Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

PLOT BREAKDOWN

PROLOGUE (The Spider-Woman)

"Let's do things differently this time..."

We open on Earth-65, the home universe of Gwen Stacy AKA Spider-Gwen. She's rocking out hard during a jam session with her band, The Mary Janes, while thinking about Miles and everything they've been through together. Several scenes flash across the screen, some familiar and some we have yet to see. It's a quick and effective way of recapping the last movie as well as setting the tone for this one. This one is gonna hit heavier, and we'll be curious to fully understand what she's talking about.

Of course, there are other members of the band that have long since stopped playing and they look on in bewilderment wondering why the distracted Gwen is still drumming away so hard. They have a short conversation that you can easily tell is one they've been trying to have with Gwen for a while now.

[Gwen]: Is the song over? Seems over.

[Em Jay]: Are you okay?

[Glory]: You don't hang out, you don't wanna talk—

[Gwen]: I didn't join a band so I could talk about my feelings.

[Betty]: (quietly) Well I did...

[Gwen]: I joined it so I could hit my feelings with sticks!

[Glory]: If you don't tell someone what's going on, you're gonna snap.

It's made clear that Gwen uses her place as drummer as a form of percussive therapy for her pent-up emotions, and isn't actually interested in socializing with her bandmates. She grows increasingly agitated as she stonewalls their voices of concern to avoid talking about her feelings, quits, and storms out.

As we're properly introduced to Gwen's universe (rendered in gorgeous pastel brushstrokes), we learn that she's still thinking about Miles, her first real friend since her world's Peter Parker, who we know from the last movie was someone she couldn't save. Flashing back, we see the story in full. Like most iterations of the character, Peter was a nerd who was bullied in school. Only instead of keeping his good heart and eventually becoming a superhero, he developed an inferiority complex that lead him to concoct a serum that turned him into The Lizard. While Gwen waited for him at their school dance, the creature burst in and mindlessly rampaged, forcing Gwen to don her suit and take out the Lizard...only to realize too late that the Lizard was her best friend who, in his dying breath, tells Gwen he just wanted to be special like her. The design of the Lizard is different from the brief glimpse we saw of him in the first movie, more akin to a komodo dragon here than the humanoid figure we saw in the previous film. Though this is technically a retcon, it adds to the tragedy of the scene because it's made clear that Gwen could have had no possible way of knowing the rampaging monster was her best friend.

Gwen barely has time to begin processing Peter's death before her father, Captain George Stacy of the local police force, sees her and the dead body of his daughter's best friend. He puts the wrong two-and-two together, and calls a hunt on "the Spider-Woman" for the murder of Peter Parker. It's been extremely difficult leading a double-life since, to say the least. And Gwen very much misses being part of a group of Spider-People who understand the superhero life.

Gwen makes it back home, where her father tells her they have a new lead on the Spider-Woman case. Gwen can only give a clearly unenthused response and it's obvious they don't see eye-to-eye on the subject. The scene does a very good job communicating their complicated relationship with little dialogue. George believes it's Peter's death that's caused his daughter to become distant and he thinks catching the one responsible will mend the emotional gap between them. He can't understand why Gwen wouldn't want the same thing, not that Gwen can tell him. Gwen, on the other hand, knows her father means well but the fact that he has a complete misunderstanding of the events makes the topic of Peter's death even more painful than it already would have been. Regardless of all of this, they're still the most important people in each other's lives and Gwen is not "too punk rock" to squeeze her dad into a hug. It's worth noting as well that the colors in the background act like a sort of environmental mood ring depending on the current feel of the conversation. Gwen is in shades of blue relative to her environment, reflecting how withdrawn and closed off she is from everyone, and the inside of her room is much the same way. When her dad steps in, he introduces some warmer colors into the background. But the contrasting shades are like oil and water when the two exchange strained words and argue. It's only when Gwen gives her dad a hug that the two mesh into an entirely shade that fills the screen. It's a perfect example of visuals directly aiding the writing. It's some really good stuff!

The tender moment is interrupted when Papa Stacy gets a call about a disturbance at the Guggenheim and he heads out in hopes that Spider-Woman will show up. After he leaves, Gwen listens to the call on her own police scanner, suits up, and starts making her way to the Guggenheim. We're treated to a cool scene of her swinging across the city with the grace of a trained dancer. Her theme begins playing, which is rad to listen to and leaves an immediate impression on the viewer. It's a cool rock motif, which is not only fitting given her hobby, but reflects how much more confident she is in the mask.

Gwen arrives shortly after the police do to the Guggenheim, where there have been reports of a guy with a 40-foot wingspan, assumed to be the Vulture, causing trouble. Gwen quickly webs up the police both to protect them and to keep them out of her way (funnily enough, Gwen puts on a deep, Brooklyn accent when talking to her dad just like Miles does), and she makes her way inside the museum to confront the Vulture...only it isn't her universe's Vulture.

Continuing this film series' bizarre talent for combining different art styles seamlessly, this take on Vulture is a moving da Vinci-style linework/schematic on yellowed paper who interacts with Gwen's world perfectly. Gwen sees Vulture glitching and correctly assumes he's from a Renaissance-era dimension who's been displaced into her's somehow (Vulture: "Yes, that's pretty much it!")

But the era this Vulture is from doesn't make him any less of a threat. He's packing his signature wings, along with oil-lamp bombs, missiles, spinning blades, a hookshot grapple, and even flamethrowers! He's able to give Gwen a run for her money and is about deliver the coup-de-grace before another portal opens and in zooms with a flying kick...another Spider-Man!

It's Miguel O'Hara AKA Spider-Man 2099 from the last movie's post-credit scene!

Gwen asks who he is and Miguel responds that it's classified...and then starts explaining who he is anyway. 

Okay...

Miguel, armed with a wristwatch that lets him to safely and autonomously travel to any dimension, starts to exposit that he's part of an elite force dedicated to protecting the multiverse before Gwen cuts him off. He brushes off Gwen's help and chastises her for the multiversal "mess" she and the rest of the Spider-Gang caused with Kingpin's collider, which has apparently opened a big enough rift for all sorts of villains to end up in the wrong dimensions. Notably, Miguel is also pissed off at "Doctor Strange and that little nerd back on Earth-19999," referencing No Way Home. Pretty neat/sad that Sony Animation Studios cares more about the MCU's proper universe designation than, well, the MCU. But moving right along.

Miguel is no-nonsense, and is focused solely on the task at hand. Unlike most Spider-Men, his "webs" are made of hard light that can zip in any direction he pleases, and he can shift them into claws as well. He's extremely pragmatic. He tears one of Vulture's string-bound wings clean off, but Vulture just sprouts some new ones from hammerspace (which is acknowledged as such in-universe!) So Miguel has his sassy AI Lyla call for backup, and in comes a pregnant Spider-Woman on a motorcycle! It's Jessica Drew! Gwen, in awe of the badass woman, blurts out "Can you adopt me?"

So the three work in sync to fight the Vulture. Jessica, impressed with Gwen's skills, suggests to Miguel that they recruit her. But Miguel shoots the idea down, telling her bluntly, "You know why."

Vulture decides to up the ante by blowing the roof off the Guggenheim and taking to the sky, with Miguel in hot pursuit, determined not to let him escape as it'll "disrupt the canon." Miguel wrestles with him in the air for a bit and briefly takes off his mask in preparation to bite him(!) before he's flashed by a police helicopter. 

An admittedly extremely small bit that I really like is that while Vulture is up in the sky, he takes the time to marvel at the colorful and vibrant New York City skyline and expresses his amazement in Italian. It's a small detail that reinforces the fact that this is not just a "boss" for our heroes to fight. He's a living, breathing character reacting to the world around him, and he would definitely be in awe of a place like this, given where he's from. 

Anyway, Vulture uses his blades to bring the helicopter down right into the building, forcing the Spider-Team to try and stop it before it hits the people inside. Gwen immediately gets to work create a web netting to catch the helicopter as well as taking the people inside out to safety. She, Miguel, and Jessica use their webbing to slow down the helicopter's descent. It's a tight squeeze, but they're just able to stop it just in time before anyone is hurt.

I adore this sequence. I really do. And other than this, it's great. But there is no way in hell Gwen would have had the time to make that complex web structure and pull out the pilots and web the helicopter from above in those maybe thirty(?) seconds unless she has super speed.

Oh yeah, Post Malone is back and he repeats the "Yeah, I think it's a Banksy" joke from the first film.

The Vulture, stripped of his wings and pack, is dealt with. We don't see because we're catching up with Gwen as she takes a breather. Her spider-sense catches too late that she's been cornered by Captain Stacy...and she's out of webs. Captain Stacy trains his gun onto the Spider-Woman and orders her not to move as he reads her her rights, ignoring her protests. Finally, it gets to the point where has to firmly let her know that this isn't just police business.

[Gwen]: Captain, come on, I—

[George]: You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say—

[Gwen]: You don't understand! I—

[George]: (fires a warning shot into the air)

[George]: (slowly lowering his gun to aim at Spider-Woman) You don't understand.

