RageLite review - Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse

It’s the early 2000s and in an attempt to attract new readers with stories without decades of continuity, Brian Michael Bendis and a few other writers launch the Ultimate Universe, and one of the first stories to come out was Ultimate Spider-man. This Spider-man was younger, and more relatable to kids and teens, as was the original aim for Spider-man, but there came a time when this fresh start became old again, and the decision was made to kill of Peter Parker and replace him with a new Spider-man, Miles Morales. And whilst there were plenty of haters of anyone other than Peter taking up the mantle of Spider-man, Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli brought their A-game and the character was a hit with readers, so much so that when they pulled the trigger on the Ultimate Universe, he was one of maybe 2 characters spared.

Miles currently fills the void Peter once filled, whilst Peter in the comics is in his mid-late 20s, Miles is now the young Spider-man to appeal to teens. Him being bi-racial allowed him to appeal to non-white audiences who may not have seen themselves in Peter.

I have read every Miles Morales solo book, I followed him through years of Bendis, and am still following him now Bendis has moved to DC. His popularity has transcended the comics, he appeared in both Disney produced Spider-man shows, made appearances in Insomniac’s PS4 Spider-man game and got his own PS4/PS5 spinoff game. And of course, there’s Into the Spider-verse, a movie from Sony Animation Studios centred around Miles Morales.

I must admit, I was really happy to hear about a Miles Morales film coming out, but I was less ecstatic to hear that would also be a multiverse crossover with multiple spider-men and spider-women. I was concerned that with all the multiversal chaos Miles’ own story would be lost in the shuffle, but with Phil Lord and Chris Miller on board, I hoped we were in for something and, spoiler alert, we got it. This film won the Academy Award for best animated movie, and made $375m on a $90m budget, and got a pretty striking 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. Is it worthy of all that praise? Well, let’s take a look

Praise4Media #69 - Spider-man: Far From Home

Spider-man, Spider-man
Don’t wanna go cause he’s spider-man
Turned to dust, snapped to life.
Mentor goes to the afterlife 

Look out, off goes the Spider-man!

One thing I’ve praised about the MCU’s Spider-man is their willingness to offer new elements, most of the supporting cast are original or have been drastically changed from the source material. That being said, putting such an emphasis on Peter’s relationship to Tony Stark is a double-edged sword, especially when the sequel takes place after an event which kills him off. 

Jon Watts is back in the director’s chair and 2/6 of the writing staff of the last film are also here, Chris McKenna, who alongside the Spider-man movies also co-wrote the Lego Batman Movie, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Ant-man and the Wasp, and Erik Summers, who has a similar resumé.

The film had a bigger budget, nearing $200m and, in part riding the wave from Avengers Endgame became the first $1bn Spider-man movie. And has pretty favourable ratings with both critics and audiences (90% average 7.44/10 and 95% average 4.63/5 respectively) so where do I stand, I guess it’s on guilty pleasures so I must like it to some degree but let’s analyse and make fun of it anyway.