Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

Score: S (10/10)

With the cultural and industry-leading importance of Into the Spider-Verse, Across the Spider-Verse needed to be bigger and bolder in almost every way. Fortunately, the film propels animation into more spheres of possibility and supplies constantly gripping messages of love, fate, independence, and desperation to make the movie a once-in-a-lifetime experience for people to love and cherish.

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As the animation industry entered the ladder half of the 2010s, its films critical success had its ups and downs. By this point, many corporations realized sequels and IPs had a low-risk, high-reward payoff. Many productions, like Incredibles 2 and Ralph Breaks the Internet, failed to captivate fans and critics. However, the concern lies with original storytelling. In 2018, only three major animation studios produced stories unrelated to a well-known brand or franchise: Warner Bros.’ Smallfoot, Searchlight Pictures’ Isle of Dogs, and Aardman’s Early Man. However, one franchise disregarded the industry’s somewhat greedy nature to flip it on its head: Spider-Man with the 2018 animated sensation Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Fast forwarding to 2023, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse achieves the same goals, only to a much higher degree. The film doubles down on what its predecessor set in terms of animation. The comic book aesthetic is in full effect, with comic book visuals and sound effects making a return. However, each Spider-Person has a unique art style, with Spider-Punk, Spider-Gwen, and Spider-Man India (Pavitr Prabhakar) and their respective worlds having the most visual flair and screen time. Gwen’s world is the best of the three, with her world’s color palette changing depending on a person’s mood or attitude. The film also includes several other animation feats, primarily once there are hundreds of Spider-People on screen, moving far beyond anyone expected it to go.

However, the area where the movie hits home is with its messages and character dynamics. Miles’s role as a superhero forces him into precarious situations as Spider-Man and a high school student. His parents want what’s best for him as he ventures further into the world, with his secret life as Spider-Man only complicating the ordeal. Miles wants to tell them the truth so Miles won’t have to hide his selfless deeds. He wants to tell Gwen about how he feels about her. He wants to keep everyone safe no matter the odds. However, Miles and every other Spider-Person know they can’t always do those things because it will further complicate their superhero lives. They all have experience with losing loved ones while being who they are. Miles refuses to accept the things he’ll have to lose by being Spider-Man, and nobody would blame him. Everyone would want to save their loved ones if they had the chance, but life, possibly even fate, gets in the way.

Almost every moment of Across the Spider-Verse connects itself with the audience. The animation, characters, environment, messages, and conflicts all combine into a work of art worth seeing time and time again. Never have I seen a film take itself so seriously while also inventing a narrative worth praising and celebrating. I connect far too much with the film and its messages about love, fate, independence, and desperation. However, for it to combine those messages with animation done so astronomically well in an age where production companies are reluctant to do so is a feat not seen in recent memory (outside of Into the Spider-Verse). Every person on Earth with a heart and soul must watch this movie in their lifetime because people will talk about it for decades after its immediate success.

I’ll say it now and forever: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a masterpiece in creative and animated storytelling.