Through a plethora of years, we have see a gazillion of live-action films based on comic books, or what I call, comic book films. Now we have one of the many franchises that has been produced in the animated version, "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", which is actually in its truest format since it was animated from its origins.
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the creative minds behind "The Lego Movie" and "21 Jump Street", bring their unique talents to a fresh vision of a different Spider-Man Universe, with a groundbreaking visual style that's the first of its kind. "Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse" introduces Brooklyn teen Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), and the limitless possibilities of the Spider-Verse, where more than one can wear the mask.
The story chronicles Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) mentoring Miles after Miles was bitten by a radio-active spider. Once Miles came to this realization, he came upon Parker to help him out. Along the way, they came across other 'Spider' people, Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Ham (John Mulany), Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn) and Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage). As a team, they must defeat and destroy enemies, Wilson Risk (Liev Schreiber) and Doc Ock (Kathryn Hahn).
Others to round out the cast are Mahershala Ali as Uncle Aaron, Brian Tyree Henry as Jefferson Davis, Lily Tomlin as Aunt May, Chris Pine as Peter Parker, Luna Lauren Velez as Rio Morales, Zoe Kravitz as Mary Jane and Natalie Morales as Miss. Calleros.
This was directed with an electric pulse by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsay ("Rise of the Guardians" 12) plus TV and Rodney Rothman. Even though there were three directors to helm this, there was certainly enough segments of this production to warrant the number of these filmmakers, especially considering that two of them have virtually no feature directing experience. All the Spider people definitely had their own personality and owned their individual presence in this. It was surely written well by Phil Lord ("Extreme Movie" '08, "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" '09, "The Lego Movie" '14) plus TV and Rodney Rothman ("$5.15 Hr. (TV movie) '04, "Early Bird" (TV movie) '05, "Grudge Match" '13, "22 Jump Street" '14) plus TV, based on a story by Lord, which is based on the Marvel comics. When I saw the trailer of this, it did not sell it to me--it was only after I watched it did I really appreciate the fresh originality of it. This being a franchise that has been repeated enough times, I was impressed with this one. Other than a couple of small places of slowness, this new version of the franchise truly rocked! The imagery and animation designed by Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI) was not only seamless but gave that feel of the comic book back in the day that it was at its popularity.
This production of the Spider-Man franchise soared in its visual imagery, and at the same time, impressed me with a concept that worked. I'm not particularly a Spider-Man fan, but after viewing this, it not only put my faith back into the franchise, but in the comic book films, at least to a degree. You gotta see this--and it's also in a nifty IMAX and 4DX format as well. Grab the popcorn and enjoy this ride.
Out of 4 Stars: 3.5 Rated: PG 117mins.
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