Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Rewrites the Stakes
2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, showed that there was still life left in the superhero drama and in the conceit of a multiverse. In Miles Morales, it gave us a fresh voice in a familiar tale. It also stunned with its animation, switching styles with a deft (if chaotic) hand. But even the chaos was in service of weaving a Spider-Man story that, for all our superhero burnout, felt revolutionary.
How does one move to a sequel? Well, the answer in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is to largely follow the same playbook: combine comic book action with wry humor, fill the screen with kinematic style, and dig deeper into the emotional lives of the characters. Across the Spider-Verse doesn’t take any truly innovative steps beyond the first film, but what it does, it does with excellence and verve. Like its predecessor, Across the Spider-Verse has been received with fervor that’s well merited. We still crave the overwhelming energy that this series offers. Some day that appetite might wane, but it should drive us through to the end of Miles’ trilogy.
Across the Spider-Verse finds Miles’ (Shameik Moore) life continuing on in its new normal. He bounces from school, where he’s beginning to apply for colleges, to his home life to being Spider-Man. Our hero is an impressive acrobat, but it’s naturally tough for him to balance all of these. His parents notice his flagging attention to school, but the interpersonal conflict really comes when he shows up late to the celebration of his dad’s promotion to police captain.
Spider-Man has his own troubles. The incidents of the last film turned a bystander scientist (Jason Schwartzman) into Spot, a multiverse-infected form who can create portals that allow him to jump across space. At first he’s little more than a bumbling foe, but soon his powers expand, giving him the ability to jump between worlds.
As he battles Spot, Miles also crosses paths with his old friend and maybe crush, Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld). Gwen, the Spider-Woman of her universe, has been recruited by an interdimensional agency of Spider creatures that works to prevent anomalies and conflicts across universes. Spot’s powers have them troubled, so they’ve sent her to investigate.
The reunion is bittersweet: Miles has longed to see her again, this friend who knows him better than anyone. But he’s kept at arm’s length from her mission, and it aggravates his jealousy and frustration. Feeling stifled at home and in his heroism, he follows Gwen without her knowledge, jumping into another universe. His impertinence gives him access to not only other worlds, but also to the Spider society. But it also unveils the anger of Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac), the leader of the society. When Miguel realizes he can’t keep Miles away, he lashes out, claiming that Miles has been the real problem, the source of multiversal rifts. Miles’ presence is, itself, a danger.
Miguel also acts as the spokesperson for the film’s central idea, and what is undoubtedly going to be the crucial tension of the final film. According to Miguel, every Spider hero must encounter “canon events.” Even as the people and places change, each version of Spider-Man has to undergo the same experiences—which, inevitably, turn out to be personal disasters. The one currently in view is that each hero is forced into a situation where, in order to rescue an innocent person from death, a police captain close to the hero must be sacrificed. This revelation strikes terror in Miles, realizing his dad’s promotion might be his death sentence.
The voice acting is credible across the talented cast. Luna Lauren Velez and Brian Tyree Henry are standouts as Miles’ parents, expressing their love and impatience in believable forms. Jake Johnson gives another delightful turn as Peter Parker, and Schwartzman clearly has some fun with his turn as the villain. But the most unforgettable character is Daniel Kaluuya’s Hobie, a.k.a. Spider-Punk, an anarchic, British rocker. Kaluuya has yet to give a performance less than captivating, and it’s tremendous fun to hear him eschew an American accent.
Again, the animation is spectacular, elevating the playfulness of the first movie to mark out an emotional landscape as much as a physical one. The textured lives of Miles and Gwen bleeds into a textured visual ethos. The story, too, flows out from that personal center. The stakes are ultimately an extension of Miles’ emotional life—and we see similar glimpses of what this all will mean for Gwen and Miguel.
For Miguel and the rest of the Spider society, the canon event is dogmatic. It must be followed for Spider-Man to live out his story as a superhero. To undo such an event is to risk the stability of the universe. Quite the ethical dilemma. By pushing against such predestination, Miles insists on the chance to reclaim, undo loss before it ever happens. “Everyone keeps telling me how my story is supposed to go,” Miles says. We’ll have to wait until the next movie to see if he can rewrite the script.
