Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Entry updated 26 August 2024. Tagged: Film.
US animated film (2023). Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Animation, Marvel Entertainment. Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson. Written by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Dave Callaham. The Mike Morales version of Spider-Man (see Superheroes) was created by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli, based on the Marvel Comics characters by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Voice cast includes Oscar Isaac, Daniel Kaluuya, Shameik Moore, Jason Schwartzman, Karan Soni, Hailee Steinfeld and Jorma Taccone. 140 minutes. Colour.
Gwen Stacy, Spider-Woman (Steinfeld), back in her own dimension after the events of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), is fighting The Vulture (Taccone) (see Supervillains) – who resembles something designed by Leonardo da Vinci – when Miguel O'Hara (Isaac), Spider-Man 2099, arrives: he leads the Spider Society, an organization of Spider-people that polices the Multiverse. O'Hara complains that Kingpin's collider from the previous film has left "a hole wide enough for guys like him [The Vulture] to get randomly shot into the wrong Dimension" and if everybody is not returned to their own dimension, the whole of Time and space will collapse (see Disaster). After her father, a police captain, prioritizes his latter role over the former, Gwen joins the Society.
One of her first jobs is in the dimension of Spider-Man Mike Morales (Moore), monitoring The Spot (Schwartzman), one of Kingpin's Scientists who was transformed into a living portal when the collider was destroyed – for which he blames Spider-Man (also resenting being dismissed by him as a "villain of the week"). Gwen takes the opportunity to reconnect with Mike, which is not allowed; he is having his own family problems. Then The Spot discovers he can not only open portals within this world but also between dimensions; Gwen pursues him across the Spider-Verse, with Mike leaping impetuously into her closing portal as she departs. The Spot finds a collider in another dimension and has it absorb him, increasing his powers; in the disruption this causes, Mike saves a police captain, father of the girlfriend of Pavitr Prabhakar (Soni), that universe's Spider-Man. Mike and Gwen – plus a new friend, the anarchic Hobie Brown, Spider-Punk (Kaluuya) – are promptly taken to the Spider Society HQ in Nueva York 2099. Here Miguel explains that the captain's death would have been one of the "canon events that bind our [Spider-People] lives together" (we have seen the deaths of other police captains close to Spider-People); by stopping this Mike created an anomaly which caused that dimension to begin unravelling. Furthermore, Miguel reveals, Mike is also an anomaly – caused by his being bitten by another dimension's spider, brought over by the Spot whilst working on the Kingpin's collider. Dimensions can not have two Spider-Men – so Peter Parker's death in the previous film was thus inevitable.
On hearing this Mike realizes that, as his policeman father is about to be promoted to captain, it will trigger a canon event where he will be murdered by The Spot: so he tries to get back to his dimension to save his father, despite a horde of Spider-People trying to stop him. Gwen is sent back to her dimension in disgrace: here she learns, perhaps significantly, that her policeman father had resigned from the force after her departure. Spider-Punk sends her a dimension-hopping bracelet and she travels to Mike's dimension to join him; but he is not there, having accidentally ended up in one where his father died and the local Mike became the Supervillain The Prowler (Moore). Gwen gathers a squad of sympathetic Spider-People to go and find him. Then, rather annoyingly, the film ends. The third film in the trilogy, Beyond the Spider-Verse is due for release in 2024 or 2025.
Whilst Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse can be enjoyed as a standalone film, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is clearly the first of two parts. That frustration aside – along with why are Spider-People so important that they effect dimensional stability? – what we get is a film whose animation is remarkable and even better than its predecessor; with a likable cast, a good story combining action, Humour and emotion (the latter leaning heavily on the "parent/child conflict – but they all love each other" trope). However, final judgement awaits the release of Beyond the Spider-Verse. Commercially Into the Spider-Verse was a considerable success, becoming the sixth highest grossing film of its year: $691m worldwide (it also became Sony Pictures Animation's highest-grossing film, knocking The Smurfs (2011) off that pedestal). [SP]
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