Mile Morales makes his return to the big screen in the Sequel to the 2018 surprise hit but this time joined by a cast of literal thousands of Spider men, women, and various animals in Spider Man: Across the Spider Verse. Returning from Into the Spider Verse are Shameik Moore (Miles Morales), Hailey Steinfeld ( Gwen Stacy), Brian Tyree Henry ( Jeff Morales), Luna Lauren Velez (Rio Morales), and Jake Johnson ( Peter B Parker). New additions to the cast include Jason Schwartzman (Dr Jonathan Ohnn/ The Spot), Issa Rae ( Jess Drew), Oscar Issac (Miguel O Hara), Karan Soni ( Pavitr Prabhakar), and Daniel Kaluuya ( Hobie Brown). Looking to find acceptance and a group of people to connect with, Mies Morales feels more alone and frustrated forever, until one day Gwen Stacey returns to his universe for a visit to tell him she has joined a unit of other spider men/women who protect the multiverse. Miles pursues Gwen on a multiverse adventure but finds that not everything is as great as it may seem. Miles quickly himself on a race against time to save everything and everyone he loves. Is Across the Spider Verse an adequate sequel to the film that came out of nowhere and shocked everyone? Lets get into it.

Across the Spider Verse is as good if not better than Into the Spider Verse and adds so much more in size and story than many animated movies have been capable of. The returning cast members are amazing again, and are given more depth this time than in the previous film. Particularly Miles, Gwen, and Rio (Miles Mother), are the standout returning characters of this movie, but I found myself particular the most impressed with Gwen and Rio and how much more they add to this story than in the previous film. The opening 20 minutes of this film is dedicated to showing how Gwen has gotten to the point that she returns to see Miles in his universe and we are given a beautifully animated and emotional opening. A conversation between Gwen and her father is one of the most beautiful scenes I have seen in any movie in a long time. This is a great movie about family and friendships and how vital they are in our lives, despite many scenes taking place in huge action set pieces, the movie maintains it human emotional touch like the first movie and the best Spider Man movies in General. Miguel O Hara chews the scenes he is in thanks to a great voice performance from Oscar Isaac, while Jason Schwartzman as the voice of the Spot, a rather obscure villain in comic book lore gives him a full arc in sort non-serious villain to full world ending threat. If you are a fan of any spider man movies, comics, tv shows, or video games you are more than likely going to love the Easter eggs this movie puts together, a majority of which come when Miles is taken to Nueva York to see the Spider Society. The animation is stunning once again and is absolute candy for the eye, at this point it feels that the creators of these two movies have created a completely new storytelling technique that I don’t think can simply just be classified as animation, there are so many styles at play here at times it is overwhelming but it is awe inspiring to watch. Daniel Pemberton knocks it out the park with mix of a techno/hip hop music score along with songs in the film and soundtrack from highly successful producer Metro Boomin make an amazing combination.

As good as the movie is there are a few flaws here. For one the movie is 2 hours and 20 minutes and on first watch it felt much longer than that, particularly the last 35 minutes it didn’t seem to quite know how to wrap it up (be warned, its a cliffhanger ending). It takes this movie a long time before the universe hopping adventure begins, the first hour of this movie is a lot of character focus, specifically on Gwen and Miles, so if your looking to see all the Easter Eggs early on, you will have to wait a while (though its worth it). An unfortunate glaring issue that occurs throughout the movie, is sound mixing problems. Many of the scenes where a loud score is playing it is difficult to hear what the characters are saying, this was the worst for me in the opening 20 minutes and final 10 minutes but a few other scenes throughout had the same issue, although at the end of the day I can assure that nothing major is muffled or unable to be heard.

Across the Spider Verse is another success for Sony and the creators of these first two movies may actually be one movie away from crafting one of the elite trilogies in movies, but we will have to see on 3/29//2024 if they can stick the landing. It has all the beats you love about a Spider Man story, action, heart, humor, all in thrilling art and animation on a much bigger scale than part 1. 11/12.