Gwen, trembling, slowly moves her hands to her face...and removes her mask. Captain Stacy, having to now grapple with the fact that the murderer he's been hunting for years was his own daughter, can only ask quietly, "How long have you been lying to me?" Gwen begs him to "not be a cop for a second and just be my dad." She stammers that she didn't mean to kill Peter, and that she can explain everything if he just listens to her. She finally tells him, "You're all I have left."

George can only stare off, despondent. He hardly seems to be listening. Then...he begins reading Gwen her rights. Gwen, stupefied, begs her father to stop as he raises his gun at her. Then, Miguel rushes in and contains Gwen's father in a hard-light prison. After having Lyla scan the area and confirm that the "canon remains intact", he begrudgingly tosses Gwen her own dimensional wristwatch, finally offering her a place on his team.

Gwen, with no idea how to live in a world where her father thinks she's a murderer, grimly accepts, and she follows the two Spider-People through a portal, leaving her home dimension behind.

ACT I (Brooklyn's Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man)

We're back in Brooklyn on Earth-1610, the home dimension of our very own Miles Morales! In the sixteen months since the events of the last movie, he's really grown into is role as Spider-Man. He's got a new suit, complete control over his powers, and his venom strike can absorb energy now. He's struggling with the idea of telling his parents his secret identity, what with the risk of getting in trouble for lying for over a year. He also misses his Uncle and his Spider-Gang...especially Gwen, whom his connection with seems to be just as deep to him as it was to her.

But other than that, Miles is cooler, he's bigger, he's stronger, and he's...late.

Miles' parents Rio and Jefferson are in a meeting with a counselor to discuss his future and apply for a scholarship, only they've been left to awkwardly stall for time while Miles is out being Brooklyn's hero. And out standing in front of a bodega is the city's newest threat: a guy white as a sheet with no face or any features to speak of, and is covered head-to-toe in black cow-like spots.

He enters and asks the clerk for the ATM. Luckily, the clerk is too distracted to see the guy's weird appearance or what his plans for the ATM in the back are. He plucks one of the spots off his body and it materializes into a portal, which he plops right in front of the machine. The only drawback to this cool power is that he can't quite control where his exit portals end up, so his plan to steal the money inside the machine quickly goes awry. He's so inexperienced with his power that he ends up portaling the ATM to the middle of the street outside! This finally gets the clerk's attention and he comes at the guy with a baseball bat. Portal Guy begs the clerk to "just let me rob you!" and hastily explains that he was a scientist at Alchamex before an accident that's left him with no other options but to turn to a life of crime.

He even says he technically isn't robbing the store since the ATM belongs to the bank, who are "the real criminals," as he pushes the ATM along the ground.

This movie is hilarious, by the way.

As this happens Miles surreptitiously heats up an empanada and confronts this new villain(?) in between bites. Portal Guy is flustered upon seeing Spider-Man and dramatically introduces himself as...The Spot. Miles just laughs at his name and bizarre appearance before this new foe says he's from Miles' past and that he is "his nemesis." Miles is barely listening though, since he's receiving texts from both his parents asking where the hell he's at. Deciding to wrap this up quickly, Miles starts tangling with his, uh, "nemesis." But this proves easier said than done. The unpredictable nature of the Spot's portals make him even harder to deal with, and Miles has to text and fight (something the Spot is none too happy with). Something really cool about the Spot's design in this movie that's hard to pick up without freezing the frames is that he's created to look like an incomplete sketch. You can actually spot (heh) some construction lines around his humanoid figure.

The portal hijinks takes Miles and Spot throughout the city. Eventually though, Miles find his away around the Spot and is able to trap him in a combination of webs and his own portals. Throughout this, Miles narrates that through every difficulty, he's still Spider-Man, and no one can take that away from him. Miles then swings into his dorm, where he meets up his roommate Ganke (who is playing Spider-Man 2 on PS5 somehow ahead of its release date). Miles asks him to report the captured Spot to the police, but because he's no Ned, Ganke refuses, saying he's not down to be Spider-Man's "guy in the chair."

Using his wall-climbing and invisibility, Miles finally makes it to the meeting, and not a second too soon. Miles has a slight truancy problem and currently has a B in Spanish (something his mom chews him right out for), but otherwise he's doing great in school. Only the counselor complains that she has no idea what Miles' "story" is, and has a hard time working a case to earn the family a scholarship. Though she says she can salvage this by claiming Miles is from a "struggling immigrant family" (Rio: "I'm Puerto Rican, Puerto Rico is in America...?") (Jefferson: "We own a floor in Brooklyn ehhhh I don't really know about struggling...") so he can earn a spot in the top physics program at Princeton University.

Rio, in a moment most children of immigrant parents will no doubt relate to, immediately protests that it's too far from home (Miles: "New Jersey is too far from New York?"). Miles counters that the school has the top quantum researchers in the country and that his dream is too big for Brooklyn. It's clear Miles wants to learn at Princeton so he can figure out a way to travel across dimensions and meet up with his friends from the multiverse. He misses not being the only Spider-Man, too.

Just then, Miles' spider-sense starts tinglng. He looks out the window and sees that the Spot has escaped. Miles quickly excuses himself and Jefferson gets a call from dispatch forcing him to leave the meeting too. Rio is left confused and exasperated at both of her men. Before she goes, the counselor tells her that Miles is lying to her...and she's pretty sure she knows it.

Outside the school, Spider-Man resumes his fight with the Spot, now with Jefferson added to the mix. You can tell he's more used to working with Spider-Man (even if he still doesn't agree with his methods). Spot is frustrated with Miles for "leaving in the middle of the fight" and continuing to not take him seriously. In fact, Miles even says Spot is "barely a villain-of-the-week." Jefferson ends up in a portal with the two, however, and it plops them into a water tower before depositing them at the site where the collider was. Spot says it could only be destiny that he and Spider-Man would end up back here, since this is "where it all began" for them. He tackles Miles into a portal. Humorously, Jefferson prepares to leap in after them...before it cuts to him taking the stairs.

The Spot goes on about the "connection" that he and Spider-Man share before he finally explains in a dramatic monochrome flashback. He was Alchamex scientist who worked on the collider's first test. That test brought over the spider (marked 42) that bit Miles. In fact, he was the same scientist Miles threw a bagel at in the last movie! (Already funny, but what makes it hilarious is that it's played completely for drama here, with Spot yelling out in pain like he's been shot) When Miles finally destroyed the collider, the resulting explosion merged the scientist with an experiment he was working on involving dark matter, turning him into the Spot. Thus, Spot created Spider-Man, and Miles created the Spot (Jefferson: "...Spider-Man, why'd you create that guy?")

The scientist's new appearance made him a laughingstock, costing him his job, his face, and even his relationship with his family. He charges Miles in a rage for what he did to him, only for his portals to cause him to...literally kick his own butt. He slides on the floor in front of Miles before slipping into yet another portal.

Jefferson, frustrated at the mess and the fact that the Spot got away, tells Spider-Man he needs to be a better role model, before venting that "this is why nobody likes us." He feels that no matter what he does, he's "letting somebody down," something Miles relates to. He tries to get Jefferson to open up about his son, and Jefferson says that his son "says these things that are so smart, but does things that are so stupid." He's still not confident in his skills as a parent, since Miles clearly can't talk to him. Miles mutters some 'advice' he's probably been holding back for a while: "Maybe get off the kid's ass." (Jefferson: "I'm sorry, what?" / Miles: "What?")

Spider-Man finally says (as an objective, outside observer, of course) that maybe Jefferson should let his son spread his wings, and Jefferson seems to take this into consideration.

Cutting back to the Spot, we see that he's ended up in some weird spot dimension surrounded by black portals. He experimentally pokes his head into one and ends up in a halftone-heavy, comic book dimension...where a lady immediately starts beating him with her purse. Spot realizes his holes are taking him between dimensions, and tries another one which puts him in a LEGO dimension where he scares all the locals in the area. Another hole takes him to the Sony Spider-Man Universe. He ends up face-to-face with Mrs. Chen, who is apparently so used to seeing and experiencing weird shit that she barely reacts to a transdimensional being from another medium popping in through a portal.

Spot is eventually deposited back into his home dimension, where he declares his holes aren't a curse, but the answer! (a random worker in the area says "Can you stop talking about your holes? You're making everyone uncomfortable over here!") Though Spot can't act on his new power just yet cause he's...out of spots. So he sets off to work on a way to become more powerful in order to beat Spider-Man.

Back in the LEGO dimension, LEGO Peter Parker is revealed to have seen the recent disturbance from the Daily Bugle. He slips into the bathroom to change into costume, and uses a wristwatch like the one we saw earlier to contact Miguel about the "anomaly." And Miguel, I shit you not, says completely seriously that the LEGO minifigure Spider-Man who is actual toy size and makes the watch's "beep boop!" sounds out loud, is one of their best guys.

That's fucking amazing.

