I think it’s fair to call him an antagonist or a villain at this point. We don’t know how it’ll shake out in part 3. He could have a “what have I done?” realization. Or it could turn out he fiddles with the spiderverse to personally make sure they all lose their parents/uncles because if he had to, they had to.
Thinking about the ending a lot, I didn’t like the cliffhanger aspect of it. Even if I had known, I like a movie to be a complete story and this wasn’t. On repeated viewings years in the future with part 3, it might not bother me because it should be a whole picture but now, waiting for 3, it just ended without closure and I’m not a fan of that. Infinity War was a huge bummer, but it was a whole story. Complete by itself, even though you wanted more.
I find that BTF2 and Empire were both full and complete stories. Sure, Doc was stuck back in 1885 and Han was frozen, but those felt more like sequel hooks than true cliffhangers.
I’d be more forgiving if I liked the whole thing more. It’s just a preference thing because I can see how technically it was an outstanding piece of art.
I had some trouble understanding Gwen’s opening monologue over the sound of her drum solo.
And I’m not the only one.
(see what I did there?)
On a side note, it’s somewhat amusing and quaint to read about them “sending updated prints” to theaters as if they were actually shipping them new reels of film instead of having them download a patch.
Yeah, that’s my takeaway. His explanation of canon events sounded pretty weak to me–and I suspect it’s supposed to, because it’s bullshit in-universe. (in-multiverse?)
As I understand it–not having read any comics–it went like this:
His family died.
He found another universe where he’d died but his family hadn’t.
He moved to that universe.
That universe collapsed.
He concluded that bahdiblahcanon was responsible for the collapse of the universe with no other evidence.
He atoned for his perceived actions by enforcing canon across the spiderverse.
The cause-and-effect between steps 3 and 4 weren’t at all established, and I wonder if they’re all in his head.
I loved it. My favorite moment was when the Spidersaurus Rex shot web at Miles, and the on-screen sound-effect:
This is where the movie fell apart for me. I thought they spent way too long on that area, and the chase scene that followed seemed to go on forever. I am also not a fan of the “ah yes, a thing I know that I can name! what fun” type of film shoutout. By the end, I was really struggling with sitting still to finish the movie. I didn’t know it was a cliff hanger, and trying to figure out how they were going to finish all the story was making me feel crazy, because I was like “surely I’ve already been sitting here for a couple of hours??”. The first part of the movie was so tight and well done!
And of course I agree that it all looked amazing. I really think this is one of the only animating teams that really understand what makes comics special besides “there are squares that lead to other squares in a story.” Just the way they used different styles and panels to hit the emotional beats was really well done.
That said, I really like Miles Morales and what they are doing here, but if I rewatch it, it’ll be to pause and look at a lot of scenes without watching the whole thing through.
Question about that chase scene: it really kicked off when Miles was revealed to be hiding on another Spiderman’s back. This is a dude who goes invisible all the time. Was there any explanation for why he hadn’t turned invisible, other than that it would’ve ruined the joke?
That’s pretty much it. This is a chase scene which featured the standard frozen-panel Spider-Man from the original TV cartoon, whom Miles escapes from because…well, he’s a frozen panel. It’s just another in a rapid succession of gags, including the T-Rex, cat, and cowboy versions (“You didn’t wait for three!”) of Spider-Man.
I didn’t catch a given reason why he wouldn’t have gone invisible, so I’m guessing it was just for the joke.
It might tie into the fact that he wanted all of them to follow him out of the citadel so he could use the teleporter, so he needed them to actually see him to get that sequence started. Otherwise, he’d just be stuck in that dimension even if he escaped.
The chase was a distraction to empty the Citadel so he could go back and go home. He wanted to be followed. Turning invisible would have been counter productive.
I agree it was a little too long. My wife who is not a comic book movie fan but enjoyed the first one checked out at that point.
I had no idea this was a Part I of II kind of movie, and yes I did think it felt long… but man, what a GORGEOUS film. Just amazingly beautiful, joyfully animated, wonderfully lit, like nothing I’ve ever seen (except maybe for the first movie )
Thinking of taking my lady to this, but quick question: Is it a requirement to see the 1st one to understand what is happening? If so, we might just see the latest Wes Anderson film… thanks!
I have seen commentary that argues that the first movie really changed animation: The Last Wish, the new TMNT, other films are taking risks with animation that are both evocative of Into The Spiderverse and interesting in their own rights.
It’s like when Harry Potter proved kids would read long books. Spiderverse showed audiences could tolerate, even appreciate, using animation style as a storytelling device, rather than just as the medium.
It reminds me of how it took me years to appreciate comic books/graphic novels because I expected everything of substance to be conveyed in the text. It really didn’t occur to me that the visual portion could do anything but reinforce that: that there could be tensions and contradictions, even.
(On another note, my 11 year old lives in a world where watching 20 minute video essays analyzing films is a normal and expected part of enjoying them. He’s so much more sophisticated in his understanding of media and narrative than I was at the same age, because I had no models outside of English class, where we were still learning Freytag’s triangle. I imagine filmmakers can expect more from filmgoers in general these days).
