Miles finds himself at odds with Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac), who believes Miles is going about it the wrong way. And he does not care to argue about it…
After Fast X, this is the second cliffhanger I have seen in weeks - and this one works the way it is supposed to.
It feels like a threshold has been crossed - it teases a future story but still feels like the characters have undergone a major change from where they started.
It is too soon to say whether this movie is better than its predecessor, and I almost do not care.
Across the Spider-Verse is a sequel the way Empire Strikes Back is a sequel: it takes the characters into new situations, while providing them (and the audience) with new information that completely recontextualizes their/our understanding of the world, and their place within it.
This movie does not pretend that Miles is a newbie - he goes from wanting to be a part of a group, to learning to think and work by himself in his own way.
Being a Spider-thing is the least special qualifier in this movie.
It is the person behind the moniker who is important.
This movie is quietly radical in the way it rearranges and confronts the familiar elements of the original.
Miles finds himself at odds with his allies, including mentor Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson).
Whereas in the last movie he had lost everything, here he has something at stake, and is unable to support Miles.
While this film has a villain (Jason Schwartzman’s Spot), the real antagonist is Isaac’s Miguel O'Hara.
He is the best kind of opponent, because his motivation is understandable - he sees in Miles his own failure.
Co-written by Lord and Miller (with David Elias Callaham), the film is not a gag fest.
There is plenty of gold to be mined from the 40 million Spider-Men/Women/Dinosaurs/Lego variants (and there is a delirious set piece in which Miles literally outruns all of them), but the movie does not feel like it has fallen for the sequel curse of overburdening the film with gags.
As with the first movie, Across the Spider-Verse displays earnest love for Spider-Man.
I am not as versed in the comics, but the movie feels like a subtle parody of the nineties comics’ obsession with darkness.
One of my personal highlights was clone Ben Reilly (Andy Samberg), who is designed to resemble not only the art style of his comic book appearance, but the inking and printing processes of the Nineties.
We only get a few glimpses of the Spider-gang from the previous movie, which leaves room for a new supporting cast of Spider-people with unique designs and aesthetics:
Daniel Kaluuya’s Hobart "Hobie" Brown / Spider-Punk is styled to replicate the handmade, patchwork aesthetic of punk art.
He is also the one character who does not lie to Miles, and gives our hero the least resistance when he makes his escape from O’Hara’s sanctum.
If this movie loses a little of the intimacy and specificity of Miles’ first adventure, the expanded canvas does not lose sight of the characters, in particular, Hailee Steinfeld’s Spider-Gwen.
While this movie does end with a cliffhanger, what prevents it from feeling incomplete is how it structures the movie around Gwen’s own evolution, particularly her relationship with her world.
What is striking about Across the Spider-Verse is how it questions the rigidity of canon. Is Spider-Man/Pig/Rex defined by tragedy? Must established characters and stories remain anchored to the past, repeating the same beats, the same arcs, the same resolutions?
In a time when creators seem all too willing to acquiesce to the fickle whims of vocal fans, Across the Spider-Verse offers a firm No. Only through constant experimentation, and courage, can ideas like Spider-Man continue to flourish. Miles’s fate might be in the balance as the credits roll, but that desire and need to break away from formula, from what is expected, is not negated.
Miles may not have ended up where he thought, but he - and we, the viewers - are left the way all good narratives should: dying to know what will happen next…
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