Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
Directed by Justin K. Thompson
After reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklyn’s full-time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is catapulted across the Multiverse, where he encounters the Spider Society, a team of Spider-People charged with protecting the Multiverse's very existence. But when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders and must set out on his own to save those he loves most.
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3 films that influenced this film
What critics say influenced Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
In the film-making team and in the story there’s a pleasing combination of original talent and fresh blood. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller return as writers and producers, but there’s a new directing team that includes Kemp Powers (Pixar’s Soul).
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” might not be as groundbreaking as the original (how could it be?) but its characters get deeper, and its new filmmaking team (Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson and Kemp Powers, the co-director of Disney/Pixar’s “Soul”; with writers Lord and Miller joined by Dave Callaham) lets ’er rip, embracing excess yet retaining control over material that seems to move at light speed.
Powers directed Soul, wrote One Night In Miami. Dos Santos has done loads of animated TV including for DC. Thompson who also production designed, and did the same for Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs and its sequel.
Directors Joaquim Dos Santos (Into the Spider-Verse), Kemp Powers (Pixar's Soul), and Justin K. Thompson (his directorial debut) play with the ease with which viewers attach labels to the characters as soon as they appear on screen, mixing characteristics normally associated with a specific archetype with the opposite.
It’s been a major plot point in most of the recent MCU films and even played a crucial role in this year’s best picture winner, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Writers/producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s 2018 Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is one of modern superhero cinema’s genuine triumphs, this despite the fact that it helped make the multiverse—that dreaded concept which allows for endless reiterations, revisions and reboots—a mainstream staple.
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” set the bar high, and one reason I wondered if “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” could live up to it is that the original film's co-directors (Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman) have returned only as executive producers, replaced by three other directors (Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson).
This is bad news for Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), the Brooklyn 15-year-old who's gone the radioactive spider bite route to become his version of Spider-Man (as related in the previous film, 2018's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse).