‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ Keeps Running Right Through Every Iteration

May 31, 2023

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Tonight, we’re gonna Spider like it’s 2099 (CREDIT: Sony Pictures)

Starring: Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Oscar Isaac, Brian Tyree Henry, Luna Lauren Velez, Jake Johnson, Jason Schwartzman, Issa Rae, Karan Soni, Daniel Kaluuya, Shea Wigham, Greta Lee, Rachel Dratch, Jorma Taccone, Andy Samberg, Amandla Stenberg

Directors: Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson

Running Time: 140 Minutes

Rating: PG for Mostly Mild Punches and Scrapes

Release Date: June 2, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) really relishes getting to be Spider-Man, but if he’s being honest, his life is far from perfect. He loves his parents, but he doesn’t know how to be fully honest with them. And he’s excited about a college-bound future, but it won’t fill the multiverse-sized hole in his heart. He met a bunch of really cool spider-people from other universes during his first big adventure, and he spends most of his days wishing he could get to see them again. Then a certain version of Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) shows up once again to let him know that the multiverse is facing a greater threat than it’s ever seen before. A seemingly infinite amount of spider-beings are recruited for the mission, but if he’s not careful, Miles might actually stand in the way of everything working out.

What Made an Impression?: When Into the Spider-Verse came out in 2018, it was a breath of fresh air. Despite the weight of its multiversal ambitions, it was light on its feet and disarmingly accessible. Across the Spider-Verse doesn’t have the benefit of surprise, and it threatens to tip over by going deeper, heavier, and longer, but it still manages to be just as compelling. It helps to have pizzazz. The various animation styles are just so astoundingly intricate that I simply can’t look away. I imagine some viewers might find this outing overwhelming, but considering how saturated our culture currently is with superheroes, the buy-in isn’t that difficult.

The conflict at the heart of Across the Spider-Verse is an age-old one about free will. The oft-told origin story of the Peter Parker version of Spider-Man hinges on the death of his Uncle Ben, and it turns out that every other spider-hero has endured a similar mortal trauma. Everyone, that is, except Miles. He insists on trying to prevent any tragedy he can, while those with more experience in these matters warn him about tampering with “canon events” that will lead to “anomalies.” This sort of struggle has been mined for so much drama in the history of fantasy and science fiction, and it’s no less powerful here.

A couple of warnings: certain segments of the sound mix made it difficult to hear some dialogue over the din of the insistent score. Unless that was an issue with the theater, you may struggle with this as well, so seek out a showtime with open captions if possible. And it’s also worth noting that another sequel, Beyond the Spider-Verse, is already scheduled to arrive in March 2024, and it’s only the mildest of spoilers to reveal that it has some loose threads to tie up.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is Recommended If You Like: Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Woman, Scarlet Spider, Spider-Et Cetera

Grade: 4 out of 5 Anomalies

Movie Review: ‘Little’ Squanders Its ‘Big’-In-Reverse Premise on Too Much Broad Comedy

April 10, 2019

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CREDIT: Eli Joshua Adé/Universal Pictures

Starring: Marsai Martin, Regina Hall, Issa Rae, Justin Hartley, Tone Bell, Mikey Day, Luke James, Rachel Dratch

Director: Tina Gordon

Running Time: 109 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for An Adult Woman Trapped in a Child’s Body Trying to Drink and Flirt Like an Adult Woman

Release Date: April 12, 2019

There is a creepy subtext to high-concept comedies about kids fantastically becoming the adult version of themselves. But the likes of Big and 13 Going on 30 avoid being actually creepy films by choosing to sidestep those implications. However, the fact remains that their main characters are children in adult bodies who find themselves in situations that could very well turn sexual. Physically, they may have magically become mature, but emotionally they remain the same, so ethically it’s all sorts of confusing. Little reverses the premise, turning the adult into her middle school self, and it also embraces the creepiness, which is confusing in an inside-out sort of way. Is a 13-year-old girl hitting on her teacher morally acceptable when she’s actually a grown woman under a magic spell? Little convinces me that it is, bizarrely enough. The rest of the movie, alas, raises all sort of unanswered conundrums.

Jordan Sanders (Regina Hall) has become the successful head of a tech company by adopting an I’ll-take-whatever-I-want attitude in response to the bullying she endured for being a nerdy science kid. She may have plenty of cash and a decent amount of respect in an often sexist and racist industry, but all of her employees are deathly terrified of her and she doesn’t have any close friends or family. So for a few days she turns into her younger self (in the form of black-ish‘s Marsai Martin, who came up with the idea and at 14 is the youngest person ever to receive an executive producer credit on a Hollywood production) to get back in touch with what originally fueled her passion in the first place. That’s all well and good, but the shenanigans that happen to get her to that realization are a little more suspect.

A movie like this is obviously not aiming for verisimilitude, but how the characters grapple with the break from typical reality shows how much thought and care did, or did not, go into the story. On that matter, Jordan’s sudden absence from work is too easily brushed off as illness, while the sudden appearance of a little girl is too often not explained at all. (Occasionally, the explanation is that Jordan has a daughter, but that’s only employed when the scene requires it.) Also, the whole school subplot is catalyzed by a wacky misunderstanding involving Child Protective Services and concluded in just as weightless a fashion. What will CPS do when they realize that Jordan has disappeared from school after attending it for only a couple of days and then they discover that the child version of her no longer exists? Little provides no answer, but I wish it would have, because it could have resulted in plenty of hilarity. Depending on your sense of humor, there may very well be plenty of opportunities for you to heartily guffaw during this movie, but instead of mostly being a natural outgrowth of the premise, they mostly feel like a random series of hijinks.

Little is Recommended If You Like: 13 Going on 30, Insecure, Thirsty Women Admiring Shirtless Men

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Donut Trucks