a review by the Azure-Winged Magpie.
Opening Note: It’s December! Yay! We’re not celebrating any more (there’s a lot I’m mad about). BUT don’t you lot worry! There’s a lot I’ve got up my feathers ANYWAY! We’re getting ready to release NEW SHORT STORIES! The Crow’s off writing! We’ve got a WHOLE BUNCHA POSTS lined up! And there’s SO MUCH MORE coming up this month!
At first the Swan(!) was supposed to have a review up today for our whole celebration thingy. BUT I got to go watch this one teensy weensy little film a few nights ago and decided I had to HOLD THE PRESSES!
And guess what it was! Ohhh yass! Iiit’s…
Spider-Verse! Spider-Verse!
Does whatever a Universe can!
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Opening Thoughts
🕸🕸🕸╰(ಠ ◡ ಠ✿)╯🕸🕸🕸
Right! So! (I think this is my new catchphrase or something). I was never a big Spider-Man fan. I know. I know. I know I know I know. Spidey’s been very important to a heck of a lotta folk growing up, but I just never got around to him.
I liked the Tobey-face films. I kinda sorta liked the new “Amazing” films (okay. Not the second one). And I loved Spidey in the MCU (jus’ wanna squeeze his cheek-ums!). But I don’t really know a lot about him from the comics or anything.
Let’s see… what do I know?
- His name is Peter Parker and he something between a G33K and a N3RD!
- He’s a whiz-kid who becomes a photographer for a newspaper (oookay…)
- His bae is Maryjane Watson, but he thought Gwen Stacy was bae before that (both of these girls are kinda useless… just there to look pretty and get dropped off high places)
- His best bud is Harry Osborn, whos daddums is Goblin Osborn, who a bad man
- Sometimes… jus’ sometimes… he “don’t feel so good Mr. Stark” too soon?
- Sony owns his webby ass
And then… the trailer for this film drops and…
(⊙︿⊙✿)?!
What the heck is goin’ on here…?! WHO ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE?!
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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
DON’T YOU WORRY: This section contains NO spoilers.
First things FIRST. Damn does this film look sweet! If any of you lot have noticed, a LOT of our recent art and pictures have dotty bits and lines all over here and there. And that kinda thing’s all over this film. It’s not in your face or anything but it’s there. And I was noticing it all the way through the film. I guess it’s just something artsy-types like these days. But that’s a tiny winey (lol! Wine!) thing. This film just straight looks gorgeous. It’s got this art style that’s all… I dunno. It looks like it’s a mishmash of a billion things. It’s got 3d. It’s got line drawing. It’s got this claymation looking thing going on. It looks like it’s been painted. EVERYTHING looks sweet AF.
And it’s not just the art about the characters and backgrounds and all that! You get the full royal comic book treatment too! There are text boxes for what characters are thinking. You get sound effects from like the best TV serial EVER zipping all around the screen! Whenever Spidey thwips out a web, you get a
flying across the… the… screen…
Where did that come from?!
(◔ _ ◔✿)…
Anyway…
So we start with this youngin’ the chipper Miles Morales (VA: Shameik Moore). He goes gets the bitey-bitey from the radioactive creepy-crawly (nightmares!) and BOOM! We’re straight chucked into the story.
There’s this machine which slaps a buncha parallel universes together and the only real thing that gets switcheroo-ed are the Spider-Folk. Throw in the Burger King Kingpin (one time-Sabretooth Liev Schreiber) so that we can put a Big Bad villain into the story and we got our film!
And it’s pretty funny. That’s the first thing that hit me. This one’s a big ball of fun. And it never ever gets in the way of the story and what’s going on with these Spider-Folk. I like how they dropped each of the Spider-Wo/Men/Hams into the story and made it feel okay without making everyone lose their brains (all over the place!) about how totally stupid this is all supposed to be. I mean… it’s not like they ignore it. They take how totally stupid everything’s supposed to be and swing around with it like a bunch of Spider-… Folk.
(◔ _ ◔✿)… that didn’t work…
So like I said… I don’t really know anything about little chipper Miles. And this was the BEST intro to a new character I’ve seen in a long long long time. I don’t know how he’s shaped up in comic-book land but I’m not fussed if he’s been totally redone. I liked finding out how he becomes Spider-Man (like in that panel from up top) in this film. It takes him a while to really get going and everything about how he gets going made sense to me. He’s got a lot of family stuff going on with him and none of it bothered me even a bitty bit. Good stuff. Real good stuff (warning: there’s some “language” in the link).
