#227 – Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – A Leap of Faith

Welcome back to Marvel Maniac and MCU After Show. This is your host, Eric Cicada, aka Mr. Honest, back with you for a special movie review. Spider man into the Spider Verse. I'm revisiting this movie years later, and it somehow hit differently again. This time. I gotta be honest, when I saw this in theaters, it was during a harder chapter of my life. Not the hardest. I know. I. You know, everyone could kind of define their life by different chapters. If it's good, bad, sad, happy. For me, it was one of those years where the movies made me feel whole again. I could barely scrape enough money together to even see the movie in 2018. It was a rainy day. I was broke, and I was very thinking, very inward. And why do I pour this trauma dump upon you? Well, it's because I didn't expect the movie to emotionally affect me further and as deeply as it still does years later. We are here revisiting this movie before the premiere of Spider man noir on Amazon Prime. And I'll be honest, it still feels revolutionary. Into the Spider Verse has got a great vibe. It didn't just reinvent Spider Man. It quietly helped launch an entire multiverse saga of superhero storytelling. And keep in mind that this was in the year 2018. This is the year that Avengers Infinity War released. This is not the start of the multiverse saga era in Marvel. This is actually before it. So this is actually one of the first multiverse movies in the superhero genre. And to rationalize the greater multiverse is to say that this is part of the grand multiverse. Anything Marvel is. And Spider Verse is connected to the MCU just as X Men and that universe is connected. I even can go as far as thinking there's a day we see Miles Morales, the animated one from these movies, running around and fighting with the Avengers. Actually animated, like a who Framed Roger Rabbit type of thing, but not like that movie. Just like the kind of art style where humans and cartoons can walk and talk together. You know, the special effects are kind of crazy for that movie for its time. So I want to think a little bit about this movie, and I want to go into it, you know, kind of introspectively again. So. And this animated Spider man movie, it did feel pretty risky in 2018. And I'm not trying to put Sony down, but they didn't really have my faith, to be honest. And when it comes came to newer Spider man content or superhero movies in general, you know, we were working with Tom Holland and we were going into Infinity War, the definitive Spider man for Me was Tom Holland at that time. However, Miles Morales, you know, as big as he is today, like, he still wasn't universally accepted by casual audiences yet at the time of this movie's release, multiple spider people sounds messy on paper. And if you can get through the idea of the multiverse, then you might have a really good time watching this movie. What I like is noir Spider man, anime, Spider Girl, and then there's a cartoon pig, Spider man, maybe a low key reference to the Simpsons, which is kind of funny. It could have been chaos. It could have been just a real hard miss, and it wasn't. The movie succeeds because it understands the heart of what Spider man really is. This movie isn't just an ode to superhero movies or even just Spider man movies, but comics, specifically themselves. This movie, you could kind of pause at any point and it looks like a frame of a comic book. And while I haven't read many of the comic books, I trust the source material to hold the true story because that's how it always ends up being a great movie. From what I've known and what I've learned watching Marvel movies over, you know, seriously, ever since Iron man, that's when we started taking it seriously, started, you know, getting ready for the Avengers and think about that. I mean, that was a very special time in itself. The animation isn't just your cookie cutter animated movie. It's like moving like it's inside of a comic book. Like the, the way the frames move, the way we view this movie is very, very unique even to this very day. I love the, again, the comic book panel presentation and ironically, the leap of faith visuals. There's a literal leap of faith in the movie that is mentioned, but there's also the leap of faith into fully trust, falling into this style, leaning everything, Spider man into one crafted project that was never seen or done or tried before. An original story for Spider man fans that I think it was going to try and take Spider man back like Sony wanted to do. Spider man arguing with Marvel, who can do it better. But this turned out to be proof that we like Spider man as an audience overall, and there's room for more than one. And that's what I loved about this movie too. Another thing, it felt like the future before the MCU even fully entered the multiverse saga. So this is, this is where I'm gonna open up a little bit on my own. You know, when I was watching this movie, I was struggling emotionally at the time. Peter B. Parker hit hard because he wasn't the perfect Spider man, he was older, depressed, divorced from Mary Jane, out of shape, tired and lonely. God, is that relatable? Here is an adult superhero fan. I feel like it really hit those