Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson
Written by Phil Lord, Chris Miller, David Callaham
Starring Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Bryan Tyree Henry, Jason Schwartzman, Oscar Isaac
Rated PG
Runtime: 2 hours, 20 minutes
In theaters June 2

by Ryan Silberstein Managing Editor, Red Herring

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the kind of sequel that justifies the very existence of sequels. Into the Spider-Verse told a complete story, and didn’t need a follow up. But Across advances everything about the first film, including the animation style(s), the tone, and the themes. It pays homage things from the character’s 60 year history while never gatekeeping a love for any Spider-Persons. That “anyone can wear the mask” mentality was a cornerstone of the first Spider-Verse, and this sequel expands on that to explore what happens when we try to break the patterns unfolding before us. 

Picking up a year after the first movie, Across the Spider-Verse opens with Gwen in her home world. She’s too angry for her bandmates, and her father, Captain Stacy of the NYPD, is on the hunt for her alter ego, Spider-Woman. An incursion from another universe offers her an escape route, and she gladly takes it. Meanwhile, on his Earth, Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), now 15, hasn’t seen any of his other dimensional friends, and is living the life of a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man in Brooklyn. While lonely, Miles wants to keep studying physics so he can find a way back to his friends, especially his mentor Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) and his crush, Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld). When fighting The Spot (Jason Schwartzman), a villain with the power to create holes between dimensions, Miles is reunited with Gwen, and finds himself a part of a larger multiverse of Spider-People, led by Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac). 

While “anyone can wear the mask,” the big conflict here is that Miguel and others feel like Miles is an “anomaly.” We find out that before he was The Spot, he was a scientist working on the collider from the first movie, and that the spider that bit Miles was from another dimension. In Miguel’s mind, this means Miles was never meant to be Spider-Man, and his very existence as such endangers the entire multiverse. The recurring moments in Spider-Man’s history that have left an indelible mark on the character, like the deaths of Uncle Ben, Captain Stacy, Gwen Stacy, and others, have been elevated to the status of “Cannon Event,” a metafictional shorthand for the patterns of Spider-Man’s web in every universe. There is always a love interest whose father is a cop that Spider-Man is unable to save. These “Cannon Events” are so important they must be allowed to happen, according to Miguel. Miles rejects this notion, as there is no reason not to try to save every life. This becomes the main conflict, and moves Across the Spider-Verse away from supervillains and into philosophical disagreements that are deeply layered. However, the questions are not theoretical. They challenge the characters to make hard choices, to fight what they believe in, making this metacommentary nicely interwoven to the story being told. Yes, like many other Lord & Miller scripted projects, this aggressively winks at the audience, but it rarely undercuts the emotional impact while bending the fourth wall. The stakes are clearly laid out: Will Miles get with the program, or will he challenge the status quo? The answer to that question is built into Miles’ character and his origin from the previous movie. 

Miles feels like he has lofty expectations to live up to, both as a son and as a Spider-Man. He’s more secure as Spider-Man than he was before, though learning there’s a whole multiverse of hundreds of Spider-People who have a cool clubhouse that he was not invited to obviously causes self-doubt. Miles’ relationship with his parents is strained by his secret superhero life, and in some ways, it is easier for him to talk to his father, Jeff (Brian Tyree Henry), as Spider-Man than as Miles. But his mother, Rio (Luna Lauren Vélez) gets a lot more of a spotlight here, as she tries over and over to connect with her son. Miles is the protagonist, and so of course the movie is told from his perspective, but both Rio and Jeff are extremely relatable characters. They love their son and can’t figure out what he is hiding from them or why. 

Rio also directly engages with Miles’ heritage as a Black and Puerto Rican young man, even while not saying it explicitly. While her son dreams of studying interdimensional physics at Princeton, and go on to do even loftier things in his life, she wants him to understand he might need to persevere through other people telling him that he doesn’t belong in those places. Not being a parent, but as someone who has been trying to figure out the world for a while–finding my own balance of hope in other people and my need to be skeptical of them to protect myself–that seems like one of the hardest things to pass onto a child. Especially when they aren’t as privileged as others around them. So when Miles is told that he wasn’t meant to be Spider-Man, seeing him fight to hold onto that part of his identity is a perfect extension of this metaphor.

This question brings into focus why the Spider-Verse is a Miles Morales/Gwen Stacy story and not a Peter Parker one; yet is nonetheless a quintessential Spider-Man story. Miles and Gwen have a lot of similarities in their backstories. Both of them lost a Peter Parker in a key moment of their lives, both of their fathers are cops, and neither feel like anyone else understands, even other Spider-Persons. Peter B. Parker may be a mentor to Miles, but Gwen is the only one who truly sees him and the things he is struggling to figure out about himself. Even among Spider-Persons, they are outsiders. Gwen is also (rightly) a bit sensitive in knowing that her death is often a Canon Event for many Peter Parkers. The focus is on Miles, but the parallels between him and Gwen are lampshaded by a few cuts to Gwen reacting at key moments in the story, showing that casting doubt on if one person “deserves” to be Spider-Man/Woman, that can quickly spread to others. Canon Events, when used this way, are just another form of gatekeeping. Sure, Miles is a Spider-Man, but he didn’t do it the “right” way. What a strange thing to call out about someone who didn’t choose their fate, right? Miles didn’t ask to be bit by that spider, didn’t know it was from another dimension. Just like he didn’t ask to be born Black. It’s part of who he is (seeing a “Protect Trans Kids” sign in Gwen’s bedroom is also a great detail underlining the themes here). 

Along with all of the excellent narrative and thematic elements, the design and animation in Across the Spider-Verse is also a bigger swing (pun not intended) than the first film. Last time, we spent almost the entire time in Miles’ home dimension, with only glimpses into others through the characters that we saw, like Gwen and Spider-Man Noir. Now we see a number of different dimensions, each with their own look. Gwen’s home dimension, for example, has a watercolor look, and the colors also change to reflect the moods of characters in the scene. Meanwhile, Hobie, aka Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya) looks like a DIY concert poster come to life, and his world also reflects that. Each of the worlds and characters we see feel like they were done by a different artist, which not only adds a ton of variety and visual cues, but also reflects the diversity in visual art styles out there. And quality-wise, the animation looks so good it makes me even more certain that live action isn’t the best medium to tell superhero stories.