MOVIE REVIEW: Spider Man Into the Spiderverse

  Hello everyone! So, I've been hyped for Spider Man Into the Spiderverse for a while. To be exact, over a year. When the first teaser of this film was out, I was blown away because this looks nothing like the usual mainstream animated movie. It just looks straight out of concept art book!

  Naturally, I got excited for this movie. The last time I got this excited was for Kubo and the Two Strings! I waited for a whole year and trying to be patient, even though in the end I just couldn't contain my hype for this movie. For weeks I begged my friends to see this movie together. Although to be honest, I would watch it anyway without my friends, but they eventually agreed to join me. I saw this movie on Saturday, a day after the movie was released, and BOY let me tell you that this movie lives up to its hype.

WARNING: There's a mild spoiler in this review. Please avoid the red text if you haven't watched the movie.

  The movie follows an origin story of Miles Morales, a teenager from Brooklyn that was bitten by a spider and ended up being the next Spider Man. Even though there were a lot of Spider people from another universe (we'll talk about this later), the movie still managed to keep the focus on Miles. I mean, this is his debut film after all. Miles himself was a really likable character. Many comic book geeks complained about him in the comic being a boring Peter Parker knockoff for diversity points, but he got much more characterization in this film, which is thankful.

He bought this costume from someone special

  So, Miles was a good protagonist, but what about the main appeal of this movie, the spider people from another dimension? I'm glad to say that they were really fun! There were five different spider people here. Peni Parker was probably the most popular one after the second trailer was dropped because obviously, she's a cute anime girl. She was indeed really cute, however I really wish that she got more lines. Spider Ham was hilarious! I love his Looney Tunes physique. My favorite one has to be Spider Noir tho. Nicolas Cage really nailed his role, I mean he wanted to be on superhero flick for a while, of course he's gonna do his best. Noir got the best lines on the whole movie and his design is just really neat. However, those three didn't really do much in contributing to both Miles' story and the movie itself. They're just there to show that there are so much Spider universe out there, which is not an unimportant role at all, I just wished that they got more screentime.

Do animals talk in this dimension?

  Spider Gwen was a nice companion for Miles since they're the same age. She wasn't the stereotypical "girl power" character that I've expected her to be. Also she didn't end up together with Miles! Thank God! They just met! But the upcoming sequel will set them up together... let's just see how it'll turn out. Last but not least, we got Peter Parker. In Miles' universe, there was a Peter Parker as well, however he passed away as a hero. This Peter Parker, he was a slobby mess who got broke and lazy. Thankfully, that's not his only traits. He's still kicks a lot of bad guys, so he wasn't a completely unlikable hobo, like many fans had worried. He also has a great chemistry with Miles. His sarcastic witty personality plays off well with Miles' clumsy and curious traits.

Their spidey sense are tingling

  We talked about the hero, now let's talk about the villain. We all know that the main villain is Kingpin, as shown in the trailers. God, his design is wonderful! Because this is technically a cartoon, they can exaggerate his body feature without looking like an uncanny valley. So they decided to make his body extremely huge with small head. Many people thought it looks ridiculous, but I loved it! The design shows his main characteristic, a controlling business man with great strength. And I'm not joking around when I said he has a great strength, he killed Brooklyn's Spider Man with his own fist! He was really terrifying in the movie. Although not gonna lie, his toy design cracks me up. His sidekicks were really entertaining and were a genuine threats towards the heroes. My favorite one... well, I don't think I can spoil it, but you'll know it when you see them.

an absolute UNIT

 Since this movie was written by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the one behind The Lego Movie and Clone High, it was guaranteed to be a hilarious movie. So many great and memorable lines... and a bunch of Spider Man references! If you are a Spider Man fanatic, you're gonna have a blast. If you're a casual movie-goer, you're not gonna miss anything, since the references weren't in your face. There were also a lot of emotional moments as well, and they really hit you in the heart.

Miles in his costume

  Lastly, we gotta talk about the visual. My God, the visual was out of this world! I love how much details they put into the art direction and designs. Just look at the spider people. Spider Noir has halftone pattern to reference classic comic book's artstyle, Spider Ham was basically a 40s Chuck Jones era cartoon character with Looney Tunes physics (seriously, how did they make smear frames in a CGI model?), and Peni Parker is, well, an anime girl, because her comic was based on Neon Genesis Evangelion, a popular anime (shame that there wasn't any reference of it in the movie). Also, since this is a comic book adaptation, they were taking a LOT of advantages of it. It was colorful (unlike the live action comic adaptation in which EVERYTHING is desaturated, God... I'm sick of it), not to mention that there were a lot of visual references of classic comic book, such as comic panels, speech bubbles, and chromatic aberration (this was a reference to printing errors in comics, they REALLY went that far into details). It's like animation is the perfect medium for comic book adaptation, but mainstream audience are treating animation as kiddie flick so there are so little theatrical animated adaptation..... ah, but that rant is for next time.

Look at all those speech bubbles

  Overall, I really recommend you to watch this movie as it's currently available on the theater. I really don't want this movie to flop, because this is definitely a gem in a year filled with mediocre animated movies. The visual, characters, and the script itself makes this movie worth the admission ticket! As for the obligatory ratings, well.. 9/10. This is one of the few movies that I wish I could've re-experienced it all over again because it was so mindblowing. So, get up and see this movie right now!

