Around a month ago, I went to a nearby local mall just to see what they were going to show in the near future. That’s when I noticed a poster for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. But someone messed up as they put it in upside down. I told one of the attendants about the mistake and pointed out that their poster was not placed in the right way. It took her a good second or two before she figured out that, although Miles was right side up, all the writing was inverted. I did go back after a hour and saw they did remedy the situation. What was the point of this story? Nothing, really. I just thought it was a fun way to start this SPOILER FREE review of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

A little over a year has passed since the events of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Miles Morales has settled in his role as his reality’s Spider-Man. When Gwen Stacy arrives in his part of the multiverse and tells there’s a cadre of Spider-People who have joined forces to help keep the multiverse intact, Miles immediately wants to join. However, when a situation comes up and Miles and the group’s leader, Miguel O’Hara/Spider-Man 2099, disagree on how to handle it, the two come at odds, with Spider-Man 2099 siccing the entire group to go after him.

Let me tell you from the outset that I really loved Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. However, I will say there is a little bit of bias here as I’m a huge fan of Spider-Gwen. I’m one of the weirdos who felt Gwen Stacy was a better match for Peter Parker. As they increased Spider-Gwen/Gwen Stacy’s role in Across the Spider-Verse, you can see why I loved this movie. However, it’s not just that there’s more Spider-Gwen/Gwen Stacy here. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is just so good in practically every aspect of a movie experience!

A lot has been said about how good Into the Spider-Verse looks. It had a great and unique art style that made it stick out from other animated movies out there. Well, Across the Spider-Verse outdoes it tenfold! Each Spider-Person has a very unique look and they even use different art styles to distinguish themselves from others. It adds a lot of character to them and makes each of them stand out in their own way. Heck, they even put a lot of attention to detail with the Spot, a villain that pops his head up here and there, by not giving him a lot of detail! He’s basically this white featureless humanoid but you can still see hints of artist’s lines to give him his proportions. The graphic artists also did a great job of fleshing out everyone you see on the screen. Some of the background Spider-People are given some quirk to make them memorable and even the background characters feel like they have a story to tell.

Across the Spider-Verse, this is one of the punchiest scripts in a movie I’ve seen in a long time. Across the Spider-Verse may run for 140-minutes but those 140-minutes are crammed with entertainment from start to finish. There’s nary a wasted moment as there’s always something happening on the screen. Even when there isn’t any action on the screen, the dialogue is spoken in an incredibly snappy fashion. I dare say that it might even be a little bit too much for some viewers who won’t be able to cope up with the breakneck pace of the film.

I do have to give kudos to all of the voice actors in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse as everyone, and I mean everyone, is flawless here as they all represent their characters perfectly. Newcomers Oscar Isaac does a really great and intimidating version of Spider-Man 2099. Unlike other Spider-Persons, this version is totally no nonsense and just doesn’t have any time to make quippy jokes as the safety of the entire multiverse weighs heavily on him. Jason Schwartzman manages to mix goofy comedy and surprisingly frighteningly scary villain in this version of The Spot. Issa Rae’s rendition of Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman is also fantastic, balancing being a caring person who has to make tough decisions when necessary. I guess the only “weak” performance, if you can call it that, from the newcomers is Daniel Kaluuya’s take on Spider-Punk… but that’s only because of the cockney accent, which can be hard to understand at times.

But it’s definitely the returning Into the Spider-Verse characters who really shine in Across the Universe. I kind of wish we saw more of Jake Johnson’s Peter B. Parker but what we do get here is a solid comedic but endearing version of a man who’s gotten his life back together. Brian Tyree Henry and Luna Lauren Velez return as Miles Morales’ parents and they get their time to shine as well. But it’s the performances of Shameik Moore and Hailee Steinfeld who really are the stars here. They share a lot of screen time together and the two simply have a lot of chemistry together, making their talks feel very natural and realistic. As Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy come off as co-stars, it’s great that Shameik Moore and Hailee Steinfeld make them sound perfect for each other.

Still, the best part of Across the Universe has to be the very creative action and watching the actual animation work together. As we are dealing with Spider-People here, it’s not unusual to see them do crazy flippy things when zipping around the city and stuff. However, there just seems like they all have different ways of moving around. Spider Gwen moves around a lot more gracefully like a ballet dancer than the more frantic aerial acrobatics Miles Morales uses. Spider-Man 2099 moves around almost like a bull that can climb up walls as he comes off as more reliant on his brute force rather than his agility. It’s nice to see how they gave each character these nice little touches to really individualize them.

This also links directly into the action scenes as they’re all super exciting because they all do something unique. My personal favorite would be the first fight, which involves Miles Morales and the Spot because of how creative it is. They really used the Spot’s crazy power of creating dimensional holes incredibly well all throughout the fight and it was a blast to see done.

I only have a few gripes with the film, the first one would be how it ends. As this is a SPOILER FREE review, I won’t be revealing what happens but I’m glad they already have the sequel, Beyond the Spider-Verse, in production. The second would be the credits sequence. No, I’m not complaining that the screening I saw had no after credits scene or anything like that. Weirdly enough, my issue with the credits is how boring it looked! They used a weird rainbow background while text would fade in and out. They didn’t even have scrolling text! It looked like they put all their budget into the actual movie and forgot to animate the credits! So they hired a high schooler to boot up their bootleg copy of Powerpoint and do write up the credits sequence! Yes, it’s just a credits scroll but it was just so lame looking!

But, if those are my only issues with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, then you can tell this is a movie I highly recommend. While some moviegoers may not like the breakneck pace, I certainly got into it. The snappy writing and really great characters really got me into it and those 140-minutes flew by! Go watch Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. You’ll thank me later.

Have you seen Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments section below!