December, 2018, one of the most anticipated movies of all time was released into Theatres. This is rather strange when you consider that this was an animated feature, and a western animated feature at that. Yet, everybody that was into animation was excited for this movie, and everyone loved it. One of the highest rated animated films on Letterboxd, ninety-seven percent on Rotten Tomatoes, eighty-seven on Metacritic, best animated feature at the Academy Awards and African-American Film Critics Association, swept the Annie Awards, best Animated film at the British Academy Film Awards, Best Animated Feature Film Award at the Golden Globes, and so many other awards that it would just be a waste of time to name them all. Fifth highest grossing animated feature of 2018, and forty-seventh highest grossing animated feature of the 2010s. It got recognition and people loved it. Three years later, after all these years, was all of that praise warranted?
Miles Morales is a normal everyday kid, he's at a school he doesn't like, he is embarrassed by his dad, and he's awkward around some of his classmates. While hanging out with his uncle Aaron he is bitten by a radioactive spider, and he freaks out, especially since he also witnesses the death of the real Spider-Man and gets caught up in one of Kingpin's plots. However, by some freak accident, he is able to learn the ropes thanks to the help of some other Spider-heroes who similarly got caught in Kingpin's plot and dragged into Miles' universe. It is your standard superhero origins plot with the twist that he is helped by multiple alternate universe heroes, mostly Peter B. Parker and Gwen Stacey, but the film also has Spider-Noir, Penni Parker and Spider-Ham. I don't think this plot is going to really surprise you if you know the beats, but it's well written and flows well enough for that to not be an issue.
Okay so... I am not a big comic reader, I love Tintin comics and I am not unfamiliar with comic books, but I feel there is a large learning curve to them and they feel like a big commitment, so I am not going to go into a lot of detail on these characters. Overall I enjoyed them, Miles I feel has a more realistic arc of someone learning to be a superhero, he's in over his head, he gets anxious, he goes through the pains and prides of it all. The real key to his character is that, while he's trying to be Spider-Man, he only really gets it right when he incorporates his own identity into the persona. Peter B has a cute arc of his own which gets tied into his mentor relationship with Miles. I feel like they tried to give Gwen her own arc, about accepting friends after her tragedy, but I don't really think they pulled that off too well. Side characters are also really fun, Aunt May was fun, the other Spider-heroes were charming and Miles' family were really loving and caring. I do think Kingpin was kind of a bland, generic menace. Yeah they gave him a goal and a backstory, but I can't really think of any moment I was really intimidated or even that entertained by him. I quite liked the other villain of the movie, Olivia Octavius, she was the one with the more entertaining moments.
I gotta give some special credit to the voice acting, Shameik Moore did a wonderful job as Miles and I loved the fake voice he put on at the end as Spider-Man as to not give away his identity to his father. I think the rest of the cast was perfect, I took one look at Mahershala Ali and I thought "Yep, that was Aaron", it was like casting Kurt Russel as Wyatt Earp, and Brain Tyree Henry and Luna Lauren Velez were perfect as Miles' parents, Lily Tomlin was almost unrecognizable as Aunt May, seriously how do I always fail to pick out her voice in a movie? John Mulaney and Nicolas Cage were also very perfect as Spider-Ham and Spider-Noir respectively, and the late Stan Lee made a posthumous cameo in this movie, one of his last.
Now let's talk about the animation. When I talked about the 2017 DuckTales series, I said that it looked like a comic brought to animation. Well, this movie is that, but with the budget of a cinematic venture. It looks really good, and it goes beyond the stylized characters and settings. The colours really pop, even when the entire screen is full of neon colours, it's all so beautifully done. I am a bit more forgiving towards 3D animation than some others might be, I don't think every 3D animated film could have been done in 2D, or at least done as well in 2D. While yes, this movie would look a lot more like a comic book if it was done in 2D, it would also have looked very different. Imagine this movie looking like 2017's DuckTales and you might start to see why 3D was the right choice for this movie. I also have to mention the use of different art styles for the different Spider-Heroes. Spider-Ham looking more cartoonish with brighter colours, Penni Parker being in a more anime style, and Spider-Noir being in a thick black and white colour scheme. Yet, they never felt too out of place. I think everyone agrees that the animation is the main selling point of the movie, but is that the only reason to see it?
Going back to the question I posed at the start, was this movie worth all of the acclaim it received? While I will not argue that this movie is perfect, because I don't think it is, I do think that this movie did earn all of the praise. While the animation is amazing, the movie does not sell itself on animation alone as it also has a well-done story, likeable characters, an excellent voice cast, and some really well done scenes and moments that stick in your head. I really have to give it to everyone behind this movie, it was a risk, sure comic book movies are getting more recognized now-a-days, but this was a comic book movie with a minority lead and was an animated movie from Sony Pictures Animation following a string of not so great releases. The fact that it was not only good, but also as good as it was, honestly do I even need to say that this movie is a High Recommendation? Is it perfect? No, but it is recognized as it is for a damn good reason.
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