Also worth shouting out is that this entire sequence was animated by a 14-year-old, who impressed Sony by making a LEGO version of this movie's first full trailer. The team brought him on to animate this part of the movie less than five months before the theatrical release. It's incredible work that looks like something out of The LEGO Movie.

Later that day, Miles' family is holding a celebration on top of their apartment in honor of Jefferson's upcoming promotion to police captain. Only Miles is running late again because he's fallen behind on picking up the cake. The message is so long he ends having to get two, which he means he can't swing back, either. It's even worse when Miles' parents are both pushed to make a speech and Jefferson toasts Miles before everyone awkwardly realizes he isn't there. He misses his dad saying he loves him and will always be there for him.

Miles finally makes it, and we get a really slick sequence where he quickly ascends the stairs, while changing, and then webbing the cake up with him. It's quick but it really reinforces how in love these films are with their own medium, happily taking advantage of what animation can do with Spider-Man.

Unfortunately, Miles' parents aren't too thrilled with his tardiness. And not even the cakes can make up for it because of all they've been through. They're a mess and they now say together, "I'M NOT PROUD." His parents hound him some more, and Miles commits the cardinal sin. One that anyone with immigrant parents will immediately recognize as a huge "Now you're fucked" moment.

He tells them..."Whatever."

This gets him grounded for two months, and when Miles finally shouts at his parents to just listen to him, he can't bring himself to tell them the truth and storms off.

While Miles lies in bed listening to music, objects in his room mysteriously begin floating around. A portal opens, and to Miles' complete surprise, in an almost 1-to-1 to the ending of the last movie, Gwen appears above him and asks if he's got a minute. She plops onto his bed, and after the kind of awkward greetings only two teenagers can exchange, Gwen has a look around Miles' room and comes across a collectible toy. To the abject horror of Miles and every toy collector in the audience, she wonders aloud why it's still in the packaging and rips it open.

Then, to the abject horror of Miles and every artist in the audience, she has a look at Miles' sketchbook, full of drawings of the Spider-Gang and an embarrassing amount of Gwen in particular. Lucky for Miles, Gwen is amused instead of creeped out, and asks Miles if he wants to "get out." On the technicality that Spider-Man isn't grounded, he's convinced to join her out for a swing. The two take a fun swing around New York, with Gwen explaining the Spider-Society she's joined while making a point to avoid answering questions too specific, like why she's come to Miles' dimension now after so much time. She describes Miguel as a "ninja, vampire Spider-Man", as well as mentioning Jess and someone else named Hobie, who apparently lets her "crash in his dimension" sometimes, something that throws Miles off a bit. Gwen hides from Miles for a bit to place some kind of probe in an alleyway, indicating she has a hidden agenda here. The probe records The Spot as he enters a random apartment building.

Reuniting with Miles, the two Spiders sit together upside-down atop a skyscraper. They have a talk about their parents and when Miles brings up possibly telling them his secret, Gwen very quickly advises against it. The two get closer and Gwen confesses how much she values Miles as a friend to talk to about Spider-Man stuff, even amongst the society full of them she now works with. There seems to be an unspoken conversation about the two possibly becoming more than friends, but Gwen wistfully remarks that in most universes, Gwen Stacy falling for Spider-Man usually ends in tragedy. Miles' response is, "Well, there's a first time for everything right?" Gwen seems to be encouraged by Miles' idealism and leans on him. It's a touching scene that sets up a possible relationship between these two.

The two head back to the party and Miles asks semi-jokingly why he hasn't been invited to the Spider-Society yet. Gwen evasively says there aren't a lot of slots, but she'll "put in a good word" for Miles. Miles' parents arrive and start their "putting my child's new girlfriend in the hot seat" routine. However, Gwen gets an alert on her watch and awkwardly has to excuse herself and leave Miles in a hurry without a proper goodbye. Whatever her secret business being here was, it now requires her immediate attention, and Miles grows suspicious.

Rio stays back to have a chat with her son, in another scene I quite like. She reminds Miles he can tell her anything, and Miles seems almost ready to confess he's Spider-Man, but decides against it, clearly remembering Gwen's words. Rio, thinking that for whatever reason, Miles feels held back at home, tells him to go off and do what he will. She says that she's been raising her little boy for so long, and her one worry is that when he goes out into the world, he won't be looked after and supported the way she would for him. She lets Miles leave on the condition that he must "take care of that little boy" for her, to never doubt he's loved and has a home to go back to, and most importantly, don't let anyone tell him he doesn't belong. And when he comes home, he'll be early and come with a nice, normal cake.

Oh, and he's still grounded when he gets back.

So Miles, switching to his spider-suit, sets off to trail Gwen. He surreptitiously follows her to the apartment building Spot entered earlier that is now surrounded by police...and spots. Gwen slips inside, and Miles, turning invisible, slips in right after her. Gwen, distressed, has her watch scan the area presumedly for anomalies. She then has the watch replay whatever went down in the building. She and Miles watch Spot work on a micro-collider to recreate the event that gave him his spots. The result filled him with even more dark matter, and created an explosion.

Holographic projections of Jess and Lyra pop in to check on Gwen, and we learn that she wasn't supposed to see Miles at all! Because she got distracted, Spot, who she was supposed to monitor, can now dimension-hop freely and is going to be harder to pin down as a result. The relationship between Jess and Gwen has gotten colder since the intro. Jess isn't listening to Gwen's excuses and doesn't hold back in telling her how much she's fucked up. Gwen desparately promises them she'll make up for her mistake by catching Spot...and never seeing Miles again.

Kinda makes you wonder why Jess sent Gwen to Miles' dimension alone and unsupervised to begin with, but whatever.

Spot localizes in Earth-50101, and Jess tells Gwen she has one hour to make things right, or else she can't help her if Miguel gets involved. Jess and Lyra blip out, leaving Gwen behind with invisible Miles. Before Gwen steps through the portal, she has one last look out into the night, not realizing she's staring right through Miles, and whispers a final good-bye to him. She starts to step through, and Miles turns visible just too late before she disappears. Miles then takes one last look himself at his home dimension. 

And then he masks up, and jumps in right behind her.

ACT II (The Spider-Society)

Miles flies through a series of rings before getting sent right into the bright, cel-shaded Earth-50101. He's in Mumbattan, a combination of Mumbai and Manhattan. Miles struggles to get his bearings with the new environment combined with the fact that he's now glitching from being in a foreign dimension.

He spots Gwen, who's in pursuit of the Spot, who himself is in pursuit of the dimension's local Alchamex so he can make himself even more powerful. He has far better control over his portals, but Gwen almost catches him before Miles startles her with his appearance. Gwen isn't happy, saying Miles shouldn't be here. She even goes as far as to tell him she never should have come back to see him. 

Damn. 

Miles' attempt to catch Gwen when she falls goes awry when he starts glitching and he has to be saved by...Pavitr Prabhakar AKA Spider-Man India! 

Pavitr introduces himself as a bright-eyed, fun-loving Spider-Man. He repeatedly calls Miles "New Guy", to his irritation...which only grows after learning that Pav has only been on the job for six months. (Miles: "Six months? And even he got invited?" / Gwen: "Uhhhh...") In fact, being Spider-Man is easy for Pavitr. He's naturally buff, naturally good-looking, naturally smart, naturally skilled...and he doesn't even have to touch his hair! (Miles: "You don't use any product at all?" / Pavitr: "Just coconut oil, prayer, some genetics") He seemingly has no problem managing his double-life. He makes time to have chai with his grandmother (that's chai, not chai tea. Chai means "tea." Something I did not know), and he has a girlfriend, Gayatri Singh, who is pretty much his Gwen Stacy. She, of course, has a father in the police. Pavitr's only problem is keeping the relationship secret from him. He also uses a yo-yo style bangle in conjunction with his webs, which is pretty cool!

He immediately starts shipping Miles and Gwen due to Miles coming after her uninvited (Pavitr: "I'm really good at reading people") until the Spot resumes his attack. He portals circles around the trio, and he gets inside the inner workings of Alchemax with ease. He pretty much demonstrates why the ability to create portals whenever and whereever you like is not a power you should give your heroes without writing very, very carefully (ahem Doctor Strange ahem). Spot uses portals to walk without regard to distance and essentially no-clip through walls. The trio can't even land a hit on him. He activates a force-field, barricading him and the collider from our heroes...and initializes the sequence. The Spiders can only pound hopelessly at the barrier, before Miles gets an idea. He activates his Venom Strike and starts to absorb energy from the field.

Miles is at it for quite a bit, the others unsure if it's even working, before a fourth Spider-Man arrives. He's carrying an electric guitar and is rendered like a newspaper clipping that changes shape and color between frames. He charges at the barrier...and busts it right open!

