Sony has had a rough go with the Spider-Man brand. Movies that weren’t good, movies that underperformed, Morbius…But they did well with one movie. Into the Spider-Verse. It was a great movie with animation that studios still copy to this day. But Sony has finally released the sequel to it. After five years, and several exhausted animators later, it came out. The question is, is it better than the first?
Firstly, is the animation. I do not want to know how many animators they went through to make this one. There are so many different animations styles that are all animated perfectly. And they all mesh together just right. The visual dissections between the other universe can be so subtle but so well made. It’s no wonder this movie took 5 years to come out.
The writing of this movie is also just awesome. They made a villain like The Spot an actual threat! The whole him just being a joke villain until he suddenly isn’t is just great. Also, the explanation about “canon events” works much better than how the MCU tried to handle it. Honestly the whole multiverse angle in these past two movies has been better used and explained than the MCU so far.
That’s another great part about the movie, the cameos. This wasn’t just having a few memorable ones show up for fan service. Some of them had fairly important roles. Like Scarlet Spider. And the ones that were just cameos were great too. My heart practically skipped a beat when Spectacular Spider-Man showed up.
There is only one issue I have with the movie. And no, it’s not the cliffhanger ending. My issue with it is its link to the MCU. Spoiler warning here. There is a point where The Spot is just starting to figure out how to go to different universes. He accidentally pops up into the Venom universe. Which was already connected to the MCU with the last Spider-Man movie (for whatever reason). Then, while Miles is meeting some of the villains the Spider-Society has captured, he meets another version of his uncle. One from the MCU. There is no reason every Marvel property now has to be connected to the MCU. Even cartoons are being connected to it! I wouldn’t be surprised if the 90s Captain American movie got a cameo.
This film show’s that Sony has the ability to make good Spider-Man movies. There is a reason that so many different studios have started copying the art style and tone of these movies. The cameos were well done, the plot was good, until the end, and the art styles were amazing. It’s just that making movies about Spider-Man characters without Spider-Man is a bad idea. Who could’ve seen that coming?
