Gillipedia Official Rating: Can’t speak for this film in the other versions of the Gillverse
Score: 10/10
I am in awe of this film. Genuinely, I
would describe this as the most beautifully animated film I have ever seen.
There is so much the first film did incredibly well, and this film cranked up
its ambitions and succeeds on every single level. I will describe in
spoiler-free detail all the aspects that I enjoyed as well as my justification
for giving it a 10, but take this first paragraph to understand that I want you
to see this film in theaters to fully appreciate its achievement as a medium of
art.
When Into the Spider-Verse came
out, Sony was still trying to salvage its own Spidey brand while everyone felt
like we’ve had enough iterations over the last two decades. But then the film
came out and showed just how beautiful you can make an animated film while
respecting the look of the comics, AND it kept Spidey’s signature brand of
humor and a heartfelt story to boot along with an incredibly colorful cast of
characters. With Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie and Cloudy
With a Chance of Meatballs both being two of my other favorite animated
films) in writing and producing capacities for both of these films, the quality
of these films don’t come as a surprise; however, after the booming success of
the first film, there’s nothing to hide behind for this sequel.
The first film was already a bit
revolutionary in how it combined the modern techniques and programs used for
what we now consider the “Disney” or “Pixar” look of animated films while
messing around with hand animation, framerates, and other aspects that go
beyond my comprehension for its unique style and look. For Across the
Spider-Verse, they go all out in showcasing how much they want the art and
animation to be another storyteller in addition to the dialogue. Remember, this
is a superhero film where these Spiders all have masks that they wear
frequently, and the expressiveness that is conveyed just by lines under the
eyes, widening and narrowing pupils, lingering stares, or other filmmaking
techniques is so much fun.
Outside of essentially a recap of the
first film, the opening of this movie is dedicated to showing Gwen Stacy’s/Spider-Woman’s
(voiced by the unbelievably impressive Hailee Steinfeld) universe and her
family. This opening easily features my favorite art style from the whole film,
where backgrounds are draped in blues and pinks and fade away in that watercolor
brush stroke style. Not only is it gorgeous where if you paused the film you
could -ahem- marvel at its glory, but there’s an emotional scene where Gwen
talks with her dad, and how the use of color is used to convey the changing emotions
of the scene is nothing short of brilliant. And every universe shown is given
its own art style and there’s countless animation styles depicted. It’s
staggering the level of detail that goes into every frame of this film, and it is
well worth it. Rather than the quotas of Dreamwork’s two films per year and
even Pixar now joining with those quantities, it makes me so happy that the studio
took the years needed between the two films to craft the final product.
Truthfully, I feel like any animated film I watch next will simply feel lazy in
comparison to what this film does. And I’m not just talking about it not
looking like a beautiful 3D animated film—I mean that there must have been
carefully planned out storyboarding because how each shot looks, the decisions
of extra pieces of information being shown, or how some shots fade into others
feels meticulously and purposefully designed.
So far this review has focused on the
animation and art style—and for good reason. That is a standout of this film.
But that in itself does not earn this movie a 10/10. One comparison that comes
to mind actually is How to Train Your Dragon 2. That animated sequel I have
held for awhile has the best conversation-focused scenes ever in an animated
film—non-action scenes that aren’t playing for laughs. Across the
Spider-Verse contains incredible action and laugh out loud moments, but
there’s also conversations between parents and their kids that feels so
authentic and real. Animated films tend to dumb down dialogue to appear
kid-friendly, but this film allows the emotions of the characters carry through
and allows both kids and adults alike to understand complex emotions and the
situations these families deal with.
I was bopping along to the soundtrack,
and almost like how The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly has variations of
the same theme song for each of its main characters, the score for this film
appropriately changes for every character and universe. It’s truly too long a
list to even begin to name here, but the cast is stacked full of talent and
they give it their all for this movie. The characters are so varied and
interesting, the movie is super funny, and the story carries through with
enough depth to stay engaging all the way through this over 2 hour movie. The editing
choices, particularly whenever splitting into panes like comics, all work. This
movie truly excels on every front.
With that said, there were still some
considerations I had to bring this movie down to a 9:
1)
The
ending
2)
The
animation being overwhelming
3)
The
story isn’t the best ever/contain deep themes of Oscar films
4)
It’s
hard to hear the dialogue
Again, no spoilers here, but your best argument to knock this
film down a peg is the ending. I had my own initials frustrations, but after
discussing with some friends, I agreed with the opinion that there was so much
already accomplished during this film that if it continued, the film could
start to drag and feel overwhelming. The film lives off its merits and in a
lesser film would be a frustrating ending, but its quality warrants what it
does. For the second point, I was a little worried. The opening logos glitch
out in multiverse style, and there is a lot that happens on the screen
throughout the film. To me the choices are all intentional and focused enough
that my eyes weren’t wandering, so I loved everything they did with the art
direction. And for the third point, the film holds together incredibly well
considering the Avengers level of characters that make appearances, and
there was never a moment that I felt was lacking with the story. The themes
presented aren’t life changing, but not every single film needs to hold such
deep themes. For the fourth point, I definitely did miss a couple lines of
dialogue, particularly from Daniel Kaluuya and his accent, but unlike Nolan’s Tenet,
I never felt like I was missing out on key pieces of information.
My four points
listed above I find to be pretty comprehensive on what people might complain
about, but this is also the simple ramblings of Earth-696 Gill. And even if you
factor in those four possible critiques, to me, those points don’t detract
enough anyways from the feat of filmmaking for this movie. My 10/10 score is
not to say this is by definition a “perfect” film; the pedestal it puts itself
upon that every film will now have to look up to is enough to warrant this
decision. I don’t think it’s even a decision to say this movie deserves the
Oscar for Best Animated Film this year. If this movie isn’t nominated for Best
Picture, that will be an absolute crime because this is the best movie I’ve
seen this year, and I don’t think it’s close.
