weeks.

Watching the movie is like walking into the middle of an episode of a kid’s show on Disney XD. Even at the beginning, they don’t take time to ease into it, much less establish anything, and I immediately felt like I missed something. I get why it’s animated like this. The story couldn’t be told any other way. Sometimes I liked it, but at least half the time, it came off as annoying and pretentious. When it wasn’t intentionally blurry, it was a sensory overload, like an over-caffeinated teenager not being nearly as funny, cool, or hip as they think they are. You just want to send them to bed, or at least into the other room to play some Nintendo.

My favorite parts, unsurprisingly, were when the characters got to be living, breathing characters. I loved the scene when our heroes Miles and Gwen (voiced by Shameik Moore and Hailee Steinfeld) did some small-talk catching up while nonchalantly swinging through the city, followed by them defying gravity by sitting on the underside of a skyscraper balcony. As they look out on the city (with her hair accurately facing “upward”), the reflection of the buildings on the water are right-side-up for them. More scenes like that, please, and less of the frenetic action. Let it come up for air sometimes.

By the time I got used to the visual style (and even began to enjoy it) and started to get invested in the story, it was too little too late. I simultaneously didn’t like this movie much AND am hopeful, even eager, to see the next one (this film ends with a “to be continued”). I really want them to knock it out of the park next time. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, unfortunately, is a slight swing and a miss.

Grade: C+