Man, I wish it was released on December 12... :'(

 Oh, and please wait for the end credits scene. It was glorious and I'm so bummed that I left before it was shown.
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It's been a while since I've written a post that isn't a task. 11th grade is very hard and I was getting lazy, so I didn't post much. That's why I wanted to exercise my writing skills with more reviews and essay coming up... hopefully. Thank you for reading!

MOVIE REVIEW: Coco

So, I just watched Coco and UGH IT WAS SO EMOTIONAL AND MADE ME CRY A LOT. Unfortunately, I didn't watch it theater because I didn't have anyone to bring. And I feel really bad because this film deserves my money. Although...... Olaf's Frozen Adventure.... no thanks.

Coco's Poster

Before I talk about Coco, let's talk about Olaf's Frozen Adventure because wow, it sure got a lot of backlash. In Mexico, the short was taken off the theater after only 1 week screening because so many people complained about it. In US, the short was taken down as well starting from December 8, however Disney claimed that it was taken down because "Olaf's Frozen Adventure was meant to get limited release and it ends on December 8". Even though in the trailer they never stated that the "short" would stop showing on theater on that date. Disney pretty much refused to accept the fact that Frozen's hype is dying.

You're horrible Olaf go away

So what's wrong with Olaf's Frozen Adventure? Well, the "short" was 21 MINUTES LONG. I heard there were a commercial break as well, which made Coco started playing after 45 minutes. Just wow. Olaf's Frozen Adventure was planned to be aired on ABC at first, but Disney didn't see any potential with Coco (is this because none of the cast are white? Hmm Disney) so they decided to play it before the movie. If it were played on ABC I doubt it would get as many hate as now, but usually short before movie are usually only lasted for 5-7 minutes so audience don't really mind it. 21 minutes is just... too much.

:O

PARAGRAPHS BELOW CONTAINS SPOILER! All text filled with black background are very "spoily" so beware.

Okay, enough complaining, now let's talk about the actual movie. Miguel is a music-loving boy in a family where music is forbidden. Why? His great great grandfather abandoned his family because he wanted to be a musician. Her wife was very mad and decided to ban music from her family. After some argument with his family, Miguel thought "I've had it with this crap, I'm just gonna abandon my family brb" and left. He went to his alleged great great grandfather De La Cruz's grave, a loved Mexican musician, and used his guitar because his family destroyed his. Apparently, that guitar sent him into Land of the Dead where all dead people live. And a great adventure ensue....

Reminded me of that one scene in Kubo and the Two Strings idk

First of all, I LOVE the skeletons' design. When I watched the trailer, I thought they looked weird but in the movie they looked so much better for some reason. Their movement are different from human, it was... boney? I don't know, but it's really unique. I also love how similar the skeleton are to them as a living person. The character designer made sure every single skeleton are different, just like how they design human. I really adore it.

De La Cruz comparison

The characters themselves are very lovable and memorable. Miguel acted like a normal kid would act. Sometimes selfish but not evil. There's this character named Hector who started out as a bit of a jerk and manuplative but once you knew his history, you will understand why he acted that way. Yeah... family and such. Not gonna spoil it. Speaking of motives, remember when I said that Miguel's family hated music? It's not there just because the movie needed conflict, there's a reason. You see, Miguel's family really respected the whole 'family culture'. They kept photos of all of their main family for Dia de los Muertos (which I'll explain later) because they want them to keep remember their family. Well... except for Miguel's great great grandfather because he was the man who broke the culture. He left his own wife named Imelda with a baby just to reach his own personal goal, and never returned. Music was the one who broke the family. It left Imelda to struggle raising a child alone.

angery Imelda

I adore how much the crew did their research of Mexican culture. They actually went to Mexico for making this movie. The village Miguel lived in looks very Mexican and it was just gorgeous. The design of The Land of the Dead was great as well. There was lights everywhere and it looks mesmerizing. And for Dia de los Muertos, they explained it very well. Like, at first I thought that holiday was Mexican halloween or something, but it's actually about family. You see, families put up their deceased one's photo for a sign that they remember them. In Dia de los Muertos, they will visit The Land of the Living as long as there someone who still remember them. And if no one in real life remember who they are in the real world, they will permanently die (to avoid overpopulation). I never knew that in my whole life before this movie! I feel bad for thinking that the sugar skull makeup was just random makeup trend, but it's actually symbolize how much a family should remember each other even if they already passed away.

Yes, Coco is actually the old lady and not the boy

As much as I love Coco, yeah, it still has some flaws, although it doesn't bother me much. There's a lot of cliches, such as the music contest that the protagonist wanted to join but couldn't and final concert. There's also the Disney villain twist thing that got very old at this point, but in this movie I have to give credit that in this one it worked much better than in other movie. Seriously, I didn't expect the villain was actually a murderer just to steal someone's fame. Also this is completely unrelated but Hector in real life is.... quite attactive. Remember in my Motorcity first impression that I have a thing for tall and skinny nerd? Yeah, he's pretty much like that when he lived. His skeleton form though, he looks like a hobo! I'm disappointed. But whatever, he reminds me of the guy from Paperman. I love them both. I'm such a creep AGH.

Hector as a skeleton which is not attaractive at all 0/10 go back

Overall, Coco is a highly recommended movie. It's currently my favorite Pixar movie! You should watch it in theater immediately. Don't be like me. Thank you for reading, see ya!