Gwen and Pavitr signal to us that he's the famous Hobie. More officially, he's Hobie Brown AKA Spider-Punk. He makes an immediate impression on the audience with an intro that's loud, funny, and just fucking cool. It's clear right away why Hobie has the reputation he does. He's friendly in a cool, detached kind of way and even gives Miles advice on using his palms instead of his fingers to perfect his Venom Strike. Hobie is a punk, in the purest sense of the word. He's in a rock band that engages in political activism, he engages with performances art, he hates labels, he doesn't even consider himself a hero, seeing it as an admission of being a "self-mythologizing, narcissistic autocrat."

Unfortunately, even with Hobie, the team can't do much against the Spot. (Hobie: "I don't believe in teams." / "Miles: Aren't you in a band?" / Hobie: "I don't believe in consistency.") Spot tells Miles that now, the two of them will finally live up to their potential: Miles will have a villain worth fighting, and Spot won't be a joke to him any longer.

The collider finally activates, and Spot starts descending towards the beam. In a last attempt to stop him, the four Spiders make a web-chain to catch the Spot in mid-air and Miles tells him no one thinks he's a joke. (Gwen: "Absolutely!" / Pavitr: "Completely unamusing!" / Hobie: "I don't believe in comedy!...just kidding!") But The Spot, so close to even more power, isn't gonna listen now. He cuts off the webs, and is seemingly absorbed in the collider, causing him to disappear...

We quickly get one of my favorite jokes in the movie. Pavitr, thinking the Spot has been dealt with, starts to declare it another easy day saved by Spider-Man! The other three, familiar with the risk of tempting fate, desparately try to get him to stop talking before the collider explodes, seemingly just to prove Pavitr wrong.

Of course, we effortlessly swing back to drama. Miles, in the collision, experiences a vision. The Spot is using his powers to devastate New York. In the ensuing calamity, a building begins to fall on a child and Jefferson rushes in to rescue them. What's interesting is that the image of Jefferson flashes back and forth between that of himself and Inspector Singh.

[Miles]: What was that?
[The Spot]: Our future.

Whereas the Spot before looked like an incomplete drawing before, now, having been completely consumed in dark matter, looks like a shifting mass of ink with white scribbles throughout his body. Now speaking in a sadistic voice barely above whisper, he leaves Miles with one promise.

The building starts to collapse after becoming unstable, and the group swings into action to contain the damage. Miles and Pavitr work to clear the path of people, while Gwen and Hobie slow down the building's descent. (Hobie: "I'll do it, but not because you told me to!") (Honestly, every line from Hobie is gold)

I'll also say here that seeing Spider-People work together in tandem is something I don't think I'll ever get tired of seeing. Especially animated.

And hey! It's superheroes going out of their way to save civilians! Remember when this used to be commonplace and they didn't just casually put people in more danger?

Gwen and Hobie's webbing doesn't quite hold, and it's not long before the building is back on its way down towards a bridge full of people and cars. The Spiders grab as many as they can, but Pavitr notices Gayatri in the back of a bus about to fall! He's hanging on with only one web and his super strength. Lyla calls Gwen and advised her to tread carefully since a "canon event" is about to take place. Just then, Pavitr notices Inspector Singh going back in to rescue a child, and he's faced with a grim choice: save Gayatri and let her father die, or save Singh, leaving Gayatri to the fate most versions of Gwen Stacy meet.

Miles, sensing the danger, goes in to save Singh despite protests from Gwen. It's close, but Miles manages to save Singh and the child. A small detail I like is Gwen trying to find Miles under some rubble while muttering "No..." over and over to herself, no doubt praying she's not reliving her experience with Peter. Meanwhile, Hobie helps Pavitr lift the bus back to safety. This time, they were able to save both. Miles receives a wordless thanks from Pavitr, and praise from the entire crowd. Gwen, despite receiving a troubling warning on her watch saying "Canon Event Disrupted," celebrates with them, calling Miles "amazing."

But then, a dark hole starts swallowing up the city from below. A giant portal opens from above and a giant Spider-mech descends onto the bridge. Out come a bunch of Spider-People, including Jess, who tells them to clear the area and start containing this "quantum hole." She then tells the group that Miguel wants all of them back at HQ, to Miles' excitement.

Jess portals the group to the futuristic Nueva York in Earth-928. The enter a door to a room filled to the brim with Spider-People of all sorts of shapes, sizes, species, races, genders, costumes, and art styles. It's unbelievable.

And this is just the lobby.

The complex as a whole is filled with pillars going in all directions. It's impossible to tell who's walking right-side-up or even where right-side-up is. Welcome to Spider-Society.

Miles is surprised to find out that it's not the small, elite group Gwen described it as. Hobie grills her, asking her how much she's told Miles about "his place in all this." Jess hands Miles a day-pass wristband that'll keep him from glitching, and they continue to HQ. Along the way we see the overly-angsty Ben O'Reilly AKA Scarlet Spider, Spider-Man from the Insomniac games, a Spider-Man cowboy named Web-Slinger along with his Spider-Horse named Widow, and even a sentient Spider-CAR named Peter Parkedcar.

They also come across an assortment of villains in containment. There are several Kravens, Doc Ocks (including one with actual octopus tentacles), several Rhinos (including one that is just a regular rhino), a Moose-sterio and Miss-sterio, and a Prowler played by live-action Donald Glover! For those who don't know, the reason this is significant is not just because Glover plays Aaron in the MCU (Though I don't think he and this Prowler are the same), but Glover was the main inspiration for Miles Morales to begin with. It's a cool cameo.

Next, the group walks into a technological hub where Miles bumps into Margo Kess AKA Spider-Byte, who is actually an avatar played by a girl on a VR headset back in her home dimension. Notably, she's the only Spider-Person Miles does the "spider-sense vibe" thing with. Also notably, Gwen is suddenly in a hurry to get going and go see Miguel, just as it seems like Miles and Margo are taking a bit of a liking towards each other. Miles briefly empathizes with her saying, "Here is better" in relation to her home life (if you listen carefully, you can briefly hear her parents arguing in the background when she displays her home dimension). Anyway, Margo shows them the Go-Home Machine (Yes, that's what it's called. Gwen says she voted against it), a giant mechanical spider that detects whatever dimension the subject's DNA is from and sends them back to that dimension. (Hobie: "It's super humane, and not creepy.")

Continuing to HQ (Gwen having to web Miles along, away from Margo), we see Miguel standing in front of a bunch of screens. We understand that he's paranoid, tired, and he feels like he's working a thankless job monitoring the multiverse. Hobie, casually yanking components out of the tech in the walls, picks Miles' brain and asks why he wants to be a part of Spider-Society so badly when he's got it good in his home dimension with parents who love him and want what's best for him. He encourages Miles to be his own boss and find his own way apart from all of this. But of course, Miles counters that a watch is his means of being able to visit his friends across the multiverse, and asks Hobie what he's doing here if he feels this way. Hobie tells Miles he's merely "looking out for his drummer." He sees Miles has mind made up and doesn't push the topic further, but not before telling him, cryptically, not to enlist until he knows "what war he's fighting."

They finally make it to Miguel's chamber, and Miguel's platform descends...very slowly. While his back is turned. It's really awkward but Gwen just tells Miles to let him have this because he likes the dramatics. Miles tries to make friendly with Miguel and Miguel throws a trash can at him!

Damn, man!

He can hardly contain his rage that Miles "blew another hole in the multiverse" and tells Gwen she should have known better. He can barely bring himself to acknowledge Hobie. A voice from the shadows, however, tells Miguel to "go easy on the kid", and out comes...Peter B. Parker!!

With a baby!!

Peter and MJ's daughter, Mayday Parker, has spider powers! While Peter B. is in full-on embarrassing dad mode, Mayday begins crawling around Miguel's chamber, and Miguel seethes at the fading seriousness of the conversation. Hobie praises Mayday for  "taking a crap on the establishment." Peter B. then says a line I really like.

[Peter B.]: It's always the fate of the multiverse! You say "the fate of the multiverse" and my brain dies!

We'll get back to that when we talk about Themes. 

Back to the plot, Miguel tells Miles he "disrupted a canon event" by saving the people in Mumbattan. Beginning to explain with visuals, we see the exact same multiverse model from the MCU's Loki, being a spectral tree with glowing branches sprouting every which way. He then shows a different, more narrowed-down model, with all the labelled universes with Spider-Man or some variant. The Spider-Verse, as Miles calls it, which Miguel calls stupid...before admitting his own name for it (the Arachno-Humanoid Poly-Multiverse) also sounds stupid. Inside the intricate web where the lines converge are nodes that Miguel calls "the canon". He then goes on about "canon events", chapters good and bad that are a part of every Spider's story, every time. The bite, the tragic death of a family member, the run-in with the symbiote, etc. We're treated to rows and rows of Spider-People mourning their Uncle Bens and equivalents...ending with Miles' own uncle Aaron.

