Sony’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” is an absolute work of art. In both a sense of style and storytelling. The film has an art direction ripped straight out of a comic, with the onamonapias and bold outlines that are found in what are considered traditional comics. Though at times it can feel a bit cartoonish, they use that to their advantage and play off of it. The bright neon colors in times of action and more muted and darker colors in more serious times. A good example of this is the contrast of the relationship between our main character, Miles Morales, and his two authority figures in the film, his father, and his uncle. Near the beginning of the film, Morales and his uncle go tagging walls with spray paint with bright neon colors  scattered through the screen as they jump fences and break rules. This scene directly contrast another one between the climax of the film and the ending, where his father expresses his feelings of distance between him and Morales. A very sadly toned scene with lighting to match, the characters commonly bright and colorful attire has been replaced with a down to earth color scheme.

The magic of this film does not only come from the artistic flare, it also has many characters, some that get fleshed out and explored while others feel more rushed and thrown in. In the beginning of the film, we meet Peter Parker, who is the original spider-man before Morales. He does not get very much screen time but in the short amount of time we see him, the movie makes us feel for him and grow attached almost immediately. The writers did an astounding job to make the audience care about a character in such a short amount of time. On the other hand, characters such as Spider-Noir and SP//DR have much more screen time yet feel like they were thrown in last second, just to make the movie feel more full. There is an attempt at trying to grow SP//DR in the last minutes of the film but it felt too little, too late.

Though with the introduction of many characters, certain ones feel like they are setting a sequel or spin of, such as with Spider-Gwen who is seen reminiscing on memories at the end of the film.

At this point it might be obvious that the movies strongest point is the characters, but it doesn’t end there. The film has a good sense of making no one’s morals black and white, every character has a mix of gray. Morales’ father is police officer that does not know how to communicate with his child and makes rash choices, while Morales’ uncle is a criminal that is just trying to survive. Even the heroes and villains have questionable moral compasses. The hero “Peter B. Parker” is not fighting to save lives but just to get the job done, while the villain is only trying to get his family back. We see Morales in the middle of all of this trying to figure out what’s right and what’s wrong which builds a very interesting character within himself.

Though this film has many, many upsides, it is not without its faults. Pacing could be better but there are already enough critics breaking down the bad parts. This has been Sebastian reporting with your Nix News.