I kinda hate that I can’t spoil anything because the film’s not really out yet, but what I CAN tell you is that if you thought the number of Spider-Folk (and amazing friends!) in the trailers was all you’re getting… hoooo boy! Get ready to be surprised! There’s a LOT going on in this one. There’s a lot to see and a lotta folk to meet (who may or may not be Spider-Folk).
And in case you don’t know about this or forgot that these are a thing in the Republik of Comic Book Movie Land… You better stay after the credits!
Look… I got no clue about this bighuge alternate Spider-Man selection screen. I had to do some Googling and some asking. But the thing is: there’s this one AMAZING thing that happens after the film’s supposed to be “done“. I didn’t know who was in it or what was going on, but I still got how important the scene was supposed to be. No spoilers, but you better watch it! There’s also a lot of funny stuff that goes down.
Peter Parker (VA: Jake Johnson)’s pretty sweet in this film. He’s in this mode I’d never seen him before and I loved it. I could totally get behind this version of Peter-Spidey (even though I still want to squeeze MCU-Spidey’s cheekums!). He’s kinda the second main character, and him and Miles are the BIG IMPORTANT PROTAGONISTS (how do people type these [REDACTED] words all the time?!) of the story.
Spider-Gwen (VA: Hailee Steinfeld) kicks total ass but I wanted a little bit more of her. And I’m going to go ahead and put Peni (VA: Kimiko Glen) and Spider-Man-Noir (NICOLAS [REDACTED]-ING CAGE) into that basket as well. I wanted a little bit more of all of them. But I wanted more of Spider-Gwen the most. There’s other Spider-Folk too but I’m keeping shtumb about all that for now. Spider-Ham (VA: John Mulaney) was fun and I was cool with how much of him we got (now I want a bacon butty…). But yeah. Loads of good characters. A hella of a lot of fun. But just a teeny bit more pleeease?
I also don’t know anything about Kingpin and he was alright I guess. He was just kinda… there. I mean I get he’s the Big Bad and all but I just didn’t really give a [BLEEP (See? I’m being a nice magpie!)] about him. I like Uncle one-time Sabretooth’s voice and everything but I just didn’t like the big Burger King bad guy that much. Maybe a different bad guy woulda worked better? Maybe old Goblin face? Maybe Doc Ockkalavista? I could think of a buncha old villains from the old films who’d have worked better. But it’s not such a big deal. It’s okay. It’s not bad or anything.
Closing Thoughts
Just to wrap things into a nice little present (with a bow on top!) because I’m on “good behaviours” and being all NO SPOILERS! and everything, I’m going to rank my favourite Spider-Man films so that everyone can see how much I like (or don’t like) this one:
WINNER-WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
AWESOME!: Spider–Man 2
GREAT!: Spider–Man: Homecoming
GOOD!: Spider–Man
“It’s K”: The Amazing Spider–Man
“Uhhhh…”: Spider–Man 3
POOP: The Amazing Spider–Man 2
So yeah… I liked it. It’s the best Spider-Man film I’ve seen so far and it’s a good thing that it’s sticking to just its basic… universe? It’s a comic book in the end. No? I’m pretty sure they’ve got a LOT of stories to pick and choose from when they get around to making a sequel.
And if they don’t make a sequel…
—SONY—–|–(ಠ _ ಠ✿)…!
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is kinda out in some cinemas tomorrow here in the UK, but it’s only going to be out everywhere late next week.
I’m going to recommend you go check it out! It’s going to be one of the best films you’ll see this year. I had a blast. You’ll have a blast. It’s a big, fun adventure film with lots of great people in it and a pretty good story. It’s totally recommended by both of us ’cause I know the Crow’s going to love it too! Now go find a local Sony employee and get them to show you this film! Now!
Final Ratings
Spider-Mag! Spider-Mag!
Puts the bodies in a Body Bag!
🕸🕸🕸╰(ಠ ◡ ಠ✿)╯🕸🕸🕸
THE AZURE-WINGED MAGPIE: 8/10
THE CROW: TBD/10
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See Also: Spider–Man: Homecoming, by the Swan(!)
Magpie up! Up! And AWAYYY!
Here’s the official poster:
Here’s some fun art:
T H E _ C O R V I D _ R E V I E W 
Good review. Can’t wait to see the movie. I’ve heard a lot of good things.
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