One canon event is Spider-Man losing a police captain close to him while they save a child from falling rubble. We see many variants of this event, including Spectacular Spider-Man and Andrew Garfield's Amazing Spider-Man. Miguel explains that canon events are what bind the Spider-People together, and each disruption of them destabilizes the multiverse. After enough disruptions, the web will fall apart entirely. This is the real reason why Gwen tried to stop Miles from going after Singh, apart from concern for his safety. Miguel says that Pavitr's dimension is unraveling due to Miles' intervention, and they can only hope they're lucky enough to stop it. Miles counters that the hole had to have been caused by The Spot, but Miguel tells him that he knows from experience that this is the result of disrupting a canon event.

In the past, Miguel saw a world where he was happy and had a family. That version of him died, and Miguel went to replace him, thinking it was harmless.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

The flashback shows that one by one, the people of the dimension were eventually wiped completely out of existence, including Miguel's daughter. Peter B., having been there to witness the event, corroborates Miguel's story.

[Miguel]: You break enough canon, save enough captains...we could lose everything.

Miles, reeling from this new information, grimly remembers that a certain person in his dimension is about to become police captain. He then starts to understand the vision he got from Spot. Spot is going to kill Miles' father.

Miles demands to know when it happens. Miguel quietly tells him it's projected to happen in two days, when Jefferson is sworn in. 

Miles demands to be sent back home.

[Miles]: What am I supposed to do? Just let him die?

Silence from the group.

No one wants to say it, but the implication is clear. Based on what he's just learned, if Miles is to do his part in preserving the canon, he has to let his dad die.

Miles, growing in anger, asks everyone if they've considered how messed up it is that they're supposed to let people die because "some algorithm" says so. He asks Peter B. if he would have let what happened to Uncle Ben play out if he knew about this. He corners Gwen about her own father. Gwen can only look away. The news clearly wasn't easy for her to learn...but in a way, she's already lost her father. He was all she had left and as far she's concerned, he's completely turned on her. Peter B also reminds Miles that almost everyone's "Uncle Ben" moment was their catalyst for being a hero in the first place; many of them wouldn't be here otherwise. More and more Spider-People surround the group as Miguel patiently explains that while he's sympathetic, the multiverse can't risk more damage. It's too heavy a price for one life.

[Miguel]: You have a choice between saving one person and saving an entire world. Every world.

[Miles]: I can do both! Spider-Man always-

[Peter B.]: Not always.

[Miguel]: Miles, we all want to live the life we wish we had. Believe me, I have tried. And the harder I tried the more damage I did. You can't have it all, kid. Being Spider-Man is a sacrifice. That's the job. That's what you signed up for.

Among the group is a much less chipper Peni Parker, in an upgraded comic-accurate Sp//dr. Miles starts to question if the reason so many people are here is to stage a sort of intervention. He even questions if Peter B.'s just here to "let him down easy" like last time. He bitterly tells Gwen that she really shouldn't have come back to see him.

He finally tells Miguel that he can't possibly ask him not to save his father.

But Miguel isn't asking.

He traps Miles in the same holographic web prison he used on Captain Stacy, to Gwen and Peter B.'s protests. To no one else's notice, Hobie silently reminds Miles about the tip he gave him back in Mumbattan. Miles presses his palms against the sides of the cage, absorbs the energy, and sends it outwards, destroying the prison, and Hobie smirks his approval.

Miles, after getting over his shock (heh) at his own power, books it, and Miguel leads a chase, signaling all of Spider-Society to apprehend Miles. Hobie, wanting nothing to do with any of this, portals out while saying, "For the record, I quit." What follows is a batshit insane, hilarious chase scene of every Spider-Person you could possibly think of going after Miles, including a Spider-Cat and a Spider T-REX. Also joining the chase is Peter B. who brings Mayday along. With Miles barely able to keep the hundreds of Spider-People off his back, the chase eventually ends up taking everyone outside the facility. Nueva York proves to be a difficult landscape with barely any buildings to swing off of, and having flying cars zooming by everywhere. At one point, Miguel cuts Miles' web and Gwen tries to save him with her own, only for Miles to reject her.

He falls into an underground area that more closely resembles the New York he's used to. Out of nowhere, Peter B. snags Miles up into a power plant-like area and tries to talk to him. Miles isn't having it, still feeling betrayed, until Peter B. confesses that he had Mayday because he hoped to raise her to be like him. He starts saying that bad things happen to Spider-Men, but plenty good things happen to...like Miles himself. Their little heart-to-heart is interrupted, however, when Lyla notifies Peter B. that they have his location, making it look like Peter betrayed Miles, and Miles closes him off again. He runs off once more, managing to web up Jess. In a struggle with Miguel, Miguel manages to snag off Miles' wristband. They end up on a monorail heading back into the upper part of the city, and headed towards the moon.

The high-speed and verticality of the monorail means webs aren't much use since they just fly downwards. Miguel's hard-light webs work just fine, though. Miguel asks Miles who he thinks he is. Miles' response is this:

[Miles]: My name is Miles Morales. I was bitten by a radioactive spider. I'm pretty sure you know the rest, jerk!

But Miguel tells him he's not just an anomaly. He's the original anomaly, and he will be no matter which dimension he's in. All of his civility is gone. His pure and utter resentment for Miles is coming to the surface. He pins Miles' down and snarls at him he was never supposed to be Spider-Man. The spider that gave Miles his powers wasn't from his dimension and wasn't supposed to bite him. Because Miles was bit, his own Peter Parker died before he could stop the collider, and worse, there's now a universe without any Spider-Man to protect them. 

He tells Miles he's a mistake. And everything, from the collider up to including the Spot, is Miles' fault.

[Miguel]: (in Miles' ear) You don't belong here. You never did.

Peter B. and Gwen, who are trailing behind, yell at Miguel that this "isn't what they talked about." Miles, who's been struggling to fight Miguel off of him, looks wide-eyed at his friends.

[Miles]: You talked about this? You knew? You all knew?

[Gwen]: I...I didn't know...how to tell you...

[Miles]: That's why you guys never came to see me...

Gwen tells Miles it's for his own good, and Miles shouts back that he's not a kid. Miguel pins him again and tells him that that's exactly what he is: a kid who has no idea what he's doing. To the shock of Miguel, Gwen, and Peter B. who all assumed Miles had no plan, Miles rightfully points out that he's managed lured hundreds of Spider-People away from the facility. And Miguel has landed himself in close quarters with Miles. He and his energy-powered suit that's ripe for absorbing. While absorbing the power, Miles says,

Everyone keeps telling me how my story is supposed to go. Nah...imma do my own thing.

Miles then lets out an energy blast so spectacular it probably would've killed any normal man. Instead, Miguel is sent flying backwards, far away from his position. Miles stands defiantly on the monorail, a look of resigned determination on his face. Accepting the grim reality that no one, not even his friends, are going to back him up, Miles gives Gwen one final good-bye, hops off the monorail, and goes invisible, making his way back to the facility.

Back in the tech room, Margo is trying on different hairstyles for her avatar when she hears Miles. She can't find him, even with all the filters her helmet provides views of, and Miles starts stealthily activating the Go-Home Machine. Margo, confused, starts trying to deactivate the machine while the computer scans Miles for his dimensional signature. He stands on the platform and waits for the giant mechanical spider to do its thing. Margo and Lyla frantically work to figure out what's going on, and Margo finally spots Miles inside the chamber. Just then, Miguel bursts in the room, yelling at Margo to stop the machine while he furiously tries to break open the holographic web being built around Miles. He looks almost feral at this point.

Margo, finally gaining the means to reboot the machine, stares up at Miles and Miguel. Miles silently pleads with her not do it, and Margo hesitates just long enough to let him go.

Gwen, having arrived with the rest of Spider-Society, calls Miguel out for being too harsh on Miles. Needless to say, Miguel is already enraged and has just gained a new target for his anger. He kicks Gwen out of the group, blaming her for being too close to Miles. Gwen pleads for Jess to vouch for her. But Jess simply reminds Gwen of her warning: If she let him go, she wouldn't be able to help her. Miguel forces Gwen into the Go-Home Machine. By now he looks practically demonic. The color keys make his eyes look red, aiding the intention of making him look as menacing as possible.

Before she gets sent back to her home dimension, she glares back at the group. Jess looks almost regretful.

[Gwen]: We are supposed to be the good guys.

[Miguel]: We are. (looking back at the group, less sure) ...We are.

Miguel then orders Jess and Ben O'Reilly to follow him in pursuit of Miles, and someone else to deal with The Spot.

ACT III (No Way Home)

A portal opens in New York and deposits Miles on top of a building, with Miguel, Jess, and Ben elsewhere in the city. Similarly, Gwen is shot back into her own dimension, where she finds out she's been locked out of her watch's multiversal system. Peter B. also arrives home and puts baby Mayday to sleep. While Miles tries to swing his way home, we hear a voice over of Peter B.'s MJ advising her husband about how there's no playbook on being a parent to a normal child, let alone a superpowered one.

