4 stars out of 5
I was confused by the trailer: Was this a kiddie movie? Having seen all the other Spider-Man movies, was I obligated to see this one as well? I mean, it’s a cartoon, right? Although, comic books are cartoons by definition. So maybe this was the preferable way to see a superhero movie? Like I said: Confused.
I skimmed Metacritic and the consensus seemed to be really positive. Plus it was $7 Tuesday at the theater right here in town. Eh, why not. I needed to hit the uptown Rite-Aid anyway.
My tattoo-student buddy at the Walgreens pharmacy (which is within the Rite-Aid, they bought Rite-Aid, oh nothing makes sense anymore) told me that supposedly this movie stuck very closely to the comic books. (Whew, my pal Glenn would be relieved.) When I voiced my kiddie concerns, he assured me that some dark stuff happens in the books. OK, good enough.
If you dig crazy animation, run don’t walk to this movie. It kicks in way early, while the Columbia Pictures lady is still on the screen. The movie actually has texture — it looks like it’s printed, on newsprint, like an old-school comic book. Except in three dimensions. And that’s just the start. It’s wild, trust me.
The story is clear enough to follow, which is not always the case with these superdude flicks. Kingpin — who is apparently Mr. Fisk, and doesn’t wear a costume or anything, so why don’t they just call him Mr. Fisk — has busted open a hole in the space-time continuum and, long story short, there’s now a shitload of Spider-Men around from different dimensions. This allows us to go all multi-culti with a Hispanic teenage Spidey, two female Spideys (one of which is Japanese), and John Mulaney really hamming it up as a non-human one. Hispanic Spidey — Miles Morales, and the “dark” thing happens in his storyline but isn’t dwelled on at all — is tasked with getting the other Spideys back home and spackling up the hole with some kind of thumb drive.
There is stuff that annoyed me. It’s great to have these strong female characters but they are still clichés: The cute young one with the asymmetric hairdo kicks ass but also gives tilted-head flirty looks at Miles; the Japanese girl is a total giggly anime Hello Kitty stereotype; and it even seems tired to have sweet old Aunt May (Lily Tomlin) actually be this edgy, “with it” person. A lot of the background animation is so blurred that I actually looked around the theater early on to see if other people were wearing 3D glasses that I forgot to pick up. (They weren’t.) And Kingpin looks too much like Gru, though Liev Schreiber provides him with a nice Noo Yawk tough-guy accent.
The movie has a lot of fun with itself, tipping its mask to every corner of Spider-Man’s illustrious history (yes, there’s a Stan Lee cameo, and this one actually makes sense) and place in pop culture, from the earliest comics right up to the most recent reboot. Ultimately, the overall vibe was still a little bit too kiddie for me, but that’s OK — as I’ve said before, comic books should be for kids, and kids should enjoy this movie more than I do. And they will. And I did enjoy it. ‘Nuff said!
Jack – great review – we are seeing it this week.