‘Into the Spider-Verse’ is the best Spider-Man movie yet

Spidey is dusting off his cobwebs.

Since Tobey Maguire first donned the red and blue spandex suit in 2002, there’s been a steady stream of Spider-Man films starring him, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland. Some are great (“Spider-Man: Homecoming”), some have weird emo dance sequences (“Spider-Man 3”), but they’ve all told the same repetitive story: Spider bites man; man bites crime.

However, it’s the latest one, “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” that unleashes the acrobatic arachnid’s full emotional and creative potential. The movie proves a New York teen superhero can do more than just excitedly swing around. He can move us, too.

It’s the best stand-alone film to feature the iconic character so far. And it’s animated.

In “Spider-Verse,” we meet Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), a Brooklyn kid who feels out of place at his new private academy. He’s more interested in designing eye-popping graffiti than yawning through physics class.

While Miles is spraying his art in a subway tunnel, he’s bitten by a pesky radioactive spider, and he comes face to face with the other, more famous Spider-Man in town: Peter Parker (Jake Johnson). That same night, Peter is killed by a villain called Kingpin (Liev Schreiber), and Miles, now with superpowers, takes the reins.

That weighty premise is enough to fill two hours, but “Spider-Verse” goes five steps further. After the villain’s dastardly device opens up a rift in the universe, a quintet of other alternate-reality spider-men arrive in Miles’ world, hellbent on defeating Kingpin and returning home. The plot sounds more confusing than it is.

When your brain does get lost in science mumbo-jumbo, the humor makes up for it. The visiting heroes are all ripped from different genres. There’s a film noir Spider-Man (Nicolas Cage), an anime Spider-Girl (Kimiko Glenn), a Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld) and, best of all, a Spider-Ham named Peter Porker (John Mulaney). Including the diverse web-slingers is a smart way of saying “Anybody can be Spider-Man!” without it feeling like an after-school special.

Plus, the whole group is a riot.

A non-dead Peter Parker from another dimension also shows up, and plays the part of a half-ass Mr. Miyagi, showing Miles the ropes.

Miles is more fleshed out than the usual Marvel heroes, which makes us care more. In the case of Peter Parker, we usually learn that he works as a photographer, loves his aunt and uncle, and has a crush on Mary Jane. With Miles, we get a deep dive into his hobbies, insecurities and his rocky relationship with his cop father.

All of this is made unexpectedly epic and dazzling by a unique animation style: a crafty blend of 2-D and 3-D techniques that honors comic books, while containing enough texture and detail to be relatable. “Spider-Verse” is a nice break for audiences for whom Pixar and animation have become synonymous.
The late Stan Lee, as he always did, appears as the campy owner of a Spider-Man merchandise shop. At the screening I attended, he got a deserved round of applause.

Watching Lee, a comic-book visionary, as an animated character on screen just feels right.