Gwen stealthily enters her house and finds her dad passed out on the couch. He's gotten skinnier and he's grown a five o'clock shadow since we last saw him. Even with Gwen's mask on, we can tell she's feeling a mixture of concern, hurt, resentment...and relief. But just as she's about to leave again, her dad wakes up and catches her. The reunion is...icy. Gwen makes a sarcastic comment about how she's been out murdering her friends, and then it's her dad who turns to leave. Gwen catches up to him and gets to a point where she can pour out the inner conflict she's been holding in the whole movie. Hailee Steinfeld gives a stunningly convincing and human performance, conveying the raw emotion of a girl who's tried so hard and yet has lost so much, and it's only matched by the animation of her character and the soft shift of the environmental colors

[Gwen]: You're a good cop, dad. You put on that badge because you know if you don't, someone who shouldn't will. But you have to understand that this mask is my badge! And I'm trying to be good, too. I was trying so hard to wear this thing the way you would want...and I didn't! I didn't! I can do all these things, but I can't help the people I love the most. And they can only know half of who I am, so I— I'm completely on my own! And now, I don't— I don't even know what the right thing is anymore! I don't know what I'm supposed to do! But I know...I can't lose one more friend.

George, in a mix of pride over his daughter's sense of justice and regret that he almost arrested her in the name of going "by the book", tells Gwen he's resigned from being police captain. He was desperate for so long to find Peter's killer and bring them to justice in order to be a hero in his daughter's eyes, only to now learn that she only wanted to emulate him all along. He's been her primary inspiration and blueprint as a hero herself. He no longer needs to be a police officer; all he needs is right in front of him. He looks Gwen in the eye and tells her that she's the best thing he's ever done. Gwen webs him into a hug, emotional that her dad has finally accepted all of her...and that she's safely averted a canon event.

But Papa Stacy has something for Gwen. Something he's pretty sure is supposed to help, from a guy he says "was a real piece of work." It's a colorful box and inside is a dimensional wristwatch made with hobbled-together tech pieces. A note on it reads, "In case it don't work out. - Hobie"

Gwen, now resolute in what she has to do, activates a portal to Earth-1610. She tells her father she promises she'll be back. But for now, she puts her mask on. She's got a job to do.

Back to Miles, he swings in the rain as everyone's words echo in his mind. This isn't really a flaw with the movie as much as it's just something that bugs me personally. The first movie had this too, but during the climactic "What's Up, Danger?" scene, dialogue from other parts of the movie play in voiceover in case you didn't get the significance of those moments. I like this scene a lot because it's almost a reverse of the "What's Up, Danger?" sequence. Miles isn't rising this time, he's falling. He isn't as graceful, he's fucking up in places. And instead of encouraging voices, he's remembering words that brought him down. But I find the voiceovers in both scenes condescending. I promise I don't need them, movie! I get the significance!

Miguel's squad still has no sign of Miles, but Jess secretly tails Jefferson. Gwen's portal opens in an alleyway and Ben goes to investigate. Before he can report anything however, Gwen webs him up and throws him in, snagging his wristwatch in the process.

Miles, tired and harried, finally makes it back to his apartment. His mom enters his room and he quickly zips up his jacket to hide his suit before she can see. Miles rushes in to hug her and asks if he's too late. Rio's confused reaction indicates that everything is okay...for now. Miles tells her that she was right (Rio: "Of course I'm right, I'm always right...what am I right about?").

[Miles]: I saw all these amazing places, and met all these amazing people. But...but they didn't want me. I kept thinking about what you said. And I let them have it. I beat them all. I know how strong I am, now. I'm strong because of you...and dad...and us.

Miles then tells Rio that something terrible is coming, finally naming the Spot as his nemesis. But he's going to stop him. And there's something he has to tell her. The thing he's been lying about because he was afraid she wouldn't love him the same. But after everything he's experienced, he's not afraid of anything. He has Rio promise that nothing's going to change, and she does. And then...

Miles tells his mother that he's Spider-Man.

Except...

[Rio]: Who's Spider-Man?

Miles awkwardly tries to explain that he's her city's local superhero and Rio just assumes he's a character Miles is cosplaying...for Comic-Con. Which Miles reminds us (if you don't remember from a quick joke in the last movie) that he doesn't know what that is.

Something is really wrong here.

Elsewhere, we see Gwen also sneaking into Miles' apartment...?

Rio still has no idea what Miles is talking about and walks off. Miles, confused as to why she's playing dumb, all of a sudden has a glitching fit. It confirms what's been hinted at already.

Miles is in the wrong dimension.

Gwen, who is in the right dimension, comes to the same realization from her spider-sense. The Go-Home Machine didn't scan Miles' dimensional signature. It picked up that of the spider that bit him. 

This is Earth-42.

As Miles' head spins from the realization that he wasn't sent home, the front door opens and in walks Uncle Aaron. Miles struggles to act normal in front of the man who he learned was a supervillain and died in his arms the same day. It's implied that Rio's been struggling financially and Aaron's been helping her out.

He then takes Miles out for the two of them to do some, uh, grocery shopping. On their way up to the roof, he asks Miles to confirm when security "switches out", and Miles is just barely able to pretend he knows what he's talking about and he has to pass his glitching off as a cold. Out on the roof, we see that this New York is plagued with crime without a Spider-Man. Buildings are on fire, and Miles, in shock, looks over at mural reading "Rest in Power" in honor of one Captain Jeff Morales. Before Miles can even think of what to say to Aaron, a figure in a black suit jumps in and knocks Miles out cold.

Meanwhile on Earth-1610, Gwen listens in Rio telling Jefferson about her last conversation with Miles. During this talk, Jeff expresses his doubts over his parenting skills like before. He even recounts "Spider-Man's" advice to let Miles spread his wings. Gwen finally reveals herself and tells Miles' parents that their issue should be with her, not Miles. Outside, we see Jess is listening in as Gwen tells them that she doesn't know where Miles is, but she's gonna find him. And that they shouldn't doubt the love he has for them. Miles taught her that "it's all possible."

[Rio]: If you do find him...tell him five months. And tell him we love him.

[Gwen]: You got it.

Gwen then sets her sights on Earth-616B, the home dimension of Peter B.

Back on Earth-42, Miles wakes up tied to a punching bag in Aaron's apartment (much like he did to Peter B in the first movie). Miles vainly tries to tell Aaron there's been a mistake and that he's not from here. Aaron remains quiet and indifferent to his misplaced nephew's pleading and simply plays some music while he places the Prowler glove on his hand. I never thought a man calmly turning up the volume on a record player could be so intimidating. Miles continues pleading with Aaron, telling him he doesn't have to be the Prowler; he can be good. Whereupon Aaron just chuckles, punches the shit out of the bag with the Prowler glove, and tells Miles shortly that he isn't the Prowler. 

The figure from earlier then descends from the ceiling. He's decked out in the Prowler gear, and his iconic leitmotif from the first movie plays. All he's missing are the boots (with sneakers in their place) and the gloves, one of which Aaron tosses to him. The masked figure asks Miles if his father is still alive. When he confirms he is, his reaction is a simple "Huh." Then, he unmasks, revealing the face of Miles Morales. AKA The Prowler.

This Miles wears dreads, a cold stare, and a heavier Latin accent. He's not at all sympathetic to Miles' desire to rescue his dad, and he doesn't intend to let Miles leave. And whatever he has planned for him will only come if the glitching doesn't do him in first. Miles is in big trouble in this dimension. And the Spot has arrived on Earth-1610.

But there is hope.

Miles looks like he's preparing a venom strike. And Gwen has put together her own band of Spider-People, consisting of herself, Peter B., Mayday, Pavitr, Hobie, Margo, Peni, Spider-Man Noir, and Spider-Ham. The exact same drum beat from the very start of the movie plays, except whereas before it was quickly dominated by Gwen's increasingly frenetic drum-playing, it's now a triumphant rock piece that incorporates drums in perfect sync with the other instruments, reflecting how Gwen is now whole and ready to work with a team to save the day, instead of all alone.

[Gwen]: I never found the right band to join, so I decided to start my own, with a few old friends. You want in?

We cut to black, and to the audience's collective groan, "TO BE CONTINUED" pops up on screen.

Just hang on a little bit longer, Miles...

SUMMATION

And that was Across the Spider-Verse, part two of the trilogy! Going through it all again, this movie is a triumph in many, many ways, even outshining the first film in many aspects. But it ain't perfect. Let's talk about where and how it succeeds and fumbles.

WORLD

This series has always been a love letter to the legacy of Spider-Man. And with the introduction of the Spider-Society, we basically have a Spider-Man universe that's aware of this franchise's own meta and history. But we got a lot to talk about in terms of worldbuilding because this movie essentially welds this Spider-Universe with many other continuities, and it's gonna be quite the balancing act holding it all together.

