This standalone animated Spider-Man movie is nothing short of a triumph – original, inventive, funny, touching and visually unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, this should appeal to superhero fans of all ages.

Premise: In an alternate reality to ours, Miles Morales is a teenager starting a new school in Brooklyn, New York, when he is bitten by a radioactive spider that imbues him with superhuman abilities. But New York already has a Spider-Man, so surely it doesn’t need two? Except once Wilson Fisk, the “Kingpin of Crime”, opens a portal to other dimensions, Miles learns that there are far more Spider-People from other parallel universes than he ever imagined.

Review:

Remember when everyone thought it was a terrible idea to make a movie based on Lego, and then Phil Lord and Chris Miller made The Lego Movie and it was brilliant? I mention this because, when it was announced that Sony was making an animated Spider-Man movie that had nothing to do with the massively successful Marvel Cinematic Universe and its version of Spider-Man (played by Tom Holland), I thought it was at best a terrible idea, and at worst a cynical attempt to cash-in on the character’s popularity with a subpar animated feature. Instead, Phil Lord has written (with Lord and Miller also producing) a movie that is one of the greatest love letters to comic-books that I have ever seen.

To set the scene, this is not just another Spider-Man movie chronicling the adventures of Peter Parker. Instantly setting this movie apart from every other Spider-Man film you’ve ever seen, this movie focuses on Miles Morales, an alternate universe version of Spider-Man seen in the comics but never before on the big screen. In the comics (and in this film), Miles (voiced by Shameik Moore) is a teenager at a time when the “main” Spider-Man, Peter Parker (voiced by Chris Pine), has been saving the city as an adult for over a decade. But when Miles is also bitten by a radioactive spider and develops powers of his own, he has to question what he will do with these powers, and whether he could ever be a hero like Peter Parker (even if he wanted to).

“…Jake Johnson comes very close to stealing the movie…”

But this is really just the jumping off point for the film, and from there, soon different versions of Spider-Man start arriving from alternative parallel universes, including Peter B. Parker (voiced by Jake Johnson), a middle-aged version of Spider-Man who’s let himself go, and Gwen Stacy/Spider-Woman (known colloquially as Spider-Gwen, and voiced by Hailee Steinfeld), who comes from a universe where it was Gwen Stacy, rather than Peter Parker, who was bitten by the radioactive spider. From there things get even more crazy, as a result of Kingpin’s (voiced by Liev Schreiber) plan to open a portal between dimensions, even if it threatens to destroy New York itself.

The plot is pretty “out there” even for a comic-book movie – but in truth, the plot is not this film’s real selling point. This is a story that, in lesser hands, could have been just another superhero origin story – but instead, we have a film that transcends all of those usual tropes and clichés. The movie’s strength isn’t so much what happens, as how everything unfolds.

“…the voice cast is phenomenal…”

The film balances tones expertly, moving from a laugh-out-loud funny moment, to some quite intense scenes (that may be a little much for very young viewers), to a joyously larger-than-life action set-piece. The humour is multi-layered, offering something for younger audience members one minute and something for the older viewers the next, with almost all the gags hitting their marks. Jake Johnson in particular comes very close to stealing the movie as the dishevelled Peter B. Parker, providing a lot of the humour, but also a surprising amount of heart. Shameik Moore plays Miles Morales as the everyman of the story – and indeed, the central theme of his story is that potentially anyone could stand up and be a hero if they chose to.

The rest of the voice cast is phenomenal – from Oscar-nominated Hailee Steinfeld’s feisty but caring Gwen Stacy, to Oscar-winner Nicholas Cage’s appearance as a 1930’s hard-boiled noir version of Spider-Man, to Liev Schreiber’s surprisingly vulnerable portrayal of Wilson Fisk, to Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali’s multifaceted role as Miles’ uncle, and Oscar-nominated Lily Tomlin’s appearance as Aunt May (who actually gets more to do than Aunt May traditionally does in Spider-Man movies).

“…the closest thing to a comic-book coming to life that I’ve seen…”

Visually, the film is like nothing you’ve seen before. Usually it plays like a normal, modern animation, but then it will switch into a comic-book style for a particular action beat, or change animation style to suit the particular parallel universe that a character comes from (such as the anime universe of Peni Parker and her futuristic, psychic-powered robot SP//dr). This fluid changing of animation styles shouldn’t work – yet somehow it not only does, but it also gives the film a gloriously comic-book feel that is the closest thing to a comic-book coming to life that I’ve seen.

Overall, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is an absolute blast. It’s at various times funny, touching, and dramatic – and sometimes all three at once. It also includes a fantastic cameo from Stan Lee, who died shortly before the film was released, which makes his final onscreen words additionally poignant. Coming just a couple of months after the hugely disappointing Venom, this film shows that it is actually possible to make a standalone Spider-Man film separate from the MCU, and it can still be a triumph in its own right. This film displays the kind of originality and inventiveness that is the polar opposite of derivative drivel like Venom, and is unquestionable the best thing Sony has done with Spider-Man outside of the MCU in years.