6/10 Hyped up to be the best animated movie of 2018 and winner of Best Animated Feature at the Oscars, “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” has several things going for it but ultimately falls way short of the hype and ends up being way more style over substance. The biggest problem with the movie is the plot/villain. You can add this to the list of Spider-Man movies where the villain is basically a good guy deep down, but is just doing something bad to help their family/loved ones (Doc Ock in “Spider-Man 2”, Sandman in “Spider-Man 3”, etc.). We also have already seen Kingpin in the “Daredevil” movie and in Netflix’s “Daredevil” show, so an unused villain front and center (Scorpion, for example) would have been more engaging. The plot didn’t seem super engaging to me and felt slow when all of the various Spider-Man characters weren’t all on the screen at once. It is also a problem when your supporting characters (Spider-Man Noir) are more interesting than your main protagonist. Finally, having five or six different Spider-Man characters fight half the number of bad guys in the climax of the film felt like they had the clear advantage and were not in as much danger as opposed to if there would have only been one hero fighting several villains. Although the animation overall was a highlight of the movie, they often made the background blurry/fuzzy which looked like when you are watching a movie in 3D and you take off your 3D glasses, which I thought looked bad and didn’t resemble a comic book or add anything to the movie. All that being said, overall the animation was amazing and transported you into a world that felt like a comic book. The voice actors are perfectly cast, the movie is original and zany in its ideas which for the most part, worked. After so many Spider-Man movies, it is nice to have some crazy/fresh ideas brought to the movie. The action scenes work well and there is some heart to the movie. The soundtrack felt like it was trying too hard to be current and hip and the score works half of the time and the other half felt screetchy and unpleasant. With some aspects to really like (the animation overall really is a sight to behold and the voice cast kills it) but many flaws that hold the movie back, this movie is only really worth a rental and one of the most overrated movies of the year, but still worth checking out once it leaves theaters when you have a couple of hours to kill.
#AuntAniMay / #UncleBenevolent / #PeterParkour / #MilesAndTribulations / #ReadyGwenYouAre / #AlongCameASpiderMan
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