INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE
Gotta hand it to Sony. After the dismal performance of Amazing Spider-Man 2, it looked like their proposed Spider-Verse was dead and buried.
But here we are, in the wake of a strategic tie-up with Marvel Studios, witnessing the revival of the Spider-Verse, with this animated Spider-Man movie, coming on the heels of a very successful Venom adaptation.
As a comic book geek, it was a sheer joy to see how this movie embraced the visual storytelling we know and love. Spider-Man : Into the Spider-Verse certainly breaks new ground in the animation field – eschewing the manga sensibilities of most superhero animated movies and the more established cartoony styles of Pixar and Dreamworks,
Personally, I have no love for most of these Spider-Man spin-off characters viz. Miles Morales, Spider-Gwen etc. So the story failed to resonate with me whatsoever.
From the beginning, I have always felt that Miles Morales is a contrived superhero character with no reason to exist except for his racial makeup – the worst reason of all. Almost as bad as the original reason for creating the likes of Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Spider-Woman etc.
But thankfully, the visuals were so utterly magnificient (that Sienkiewicz inspired Kingpin was awesome!) that for once, I was able to ignore the plot and characterisations (apart from the superb interactions between Miles and Peter Parker) and savour the graphic storytelling.
If nothing else, I sincerely hope that it provides a new visual direction for superhero animated movies – DC, are you paying attention???
… still there’s more …