“Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse” Detangling my thoughts & emotions.

THIS MOVIE WAS AMAZING!

That needs to be said out of the gate. In my twenty-three years of life on this rock, I have never experienced the type of joy and irrational, childlike fervor that I felt while watching this (yes even when I was a child). Now that my initial emotions are out of the way, let’s talk about some specific things that stuck out to me in the colors, animation, the attention to detail. I won’t speak about the story because I do not want to spoil it, but MY WORD, was it amazing.

First, the colors. THE. COLORS!! As if the animators hadn’t gone above and beyond in the first movie, with its splash pages, use of ditko dots (a special shading technique popularized by comic book legend Steve Ditko in which he uses fading dots to add depth) and incorporation of onomatopoeia; this new movie goes the extra mile in fleshing out new and amazing universes with their own distinctive styles, auras, and rules. A great example that is seen in the movie trailers is that of Mumbattan and how its world and its Spider-Man, Pavitr Prabhakar are animated, colored, and fleshed out. His world is painted with wonderful powdery Holi colors, where it looks like Gulal has been spilled so deliberately over everything. This level of care is taken with all the other worlds we visit in this movie, and it is truly a marvel to behold. I was moved to the edge of my seat, then moved to tears.

Now onto the Spider-Man of Mumbattan, Pavitr Prabhakar. To me, he has the best web swinging style in the entire movie; and this just speaks to the care and time the animators took in understanding their characters, and what made each unique and special in this movie. Pavitr swings using his bracelets to make these complex, beautiful designs as he traverses his city and honestly, I need the Blu-ray to come out so that I can properly break down each frame of what I saw, it was honestly insane. Other characters like my main man, HOBIE BROWN!! (Spider Punk), are also animated very distinctively, showing their character and uniqueness without having to say a word.

Finally, I want to speak a bit about the attention to details that the movie begs for audiences to pay attention and I am a bit stuck. I am a bit stuck because the sheer amount of these details is so much, and this is a simple LinkedIn post, it would be overwhelming. But also, emotionally, I believe it deserves all my praise because, wow, they really did that. A simple example that’s shown in the trailers is when Miles Morales’ mom, our main character, snaps at him for getting a B in Spanish seeing that she is Puerto Rican. When she snaps, the animators show a snapping effect. This snapping effect comes out with the shapes and colors of the Puerto Rican flag. IS THAT NOT INSANE. I mean wow. They really did not have to do that, but they did. The extra mile was taken to use this special medium of art to characterize and color this world in a way that’s only possible in art and it makes the movie all the better for it. The best part is that this is just one of hundreds of little details like this. There are already hundreds of details breaking down, more of these details that even I did not notice, and I will be watching them to get all the info I need.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse is a love letter. A love letter to comic books, a love letter to the medium of animation, a love letter to cinema and a love letter to fans. I am so thankful that I live in a part of my multiverse where movies like this exist, and I hope others can appreciate a bit of what I love about this movie. Thanks for reading, go watch this movie.