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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Director: Ramsey, et al
Spider-Man was a visually remarkable experience, and I enjoyed it through and through. It had some major flaws, but that didn't stop me from giving it a 4/5, which is generally a good review for me. It benefits from the voice acting, screenplay, originality, and visuals but suffers a bit from music, pacing, and structure, which I'll go over in my review. But Spider-Man creates an amazingly original idea in a world where too many super-hero movies are churned out every year, many of them awful. This was definitely my favorite animated movie of 2019 (better than Incredibles 2 and Wreck-it Ralph 2, which were the previous two).
How rewatchable is Spider-Man? I thought it suffers from the overall plot build-up to one defining moment... but that said, there are a lot of details in this movie, and it would be nice to go through and pick them out again after already understanding the plot. So I think Spider-Man is pretty rewatchable, even considering it's weak climax. If nothing else, the visuals stun.
The originality of the film is the best thing about it I think. The multi-dimensional idea is so different and ingeniously sets itself up for infinite franchise movies in the future involving each of the dimensions. The idea that there are multiple spider-mans is fascinating and even provocative to think about in our own world - that idea that there may be other dimensions with the same things going on- time is relative, after all...
The screenplay is another great thing about Spider-Man. It doesn't just rely on plot and tense moments - it can throw around some contexual dialogue, spice things up with conflict between father and son, brother and brother, uncle and nephew. These relationships are all expressed primarily through the screenplay, which gets a bit minimalist near the end, but that is due to the action and most of the character building has been done before.
The characters - especially our main character, Mile - is fascinating, and as he has faced with constant situations he reacts to them in normal and interesting ways. This makes for a very deep character who is able to stand back and think about things. Each of the side-kick characters have strongly defined personalities as well, and that creates a huge canvas of colorful characters to base the movie off of.
The acting was phenomenal. I could hear the emotion and expression of every word that Mile said, and his actor set up a really great new super-hero "vibe" that is really fascinating to listen to. The antagonists, as well as the other "Spider-Man"s had some weaker actors, but mostly stayed convincing and engaging to the audience.
Structurally, I didn't see that much going on. The film stretched itself so wide with multiple plots, conflicts, and motifs, that it was sometimes to difficult to understand Mile's emerging and struggling character. Although the film follows a conventional plot line, ending with Mile's climax in which he decides, after his father's speech, to change things around and go save the day, I think much of the film strayed too far from this conflict and tried to build other characters to a plot line that just ended in mid-air.
The pacing - slow at the beginning and end, and fast in the middle - was hard to keep track of. Some of the scenes moved so fast that it was hard to watch and quite distracting from was going on. So much is packed in every single scene that sometimes it gave me a headache. But the film follows Mile's story line nicely, and only speeds up more than necessary occasionally.
The themes of the movie basically had to do with most super-hero movies. Everyone's "ordinary," but everyone ordinary can do extraordinary things. It's a great message for kids, and the movie presents it well, perhaps not the most original thing ever, but powerful and impactful, especially for younger audiences.
This was a visually stunning film. The movie went above and beyond with animation style, adding in a "comic-book" flavor. The fight scenes were packed with interesting camera work, words on the screen to show what the characters had just said, and amazing colors. The visuals were one of the best things about Spider-Man.
The music was lack-luster, with no real theme or motifs to build off of. There were mostly pop tunes or dramatic music to accompany whatever was going. One of the downsides of the film, in my opinion. I think they could have done a better effort with enhancing the film with music, not just accompanying it.
Spider-Man was not just a good movie, and it went totally out of the box with unconventional story lines, visuals, and amazingly well developed characters. What could have been a boring, over-used, superhero movie that had already been made a million times was instead a highly original, polished, and effective landmark in cinema.
Director: Ramsey, et al
Spider-Man was a visually remarkable experience, and I enjoyed it through and through. It had some major flaws, but that didn't stop me from giving it a 4/5, which is generally a good review for me. It benefits from the voice acting, screenplay, originality, and visuals but suffers a bit from music, pacing, and structure, which I'll go over in my review. But Spider-Man creates an amazingly original idea in a world where too many super-hero movies are churned out every year, many of them awful. This was definitely my favorite animated movie of 2019 (better than Incredibles 2 and Wreck-it Ralph 2, which were the previous two).
How rewatchable is Spider-Man? I thought it suffers from the overall plot build-up to one defining moment... but that said, there are a lot of details in this movie, and it would be nice to go through and pick them out again after already understanding the plot. So I think Spider-Man is pretty rewatchable, even considering it's weak climax. If nothing else, the visuals stun.
The originality of the film is the best thing about it I think. The multi-dimensional idea is so different and ingeniously sets itself up for infinite franchise movies in the future involving each of the dimensions. The idea that there are multiple spider-mans is fascinating and even provocative to think about in our own world - that idea that there may be other dimensions with the same things going on- time is relative, after all...
The screenplay is another great thing about Spider-Man. It doesn't just rely on plot and tense moments - it can throw around some contexual dialogue, spice things up with conflict between father and son, brother and brother, uncle and nephew. These relationships are all expressed primarily through the screenplay, which gets a bit minimalist near the end, but that is due to the action and most of the character building has been done before.
The characters - especially our main character, Mile - is fascinating, and as he has faced with constant situations he reacts to them in normal and interesting ways. This makes for a very deep character who is able to stand back and think about things. Each of the side-kick characters have strongly defined personalities as well, and that creates a huge canvas of colorful characters to base the movie off of.
The acting was phenomenal. I could hear the emotion and expression of every word that Mile said, and his actor set up a really great new super-hero "vibe" that is really fascinating to listen to. The antagonists, as well as the other "Spider-Man"s had some weaker actors, but mostly stayed convincing and engaging to the audience.
Structurally, I didn't see that much going on. The film stretched itself so wide with multiple plots, conflicts, and motifs, that it was sometimes to difficult to understand Mile's emerging and struggling character. Although the film follows a conventional plot line, ending with Mile's climax in which he decides, after his father's speech, to change things around and go save the day, I think much of the film strayed too far from this conflict and tried to build other characters to a plot line that just ended in mid-air.
The pacing - slow at the beginning and end, and fast in the middle - was hard to keep track of. Some of the scenes moved so fast that it was hard to watch and quite distracting from was going on. So much is packed in every single scene that sometimes it gave me a headache. But the film follows Mile's story line nicely, and only speeds up more than necessary occasionally.
The themes of the movie basically had to do with most super-hero movies. Everyone's "ordinary," but everyone ordinary can do extraordinary things. It's a great message for kids, and the movie presents it well, perhaps not the most original thing ever, but powerful and impactful, especially for younger audiences.
This was a visually stunning film. The movie went above and beyond with animation style, adding in a "comic-book" flavor. The fight scenes were packed with interesting camera work, words on the screen to show what the characters had just said, and amazing colors. The visuals were one of the best things about Spider-Man.
The music was lack-luster, with no real theme or motifs to build off of. There were mostly pop tunes or dramatic music to accompany whatever was going. One of the downsides of the film, in my opinion. I think they could have done a better effort with enhancing the film with music, not just accompanying it.
Spider-Man was not just a good movie, and it went totally out of the box with unconventional story lines, visuals, and amazingly well developed characters. What could have been a boring, over-used, superhero movie that had already been made a million times was instead a highly original, polished, and effective landmark in cinema.