Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse. (PG.)
Directed by Peter Ramsey and Bob Persichetti.
Starring Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Liev Schreiber, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Chris Pine, Kathryn Hahn, Lily Tomlin and Nicolas Cage. 117 mins.
This animated superhero flick forces audiences to deal with a couple of head-spinning concepts: the quantum mechanics of parallel universes and Sony's mind-twisting notions of how to expand its Spider-man franchise. After the first Andrew Garfield Amazing Spider-man, they had big plans for multiple spin-off films focusing on his villains: a Venom and Sinister Six films were announced. Spider-man films without Spider-man seemed like a desperate venture dreamt up by a studio struggling to keep up with the others and when the second Garfield film underwhelmed these plans were put on hold and they came to a joint custody arrangement with Marvel for the character where they get to use him every other film.
And suddenly everything seems spider-sensible. The Venom film has been made and been a big hit and now they have made a spider-man film with not one but approximately seven different Spider-men or Spider-variants. The focus is afro latino teenager Miles Morales (Moore) who gets bitten by yet another of those pesky New York radioactive spider and gets his powers just as the Peter Parker Spider-man (Pine) is killed trying defeat Kingpin's (Schreiber) evil plan. Which is handy, but not as handy as the appearance of multiple Spideys from various alternate realities. There is a let-himself-go-a-bit middle-aged Spider-man (Johnson), a lady Spider-Gwen (Stansfield), a black and white Noir Spidey (Cage), a Japanese anime Spidey and a 2d animated spider-pig.
The film was supervised by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the pair who made the Lego Movie and about half the Hans Solo movie before getting the boot. It is wildly inventive and marvellously funny, but without sending up the character. You laugh a lot, but the film is enormously respectful, even though it includes a Spider-pig, a notion I thought existed only in the Simpsons movie. The best recurring gag is every spidey-carnation going through its origins tale, a sly send-up of audience impatient at having to go back over old ground every time a new actor is cast.
The film's theme the animation is an abrupt mix of styles. There's a bit of everything veering madly from state of the art to throwback 70s style. Parts of it are dazzling, parts are frankly shonky. The backgrounds are often rendered in a blurred style which made me wonder if they had forgotten to give us the 3d glasses.
The advantage of it being animated is that they can do things that would be prohibitively expensive if done in a live action setting. The disadvantage is that you keep thinking how amazing this would be if it was real. The pre-release reception for this has been formidable so far, the audience response was rapturous and Sony screened it a full two weeks before release which is almost unheard of now for a big film so they are full of confidence. And it is great fun but if you're the kind of person that likes the odd superhero movie but aren't obsessed by them you may find it just a touch nerdy.
Directed by Peter Ramsey and Bob Persichetti.
Starring Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Liev Schreiber, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Chris Pine, Kathryn Hahn, Lily Tomlin and Nicolas Cage. 117 mins.
This animated superhero flick forces audiences to deal with a couple of head-spinning concepts: the quantum mechanics of parallel universes and Sony's mind-twisting notions of how to expand its Spider-man franchise. After the first Andrew Garfield Amazing Spider-man, they had big plans for multiple spin-off films focusing on his villains: a Venom and Sinister Six films were announced. Spider-man films without Spider-man seemed like a desperate venture dreamt up by a studio struggling to keep up with the others and when the second Garfield film underwhelmed these plans were put on hold and they came to a joint custody arrangement with Marvel for the character where they get to use him every other film.
And suddenly everything seems spider-sensible. The Venom film has been made and been a big hit and now they have made a spider-man film with not one but approximately seven different Spider-men or Spider-variants. The focus is afro latino teenager Miles Morales (Moore) who gets bitten by yet another of those pesky New York radioactive spider and gets his powers just as the Peter Parker Spider-man (Pine) is killed trying defeat Kingpin's (Schreiber) evil plan. Which is handy, but not as handy as the appearance of multiple Spideys from various alternate realities. There is a let-himself-go-a-bit middle-aged Spider-man (Johnson), a lady Spider-Gwen (Stansfield), a black and white Noir Spidey (Cage), a Japanese anime Spidey and a 2d animated spider-pig.
The film was supervised by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the pair who made the Lego Movie and about half the Hans Solo movie before getting the boot. It is wildly inventive and marvellously funny, but without sending up the character. You laugh a lot, but the film is enormously respectful, even though it includes a Spider-pig, a notion I thought existed only in the Simpsons movie. The best recurring gag is every spidey-carnation going through its origins tale, a sly send-up of audience impatient at having to go back over old ground every time a new actor is cast.
The film's theme the animation is an abrupt mix of styles. There's a bit of everything veering madly from state of the art to throwback 70s style. Parts of it are dazzling, parts are frankly shonky. The backgrounds are often rendered in a blurred style which made me wonder if they had forgotten to give us the 3d glasses.
The advantage of it being animated is that they can do things that would be prohibitively expensive if done in a live action setting. The disadvantage is that you keep thinking how amazing this would be if it was real. The pre-release reception for this has been formidable so far, the audience response was rapturous and Sony screened it a full two weeks before release which is almost unheard of now for a big film so they are full of confidence. And it is great fun but if you're the kind of person that likes the odd superhero movie but aren't obsessed by them you may find it just a touch nerdy.
