When “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” combined its eye-popping animation with a steadfast love of the comics and a tons of silly humor, its magnificent visual palette soars in 2018. Nearly five years later, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” weaves a significantly denser web by stretching out the running time by around 40 minutes, making this exercise heavier and far less agile.
The movie indulges in what feels like sensory overload, seeking emotional depth in ways that drag down the action while yet managing to produce some stunning animation. The movie somewhat suffers from the advantages and disadvantages of the multiverse, which offers limitless options but also occasionally gives the impression that there are so many possible combinations that none of them really matter.
Given the Oscar-winning popularity of the first film, the creators have strategically positioned this as a franchise that will last for a long. But because of that, “Across the Spider-Verse” in some ways resembles the drawn-out prelude to what may eventually promise to be yet another more fulfilling sequel.
Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) is once again the main character, while Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), another spider-person he met on his first trip into parallel realms, has nearly equal screen time in this installment of the “Spider-Verse.” While balancing school, his paranoid parents (Brian Tyree Henry, Luna Lauren Velez), and running away to perform heroic things, he is obviously longing for her.
Miles’ storyline starts out quite simply as he playfully fights the Spot (Jason Schwartzman), a dimension-hopping bad guy, while he runs to meet with a school counsellor. The bigger game, however, soon emerges when Gwen is selected by an elite group of spider-people that effectively patrol the universe, led by a fearsome figure voiced by Oscar Isaac.
“Across the Spider-Verse” assembles trios of directors (Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson), writers (David Callahan, producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller), and visual jokes of the blink-and-miss-one sort.
Again, that would have been more effective in a smaller presentation, and the psychedelic onslaught has a more-is-less feel to it, especially when considering the movie’s target to younger children. The villain lacks the intimidating aura the Kingpin offered as a more realistic foe, and the spider-people aren’t as funny as the previous set of alternate-universe eccentrics.
Despite the time that has passed between the films and the fact that “Spider-Man: No Way Home” looked at related topics, the creative team deftly taps into a key element of the Marvel hero’s mythology, namely that his “great power” comes with not just duty but also loss. Miles is informed that “Being Spider-Man is a sacrifice,” which forms the emotional cornerstone of the movie.
Even while it lacks the same sense of discovery, there are times when “Across the Spider-Verse” succeeds on a storyline level, and the sheer craftsmanship is never less than astounding. Like its predecessor, this is a film that begs to be seen again, but in bits and parts rather than all at once, which may best capture the difference between the two.
We haven’t seen the last of the Spider-Verse because, as they say, hope springs eternal. However, it still leaves the spider-tingle that suggests that this plus-sized version of “Spider-Man” lingers longer than it ought to.
