Film Review

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

Miles Morales catapults across the multiverse, where he encounters a team of Spider-People charged with protecting its existence.

Considering Sony’s unspoken admission they can’t make live-action Spider-Man films that rival the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) — leading them to shift focus to spin-offs Venom (2018) and Morbius (2022) — their animated offering Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) is easily the best Spider-Man movie ever made and began the current trend for multiversal storytelling. A sequel was inevitable, but could Across the Spider-Verse surpass or even equal its amazing predecessor?

16 months after the events of Into the Spider-Verse, Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) is back on Earth-65, pining for her absent friend Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) and struggling to meet the expectations of her father, a cop who doesn’t know his daughter’s actually Spider-Woman. On Earth-1610, Miles is likewise struggling to move on from Gwen and misses the other Spidey friends he made, especially middle-aged mentor Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), and…