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!
