I couldn’t believe how much I loved the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse five years ago. And I couldn’t believe how disappointed I was with this sequel.
Just like the first one, this had very inventive and incredible visuals. Sometimes the colors would blow you away, and other times they looked like half-finished sketches from comic book artists. It was fun. The problem is that the story was weak, and it will probably just appeal to the Comic Con crowd that can spot the Easter eggs, and know all the back-stories on the few villains that pop up (as we sure weren’t given them in the 2 and ½ hours of the film).
The introduction of Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) as Spider-Man in the first film, and his relationship with his police officer father, was a blast. This movie also shares the story with Spider-Gwen (Gwen Stacy, played by Hailee Steinfeld). We get our introduction to her playing drums for the all-girl band The Mary Janes (a clever name both for the marijuana reference, and for the name of Peter Parker’s girlfriend in other universes).
Spider-Gwen is being investigated by her police officer father, because it’s believed she murdered Peter Parker. This leads her to another universe where hundreds and hundreds of Spider-Men train, which is both dumb, but also helps land a few jokes (when a voice commands them to “stop Spider-Man!” and they all point at each other and say “You?” How can you not laugh?)
That Spider-force is run by Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac) who tells Miles that he wasn’t supposed to be the one bitten by the spider, and that one of the rescue missions he did in India (with a very funny Indian Spiderman and Gwen), ruined the natural order of what was supposed to happen.
The always wonderful Brian Tyree Henry is the voice of Miles dad, and he’s playing bad cop, to his wife’s good cop (Luna Lauren Velez), when it comes to disciplining their son for constantly showing up late to things (a meeting with a school counselor, played wonderfully by SNL’s Rachel Dratch, almost channeling her Debbie Downer character.
The main villain in this is “The Spot” voiced by Jason Schwartzman. His first robbery attempt of an ATM is fun, but after that, I got bored with his antics and one-liners while he is fighting Miles.
As various Spidey’s follow Spot from various multiverses, I started losing interest fast. The thing became a big mess (even if still striking visually).
The movie just tried too hard to be hip and threw so much at us. And it ends on a cliffhanger, which is really inexcusable with the length of the picture.
The voice acting was great. Aside from the actors mentioned already, Daniel Kaluuya plays a great punk Spidey, with a cockney accent, a Billy Idol snarl, and Sid Vicious jacket (and Mick Jones guitar).
Jake Johnson was fun, lugging his baby around with him and wanting to show pictures of the tot to everyone.
I love Issa Rae in everything she’s in. The animated version turns her from Issa Rae to Macy Gray.
There were also two cameos (which I won’t ruin) done in the style I’ve seen on Family Guy, where the real actors, not animated versions, appear.
The three directors/screenwriters really needed some edits in this, and a more cohesive story.
I’ll give it an extra half a star for playing a Bobby “Blue” Bland song (the rap songs they played were weak, though).
2 stars out of 5.