Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) – B. Persichetti, P. Ramsey, & R. Rothman

Admittedly, I was distracted during the family viewing of this one, so consider this review with that in mind.  Also, I haven’t really been keeping up with the many comic book adaptations in recent years (nor was I a dedicated comics reader back in the day).  That said, this animated film (from the team that made The Lego Movie, 2014) is clearly a new take on old material. First off, there is the style – and there is heaps of style here, from the hip-hop accented soundtrack to the frenetic out-of-control visuals that are clearly inspired by the more out-there Japanese Anime releases (not Ghibli) with some comic book stylings (thought bubbles etc.) to add to the craziness.  It’s all colour, noise, and flash.  Second, this is a multi-cultural New York City and our lead, Miles Morales, is an African-American (with Latina mother?) who is bit by that damn radioactive spider to become another version of Spider-Man – but that’s surprising and confusing, until he meets the real Spider-Man who tries to explain things, until he meets another Spider-Man from another dimension who tries to explain things.  So, yes, Third, there are a lot of different spider-heroes from different dimensions (including Nic Cage for some reason) and they all need to stop arch-villain Kingpin who has created some sort of giant supercollider that has brought them into Miles’ dimension (which may not actually be our own, viewers) in order to get back to their own dimensions.  There’s a subplot with Miles’ Uncle and his police officer Dad, but as I said, I was distracted and quickly lost the thread of the plot, which might be easy to do.  But wow it is fresh.