So five years after changing how American Feature Animation the cinematic animated adventures of Miles Morales, Spider-Man. This film taking place almost a year and a half from the end of the last film, sees Miles drawn into a multiversal dilemma caused because of his new enemy called The Spot, but this isn’t the battle; it’s more about his antagonistic relationship with Miguel O’Hara, Spider-Man 2099. Miguel leads a team of Spider-People who patrol the multiverse to stop spider villains misplaced throughout the multiverse. The core of this story is based around Miles and Gwen, aka Gwen Stacy, aka Spider-Gwen. The film actually starts with her backstory. This is how the filmmakers begin showing off with what they are doing. See, the first film really wowed people, and while I thought it was quite inventive and very good. For me, though, after years of watching animation from all over the world and a lot of anime and not just the popular stuff, I wasn’t as shocked by the creativity shown on screen last time.
But this time, from the jump, this film impressed me. The film starts with Gwen’s story and the way they choose to render it in pastels and wonderful blues and pinks. With textures that differ from the style synonymous with Miles and its use of halftones patterns and ink lines. Here they make use of popping colours and pastel (the medium) strokes, and broad acrylic brush strokes. The use of color to change the depth of field and mood was very striking as an I watched. They created new tricks to show the emotional mood of Gwen as you saw more of her world and her times outside of Miles and how she ended up on 2099’s team. To me, this look and style in the film honors the style of Robbi Rodriguez and Rico Renzi’s art of those early Spider-Gwen comics. The film does even more as they introduce more characters, each in different styles, on the screen simultaneously. The closest example to this I’ve ever seen has been The Adventures of Gumball on Cartoon Network, but this is on a whole new scale.
The story is deeper as we see Miles trying to come into his own as Spider-Man but also not fall into what he’s told a Spider-Man has to be. It’s something as you have these characters share things in common, a loneliness and loss of who or what they were. The core of this film is about Gwen and Miles and what these adults think they should do or think and how they choose to go about it. Now I’m going, to be honest, I’m not happy they are going to have millions of people hating on my guy Miguel who was, to my knowledge, the first Spider-Man who wasn’t a Peter Parker and Latin at that. Still, sometimes your favorite babyfaces are made to make a heel turn for the story.
I could talk a lot about this film, but honestly, you should just go see it. It’s longer than you might expect. It ends on a cliffhanger, so prepare yourself. However, it is a fantastic movie with a ton of surprises and, even more than the last, a real shot across the bow at Disney & Pixar in Animation to stop resting on their laurels. It’s a new day thanks to Sony Pictures Animation and some Spideys.
Score: A
