The Stream: Slow burn, a little hard visually at times and overall a bit too long

The Big Screen: Good storytelling mixed with visuals and action sequences

The Final Bill: An entertaining movie that takes a bit to get going but lives up to the first movie

– S2S: Movie Review
Director: Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson
Writers: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Dave Callaham
Stars: Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Oscar Isaac
Genre: Animation, Action, Adventure
Rating: PG
Runtime: 2 hours 14 minutes
Production Companies: Sony Pictures Animation, Marvel Entertainment, Arad Productions
Platform: Released in theaters June 2, 2023
Notable Trailers: Blue Beetle, Gran Turismo, The Flash, Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken

Welcome back to Stream To Big Screen, Streamers! Miles Morales is back and so are we. Yes, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has finally dropped into the theaters. Gwen Stacy and Miles catapult across the multiverse where they encounter a team of Spider-People who have taken on the grave responsibility to protect the multiverse’s existence. When the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat to the multiverse, Miles must redefine what it means to be a hero. Let’s see if they make it across the Spider-Verse

First and foremost, this movie is pretty great and everything following that sounds negative is literally just trying to be fair to moviegoers. Ok, if you’ve seen the first movie, you know this is a film franchise to be reckoned with. This movie picks up about a year after the last movie. Our guy Miles has grown a bit but is trying to figure out his Spidey ways. Why do I mention this? The storytelling of this movie is the jewel. Movies fail to tell a good story in a compelling way. Here, Across the Spider-Verse has found a way to tell many spider stories and even villain stories in a compelling way. You know from the first movie that the Spider-men have their own feel and the fact that the team here has continued that with even more heroes is just superb. However, this also is part of the biggest issue with the movie. The movie just takes so long to get going and then once the train has left the station it just takes so long to get to the destination. There is definitely about 10-15 minutes of this movie that could be cut or at least streamlined. I felt some of the writing got too repetitive and keeps the viewer holding on for what’s next.

Now, the piece de resistance is the various spider=men and the artwork. Of course, the artwork of the characters and scenery are on point from the first movie. Gwen’s universe is a bit difficult to watch visually, but we can get passed that. Other than that, the work here is stellar. The characters and action sequences are diverse, detailed and distinctive. There are hundreds of different Spider-people with different costumes and powers. It’s quite amazing to see. We love some, we hate some, we love the cameos and voicework. The filmmakers of the Spider-Verse are talented plain and simple. There is so much to manage and they did it very well.

All in all, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is definitely worth seeing on the big screen. The movie takes a bit to get going and goes on for a bit but you’ll care about the cast all the way. The movie picks up right where the first movie ends in quality. Grab your big box of popcorn and watch our guy Miles and Gwen figure this Spider thing out.