To recap, this movie ties its own universe to that of the Spider-Man TV shows, the SSU, the Raimi-verse, the Webb-verse, the comic's universe, and most worrisomely, the MCU. Miguel's map of the multiverse, as I said, is almost identical to the model the MCU's being using since Loki, and with the direct reference to No Way Home, it's safe to say that this movie takes place in the MCU's multiverse. The trouble with that is, as great as this movie, it's now saddled to the ideas of worse writers. Canon events are essentially the equivalent of Nexus Events or Absolute Points or whatever the hell the MCU is calling them now. Things that are "supposed" to happen. We've seen the disastrous consequences of trying to stop them and this film follows in line. In fact, the destruction of the universe Miguel inhabited sounds identical to Multiverse of Madness's incursions. As much as I'd like this movie to stay as far from that one as possible, an explanation is now in order of how the Spider-Society doesn't cause incursions everywhere they go. I guess we have to assume they aren't around long enough to cause one? Speaking of the Spider-Society, their purpose is quite similar to the TVA's, preventing anomalies in time. What role do they play in all this? Are they aware of the Spider-Society? Does one group rank above the other?

There aren't any blatant contradictions yet as far as I can tell, but we're gonna need to be very careful.

Miguel's explanation of the preservation of the canon doesn't hold up with what we know. Even though Miles is supposedly an anomaly who deprived a universe of Spider-Man, Earth-42 and Miles' own universe are structurally intact. Within the movie, Gwen's dad quits the police force, safely averting a canon event. I've seen talk that this is a gaping plot hole within the film, but I think the movie is aware of how wrong Miguel is. I think this is a setup for a reveal in the next installment. Something else being at play here is the only way this story makes sense. But to be fair, I'll hold off judgement until the story is complete, and then I'll revise my rating.

World: 7/10

PLOT

Fortunately, there's not a lot to say about plot when the script is as tight as this film, outside of a few dialogue fumbles and some odd contrivances here and there (i.e. Jessica sending Gwen to Earth-1610 knowing she has an emotional connection to Miles). Every scene is purposeful and well-paced to my eye. There's also a lot of talk about how this is only "half a story" since it's one part out of two and thus is technically incomplete. While it's true we're not at the end of the story, this movie does follow a three act structure and it has a resolution all on its own. I'm not saying the series could end here the way I would about, say, Toy Story 2, but I don't think it's fair to say this is only half a story just because it ends on a cliffhanger. Gwen's arc alone is what makes this film worthy of a standalone experience. 

Plot: 9/10

CHARACTER

Let's start with Miguel O'Hara. The only Spider-Man without a sense of humor. The man who lost it all, and is desparate not to let history repeat itself. There's a level of irony that despite being the self-appointed overseer of preserving the traditional Spider-Man "canon", he's probably the least traditional Spider-Man of all. His lack of Spider-Sense causes him to get caught off-guard at many points, and leaves him paranoid, tired, and constantly on the lookout for potential threats. He lacks webbing and stickiness, leaving him with a suit that's susceptible to power drainage. If his origin is accurate to the comics, he wasn't even bitten, instead having his genetic code altered. He's humorless and aggressive, and the little wise he does crack is cutting and abrasive. And most importantly, he more closely resembles someone on the downward to becoming a villain, rather than a hero. His survivor's guilt from losing the family he adopted as well as inadvertently causing the destruction of an entire universe pushed him on a path to preventing that sort of tragedy from happening again. But his tunnel vision, refusal to compromise, and attachment to personal grudges push him into extremist territory. He becomes someone who can't see the truth, even as it breathes in front of him. Miguel is not stupid. His belief in the canon is not a plot hole. He's a broken and desperate man doing what he sincerely believes is the right thing to do, clinging to his idea of fate because he needs a reason for why he's suffered so much. It has to be part of every Spider-Man's story. Because otherwise, it was all a senseless hardship that happened for no other reason than life being full of unpredictable events beyond anyone's control. He's come too far, and he's invested far too much to stop. What's upsetting is because the Spider-Society could be a healthy Spider-Man support group. It's played for a joke but we saw this with the Spider-Therapist. But it's fueled instead by the toxic belief that they must lose those closest to them. I imagine in the sequel we'll come to learn that Miguel himself is an anomaly, and that he's working so hard to prevent others like himself from jeopardizing the multiverse. Maybe he sees some of himself in Miles. After all, he doesn't directly address Miles questioning if he's even Spider-Man. But we'll have to see. As for this film, he's written excellently as a sympathetic antagonist. Someone who's wrong, but is acting completely logical with what they understand to be true.

Pavitr Prabhakr may be a newbie, but he's in the best shape any Spider-Man could hope to be. He's strong, talented, charming, good-looking, and lives an easy double life. But the film makes it clear that this is because he hasn't suffered the tragedies that come with the role, and he's pushed to his limits. Faced with the Spot, he's proved just as fallible as any other Spider-Person. If it weren't for Miles, he would've lost Singh or his girlfriend, with losing both being a very real possibility. Thankfully, with help from his friends, he's able to remain happy, though no doubt having learned from the experience. And now he's on his way to help Miles in repayment. 

Hobie Brown, the Spider-Punk. The outlier who steps out of the norm to do what he wants, rules be damned. Relative to the amount of time he's in the film, he alters the plot's trajectory just enough to be significant, while stealing the audience's hearts at the same time. Introduced as a potential romantic rival to Miles, the movie thankfully squashes that right away not only by establishing his relationship with Gwen as decidedly non-romantic, but by making her reverence of him completely warranted. He's a loud and proud anarchist who refreshingly isn't all talk, and he's is a staunch ally and true friend. From the beginning he's been in Miles' corner, celebrating the lives he saved in Mumbattan despite the disruption of canon. He tries to get in his head to get an idea of what he values compared to the Spider-Society, because he firmly disagrees with their philosophy. It's implied he was waiting for just the right time to spark an insurrection, playing up his anti-establishment attitude so the group thinks he's all bark and no bite, thus allowing to steal components to make his own watch from right under their noses. Once he sees Miles is on the same page, he provides him the means to act on his beliefs, and quits without elaborating further. It's absolutely no wonder he's such a fan-favorite.

Jessica Drew doesn't get much apart from being Miguel's right-hand woman and Gwen's hoverer. She has no noticeable quirks or gimmicks. This isn't a problem but there's nothing really to evaluate. I'd kinda like to know what the deal is with her baby since it disappears from the film after her introduction. It could have something to do with why she's so cold after that scene. But I suppose we'll have to wait for the next movie to get more on her.

I thought Peter B. was kinda weaker in this movie. I'm glad he made up with MJ and had a kid but it seemed like the movie wanted to get as much mileage as they could with Dad Peter. The idea that Peter would bring his infant to a multiversal Spider-War is just a liiittle too absurd for what I'd reasonably believe this character would do. Especially with the reveal that MJ specifically told him not to. Thankfully the character is mostly intact otherwise, and he's still endearingly dorky while being no less competent.

Our villain this go-around is The Spot. And what an impression he makes. The movie presents him as a dark counterpart to Miles. Both are book-smart characters who got their powers as a result of Kingpin's collider, and feel they aren't taken seriously by their peers. And both get the hang of their new powers really quickly. He upscales from Kingpin perfectly. Where Kingpin acted regardless of Miles, forcing him to interfere, the Spot makes it personal, acting because of Miles. He's a joke villain, deconstructed in the most horrifying way. Because underneath the white mass of portals, the Spot (formerly Jonathan Ohnn) is just a normal guy. He doesn't have a deep, booming voice. He doesn't have plans for world domination. He just wanted to get by after having his life ruined by someone he helped turn into a celebrated hero. But being treated like a joke, especially by the person who ruined your life, is a really strong motivator to up the ante a little bit. Leaving that person to their own devices because you figure they aren't worth catching can lead them to discovering their own potential. And once Spot has both the motivation and the means to make himself more powerful, he's suddenly able to give Miles a very compelling reason to take him seriously. Only he's no longer content with just killing Miles, now. Spot has no home, no job, no family. Spider-Man is all he has left. And now, he's going to make sure The Spot is all Miles has left. Even if he has to destroy the multiverse to do so.

Now our boy, Miles Morales himself. The first movie had him learn to trust himself and his new abilities, and believe that he can be Spider-Man. That he can wear the mask. This film places him at a low point to test that position. While he's accepted he's Spider-Man, he struggles with the possibility that his parents might not, alienating himself from them. Many continue to talk about the great potential Miles has, without asking him if he wants to live up to their ideas of him. He learns that he did indeed become Spider-Man through a cosmic fluke, and is labelled a mistake. And he comes face to face with a potential destiny for him had he not been bitten. The last straw is learning, in extension from the last movie that there are some people he can't save, now he's now faced with the idea that there are instanced where he shouldn't try. But Miles is ultimately going to decide how his story's going to end. He's going to be the Spider-Man who does both, saving the individual and the many. He mirrors the Spot in that he's willing to risk the multiverse for a goal that's petty in the cosmic scale, but Miles is obviously trying to save someone's life whereas Spot is trying to kill. His idealism and ingenuity marks him above the rest of the Spider-Society. We see him use his Venom Strike and invisibility in strategic ways, and it's satisfying to watch after seeing him stuggle to learn his powers in the first film. Miles is not going to let his status as a cosmic flaw hold him back. Even with his insecurities and imposter syndrome from the first movie being revealed to completely warranted here, he's Spider-Man. And no one can take that away from him.

