Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) returns for the next chapter of the Spider-Verse saga, an adventure that will transport Brooklyn's full time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man across the Multiverse to join forces with Gwen Stacy Hailee Steinfeld) and a new team of Spider People including Miguel O'Hara (David Isaac), Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), Jessica Drew (Issa Rae) and others, to face off with a villain, Hobie Brown/Spider Punk (Daniel Kaluuya) more powerful than anything they have encountered. This basically involves canon events that, if disrupted, the other Spider-Verses begin to unravel.
others to round out the cast are Brian Tyree Henry as Jefferson Davis, Luna Lauren Velez as Rio Morales, Shea Whigham as George Stacy, Jason Schwartzman as Jonathan Ohnn/The Spot, Andy Samberg as Ben Reilly/Scarlet Spider, Taran Killam as Patrick O'Hara/Websliger and Rachel Dratch as Principal.
This was adequately directed by virtual newcomers to the big screen, Joaquim Dos Santos (TV, shorts and videos), Kemp Powers ("Soul" (co-dir.) '20) and Justin K. Thompson. Powers does have "Soul" under his belt, however only having a co-direction to his credit. Considering the limited and/or lack of feature film experience, these filmmakers were certainly able to carry this film fairly well. Their staging and pacing was a bit off at times, but given more work, they should improve. The real culprit here is that of the writing. This was executed by writers, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Dave Callaham. This is surprising only on the other side of the spectrum. Although each of these writers have a fairly hefty resume, they just didn't pull this incarnation off. The script was, first of all, long-in-the-tooth, where it could've been cut to a two-hour running time and would've been fine. Secondly, the story involving multiple universes--in this case--spider-verses, it became convoluted, especially with all the different Spider People. Also, since the only way one could become a Spider Person would be to be bitten by a radioactive spider, there must be tons of those spiders around. Now, I realize each 'universe' has their own Sider-Man, however there were a plethora of them in each 'universe. How can that be? It was a cinematic treat for the eyes and the animation by Sony Pictures Imageworks was executed well.
I don't know, maybe I wasn't there mentally or emotionally enough, but, I kept having to fight sleep in my seat and when you keep looking at your watch, this certainly isn't a good sign. This is the first of a two parter--the next being released next year. Let's hope that incarnation will be the end of the story that we will all want to see. And considering it will be directed and written by the same filmmakers, we can only hope for the best.
Out of 4 Stars: 2 Rated: PG 140mins.
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