Which is why, a year and a half on, I'm doing a review.
Damn this is an exceptional movie.
Visually, this is like nothing else I've ever seen. Just the colours and the animation style... styles honestly. The use of text boxes and on-screen onomatopoeia... brilliant.
The slight comic book blurring took me a while to get used to, but otherwise, this movie is an absolute feast for your eyes.
And the fact that Miles goes from 12 fps to 24 fps throughout the movie as he comes to grips with his powers... perfection.
Then we get to the story... and of course the man responsible for both Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 and The Lego Movie was the driving force for this. It's clearly got his fingerprints all over it. Amazing characters who you care about and who have real emotions and an emotional arc throughout the movie. Yep, that's pure Phil Lord right there. You magnificent bastard!
Because that's the heart of this movie. Not just making a single version of Spider-Man that you relate to and care about... no, doing it a minimum of four times... then adding in even more Spider-Persons and making you still care. Giving them relationships that you care about. Making the relationships vital to the direction of the story without becoming overly sentimental or saccharine.
And the call back joke that could have gotten super old super quickly but absolutely does not. In fact the final time it occurs, it's actually an emotional moment.
This is also a stellar cast... I'll be honest, beyond two voices, I didn't recognise anybody, which I kind of like for this kind of movie. There doesn't need to be recognisable voices here. It needs to have voices that work for the characters. And boy oh boy do they work. But at the same time, if you can slip Lily Tomlin in there at just the correct moment, absolutely do that.
While everyone is excellent, I do need to call out Shameik Moore as Miles Morales,Jake Johnson as Peter B Parker and Hailee Steinfeld for giving their characters life and heart and a weight.
I don't often comment on the music in things, and I'll be honest, at a certain point in the movie I absolutely stopped noticing it (which is what happens in all movies unless it's a musical... I am listening to it while writing this though)... plus out of the 20 or so artists, I recognise about four of them... but the music is not what I would have expected from a Spider-Man movie and at the same time it fits beautifully with this world and this Spider-Man.
So while I'm so very late to this party, if you're even later and have somehow missed this, absolutely go back and check it out. Thank me later.
yani's rating: 5 goobers out of 5
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