Now onto the character I feel is the MVP for the movie: Gwen Stacy. She spends the entire movie avoiding consequences. Her opening scene has her wallow in her own abject loneliness because she refuses to share her feelings with her bandmates. She can't share her identity, and the unique problems that come with it, with anyone in her own universe. Her guilt over killing Peter has had her write off friendship entirely to avoid the pain of losing someone. She's avoided telling her father who she is until she's backed into a corner at the worst time. When her father, the only one she has left to live for her in her dimension, turns on her, she follows the first people who give her a chance to abandon her dimension entirely. She avoids checking on her father, even after learning he's likely going to die, likely because she doesn't want to experience that grief in-person. Not again. The Spider-Society was her only escape, as well as being her best bet at seeing Miles again. Trouble is, Miles is a pariah to the Society, splitting her loyalty between her first friend since Peter and the group providing her a place of belonging, as well as shelter from arrest and death. When she sees Miles, she closes the door on a relationship with him, afraid of what their fate might be. More importantly, she avoids telling him the truth about the Spider-Society, desparate to preserve their friendship. It all comes crashing down when Miles learns the truth the hard way, and her emotional investment in him costs her her Spider-Society membership. By trying to split her loyalty ties two ways, she loses both. She's at rock bottom, with no choice but to return to the home and festering emotions she's been running from all this time. She reunites with her father, and it all comes out at once. We don't know the details of how she became Spider-Woman, but we know why. She put on her mask for one, very simple reason: to do what's right. A value instilled in her by her father who tries to do the same thing every day. But all her time lying to herself and her others have destroyed her relationships, leaving her unsure of what the right thing even is. But when her father meets her with unconditional love and acceptance, she's reaffirmed in why she became a hero in the first place. And now she's not afraid.

Gwen has spent all her time running, only interested in protecting her own feelings, her conscience. But now her values have changed. She's facing the consequences of her actions, head-on. She's going to rescue Miles, whether he hates her or not. She's defected from the Spider-Society, whether it makes her a threat to the canon or not. She's doing both because they're the right thing to do. She's running towards her problems now, instead of away from them.

Her arc is incredible. And to me she's just as much the main protagonist of this film as Miles is. What I feel is glossed over is that Gwen in her conflicting loyalties is essentially faced with the same choice as Miles: one person or the entire multiverse. I'm not cool with the amount of slander this character gets from fans, calling her a "fake friend". The truth is you have to ignore a lot of context to come away with that take. Gwen has a lot on her plate in this movie and she still tries to do the right thing, through and through. And she elevated the film for me.

Character: 9/10

THEMES

The themes sure are theme-ing with this movie.

There's a strong theme of parenthood, particularly how to properly nurture a child's potential and to not mess it up. Captain Stacy, Jefferson, and Peter B. all question how fit they are to be parents. Peter B. in particular confesses to Miles that he had Mayday because of the almost paternal bond he'd formed with Miles, in the hopes that she'd turn out like him. Rio makes Miles promise that the boy she'd raised remains intact, even when he leaves the nest. Notably, Miles from Earth-42 seemed to have betrayed that promise. He's hardened and unemotional, being raised primarily by his uncle without his father's influence. On the flip side of this theme, Miles and Gwen navigate the troubles of being a superpowered teenager who have to protect their parents, just as their parents want to protect them. They struggle over what secrets need to be kept and what's really best for their families. 

Unfortunately, at odds with this theme is a pattern of child endangerment with two characters that the movie finds endearing or cool. I'm sorry guys but Jessica Drew and Peter B. bringing their babies into battle is indefensible. Regardless of them having powers, it is incredibly reckless. I talked about Peter but Jess is conspicuous in that she doesn't add anything to the theme of parenthood despite being an expecting mother. It almost reflects poorly on the rest of the Society that they don't have her act as mission control or something less action-oriented. Now if Jess was characterized as a reckless person who ignores other characters advising her not to fight while pregnant, we'd have something here, but we don't. The film instead treats her like she's cool and badass for doing this. Unfortunately this is the Rule of Cool getting in the way of the writing. And the baby doesn't even come up again for the rest of the film.

There's also a strong theme of choice...or the lack thereof. Characters feel like they're bound to a binary by outside forces. Do, or don't? Save the one, or save the many? With an option considered to be disastrous and to be avoided at all times, it's not much of a choice. It's Miles who presents the theme at its center, being the one who breaks past the binary. The one who dares to do both. There are also the consequences of these choices, whether they be small or cosmic in scale. Miles' decision not to tell his parents his identity alienates him from theme. Gwen's decision to tell her father at the worst time alienates her from him. Miles' decision not to treat the Spot like a serious threat has created a devastating threat to the multiverse. Gwen in particular spends the movie avoiding consequences.

Multiple characters have different perspectives on fate and predestination. Miguel's view is pre-deterministic, to the point where he would adovcate for passively allowing events to happen. Peter B. sees fate as part of the responsibility, but carries the optimistic view that while tragedy and suffering are inevitable, so are love and happiness. Miles wasn't supposed to be bitten, but he's become a great hero as a result. Pavitr was supposed to lose someone the day Miles entered his dimension, but thanks to his intervention, he's safely averted a canon event. Miles sees fate as a presentation of choice. He believes that even if the fates writes something one way, you have the power to change it. It may be hard and painful, but you can still try. Gwen is passively accepting of fate, but comes around to Miles' view that "it's all possible."

A bad habit the MCU has fallen into recently is ballooning the stakes to ridiculous proportions to the point where they lose all relatability to the audience. We cared when Loki threatened Earth because there are characters we care about on the planet. We cared when Thanos threatened the universe because there was now a galaxy's worth of characters we cared about. The stakes are personal. But now everything is the fate of the multiverse. And we care because...that would be bad?

You see, an entire universe is hard to conceive of already. But the multiverse consists of an infinite of that, and infinity is something we can't possibly comprehend. And the MCU's writers have somehow found a way to make us apathetic about the end of everything because they don't take the grand stakes seriously in their own movies, and they've all but given up on writing characters anyone would care about in one universe, let alone infinite. The stakes have become entirely impersonal. In other words...

[Peter B.] You say "the fate of the multiverse" and my brain dies!

Something this movie does excellently is that it gives us personal investment in the fate of the multiverse. How? By weighing it up against a character we care about and forcing them to choose. We know enough about the multiverse that its collapse would be a bad thing for everybody, so we understand Miguel's investment in protecting it. But we know and care about Miles and his story. We want to see his relationship with his father improve. We don't want him to die before that gets a chance to happen, and we know Miles doesn't want his father to die. So we sympathize with his side of the argument, even though "in the grand calculus of the multiverse," he's trying to have it all, and Jefferson's sacrifice technically means infinitely more than his life.

It's something I applaud Everything, Everywhere, All at Once for doing too. The multiversal stuff is all dressing for a family drama. A conflict between mother and daughter. The resolution of that conflict, the one the audience will be more invested in, is also the resolution for the grander conflict.

In other words, this is how you do a "fate of the multiverse" story.

Themes: 8/10

(Oh and uh, to address the alleged trans allegory in the movie since it's so topical, I'm gonna put it out there that I don't think Gwen is trans. It doesn't make a difference if she is, mind, but I think the most we can conclude from the movie is that she's an ally. She has a flag that says "Protect Trans Kids" in her room, and the colors in her world evoke the trans flag and her speech to her father is reminiscent of someone coming out, but I don't think that's enough to confirm that the character is transgender. I'm just not sure that these are the kind of movies that would shy away from a more substantive look at a topic like that if they wanted to address it outright. That said, anyone should be able to take away from a movie whatever they want. If transgender folk see themselves in her and her story speaks to them personally, no one should take that away from them. It can only be a good thing that so many LGBT folk would feel seen because of this movie. We can always have more trans representation. I just don't think this is a trans allegory, or even an allegory for coming out. Gwen's arc in this movie is so rich on its own and it kinda annoys me that the conversation has been swallowed by the debate of "Is she trans or not?", perpetuated by people looking for something that might not be there and actual transphobes. I hope we can have a well-written, animated story that addresses this topic properly in text, and not leave the audience to scour the subtext.)

OVERALL

Across the Spider-Verse ain't a perfect 10, but no film is. It's still excellent and it stacks up nicely with the original film. The worldbuilding is on a thin line but I believe it can come out of this trilogy relatively unscathed. The themes are profound and thoroughly explored outside of a few bumps. But plot and character, arguably the most important pieces, are where this film shines. It has the same snappy pacing as the first film, but takes full advantage of its runtime letting every scene breathe. And the character work builds off the first film considerably.

Incredible work, Spider-Verse team.

Overall Assessment: 8/10

PERSONAL

I don't know what else to say. I adore this movie. About as much as I do the original, with that film just winning out because of the special place it holds in my heart. Going over it all, I have a new appreciation for Gwen and I can't wait for the sequel.

Personal Rating: 10/10