PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*
Indeed, the best thing about SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE is that there were no mentions of Iron Man, or if there were, I happily missed them. However, SPIDER-VERSE makes the same mistake as a lot of previous live-action Spider-films: that of oversaturation. Not only does it present the viewer with five Spider-heroes from various dimensions, it also works in four major villains: Green Goblin, Kingpin, Prowler, and Doctor Octopus-- most of whom are also anomalous versions of the original comics-characters.
Miles Morales, famed in comics as the "black-and-Latino" version of Spider-Man, is a character I never followed, so I can't say whether or not the animated movie captures him adequately. I would certainly hope that there's more to Miles in the comics, for I find this particular denizen of diversity to be fearsomely dull. The film's first hour deals with the perennial Spider-Man question, "whether 'tis nobler to take arms against a sea of super-villains or to try to skulk away from trouble and live a normal life." Miles goes through loads of adolescent angst trying to answer that question for the first hour of SPIDER-VERSE, and he gets only questionable help from an older extradimensional spider-hero. Most of this first hour is played for slapstick comedy.
The second hour picks up interest when the other Spider-variations are introduced, and the animated coordination of the various heroes works reasonably well. In most "dimensional doppelganger" stories, I tend to regard the "copies" as guest-heroes, but here, since Miles Morales is himself something of a one-off, I would consider the whole team of Spider-Friends to be an ensemble of centric heroes.
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