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Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Spoiler-Free Review: A Celebration Of Spider-Man’s Comic Book Legacy

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Review

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will hit the big screens tomorrow, and to say the hype is real is underselling it. This coming of age superhero flick expands on the story of Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy from Into the Spider-Verse in meaningful ways while paying homage to its comic book origins and rich legacy for the past 60 ish years.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Official Trailer

Gorgeous Visuals and Art Style

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Spoiler-Free Review: A Celebration Of Spider-Man's Comic Book Legacy 7

I was fortunate enough to attend the pre-screening of the movie, and was immediately impressed by the visual direction they took. If you like the previous film’s art style, you will love this even more.

Based on the trailer, you will see Spider-People from other universes making appearances in this movie. Do keep in mind that the comic series went through multiple artists and had several spin-offs, with each having their own unique art style.

Across the Spider-Verse manages to blend in all these art styles into a coherent visual experience that not only celebrates the art form, but also ensuring that each character don’t look out of place.

Intense Action Combined with Darker Storytelling

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Spoiler-Free Review: A Celebration Of Spider-Man's Comic Book Legacy 8

To avoid revealing any spoilers, I can only offer a glimpse on what to expect. Like Into the Spider-Verse, the sequel expands on its multiverse setting. Despite that, the story never felt incoherent to me, and I was stuck at the edge of my seat for the entire 2 hours 20 minutes runtime. While it is an action-packed superhero flick, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse still has its sentimental and heart-felt moments.

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Spoiler-Free Review: A Celebration Of Spider-Man's Comic Book Legacy 9

However having a huge cast of Spider-People (it was revealed earlier to have more than 280 Spider-People) does mean that character development for the new characters had to take a back seat, with only some screen time to spare for surface-level character introduction. It is a sequel after all, so I am not that bothered by it.

The storyline however, was unexpectedly darker than Into the Spider-Verse, and these scenes have a grittier art style that juxtaposes the livelier scenes, in a way that only animation can achieve.

References, So Many Spider-Man References

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Spoiler-Free Review: A Celebration Of Spider-Man's Comic Book Legacy 10

If you are a big fan of the comic series and/ or the earlier Spider-Man live action movies, you are in for a treat. Sony managed to pull off tons of references and pay proper homage to the comic series’ rich legacy.

It was quite an exhilarating experience to see Sony give so much respect to the source material, arguably even more than Marvel did.

Final Verdict

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a fantastic addition to the iconic web-slinger’s 60 years long history, and definitely lives up to the hype. Despite being a movie created to celebrate Spider-Man‘s legacy, newcomers or those who only watched the earlier movie or MCU adaptations won’t feel left out.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will be available in all major cinemas from June 1st 2023.

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Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Spoiler-Free Review: A Celebration Of Spider-Man's Comic Book Legacy 11
Written By

Part-time gamer, writer, & full time weird coffee person.

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