Five Things I Loved in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and One I Didn't
Well, hot damn. I actually wasn't keen on the idea of a sequel to 2018's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse . The first film was so remarkable, so brilliant on so many different levels, that it seemed impossible for its achievement to be reproduced. I wasn't eager to watch it transformed, like so many other exceptional pop culture events, into fodder for endless sequels and imitations—especially since the latter happened almost immediately, with Hollywood instantly embracing the film's most notable innovations, its deliberately skewed, not-entirely-realistic animation style, and the idea of the multiverse, both of which have become almost ubiquitous in a mere five years. A Spider-Verse sequel, I thought, couldn't help but feel like it was playing catch-up with the film's own imitators. So I guess that's me told, then, because Across the Spider-Verse is simply stunning. It's not just a step forward from the original film in practically every respect, but...