Review of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) by Matthewakalusi — 07 Jun 2023

I get it, Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse (2018), was like a breath of fresh air to animated movies, with its edgy graphics, bright and zippy colours, cuttng edge music and sound effects, but I differ from the gushing that is going on over the sequel, Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse (currently in Cinemas).

I think, the sequel is a victim of the success (critical, commercial and artistic) of the first installment. The producers took that success as licence for what turned out to be the content of the sequel.

Four things made this experience unsatisfactory for me. The Opening scene with Gwen was boring and an ill-advised start to the movie; there were numerous scenes that could have been handled in much shorter time periods; there were too many spidermen and timelines (that there are many does not mean so many have to be crammed into one movie).

The fourth, was the culmination of the first two, which took up unnecessary time, the story was not concluded in this movie, there is to be a second part. Not good. I will not take away from the movie, the fact that the things that made the first installment an outstanding movie are still there.

There are two areas in the movie, where things were moved up a notch from the first; In a scene Miles and Gwen have a full fledged conversation while web-slinging, and then continue the conversation, while stationary but hanging (actually sitting) upside down from a the top of a skyscrapper.

My opinion of this movie is mixed.