notes, and it kind of matched my energy when he's doing his montage where it's like, all right, let's do this one more time, one last time. And he's, I'm Spider Man. I did this. I did that. And the movie pauses just long enough on the bathtub crying scene for the joke to stop being funny. And that's why it works. By the way, seeing Spider man cry in the bathtub because of how hard his life was going. And the narration kind of grazing over that because he wouldn't want to admit that he's sad, made me sob. It was so relatable to me. It was a very empty theater because I think I gave it a chance a little bit before. After the movie came out, maybe a week or two on a weekday. So I. I didn't have that much many people to witness a man crying while watching a Spider man movie. However, this movie does a great job of reaching out to old fans and bringing in new ones with Miles Morales. I think that Toby Maguire was kind of meant to be the older Spider man at the time. That's what I felt. Maybe not as much now, but I think they definitely took a lot of elements from those movies. I really like how the first Spider man that died, actually, we see the things that he did, and some of the action scenes were taken completely from the original Raimi Spider man series. So it is an homage to those movies as well as most Spider man movies. Spider man into the Spider verse understood that Spider man isn't inspiring because life goes well for him. He's inspiring because he keeps getting back up. Peter B. Parker represents adulthood disappointment. I think even the idea of him actually choosing to mentor Miles after a bit is really great. I love the choice because he's so close to just not wanting to even be Spider man anymore. And yeah, he's wearing sweatpants, but from what I remember, his legs, like, his legs of his suit got torn a little bit, like during his arrival to Miles's universe or Earth, what do we want to call it? But he is. Yeah, I like that. I love the sadness. I love that. That distinct oh, Man, Spider man sad feeling. Because we always want to see Spider man doing great, and Spider man is always struggling. But to see him actually emotionally depressed, crying in the bathtub again, that was powerful because no movie's ever done that before. This movie Understood that superheroes can actually age emotionally too. Now let's talk a little bit about Miles Morales himself and why the movie works. Emotionally. Miles feels authentic. Immediately you relate to him. I love when he's listening to Post Malone Sunflower. I mean, let's be honest. This movie brought that song into mainstream popularity. People didn't know Post Malone. People did know that song, but not at the level that they did before. Putting that song at the beginning of this movie. Miles singing it. It kind of starts the movie and ends the movie. It's a movie where family DY dynamic matters. Music matters, especially to Miles. He runs on music and art. His Brooklyn identity matters, and his insecurities feel real. I mean, at every point of the movie, honestly. And I like how it doesn't just shift Miles into a superhero right away. It shapes him across the whole movie. Getting to know these other spider people, very fun way of exploring the characters of the spider verse. And I appreciate that they bring spider people from the other universe into this one instead of him going out into the multiverse like he does in the later movie. If I remember right, the second movie might have been a little bit longer than this one, but I only saw that in theaters, and I wanted to cover this actually on the show for a very long time. And I couldn't find anywhere to stream it. I just saw Netflix had it. I don't. I swear, I didn't know if they've had it for a while. I've really been missing out. But I think they just got it back recently, at least in the last month or two since I've been kind of canceled on Netflix. But it was good to watch this again. I mean, God, this is such a rock and roll Spider man movie. If you're a fan of the series, if you're a fan of Spider man, you're gonna love this movie. If of you're a fan, a fan of comic books, you're going to love this movie. Right before Peter Parker of Miles's universe dies, you know, there's this expectation of him to save the multiverse in a sense. There's this fear of disappointing his family and also himself. He wants to be capable. He wants to be able to be his own Spider Man. And as the movie progresses, it just seems like it's not going to work out for him and he's not ready. He can't do the task that the original Spider man asked him to do. And I actually think it's pretty powerful that the whole movie is him trying to bring that usb Drive into the port that the main Peter was going to be doing and trying to do. And he made Mile Miles promise. That'll do it. To stop Kingpin. Kingpin in this movie. By the way, I just love the take on him as he's enormous. He's freaking terrifying. Completely different from the Daredevil kingpin that we've come to know. I do like that Fisk a lot. I would like to play Wilson Fisk one day. I'm not even kidding. If I could be another variant of Wilson fisk in the MCU, like, 20 years from now, I'll take that job. I'll take that. Who wouldn't, right? And honestly, Vincent d' Onofrio sets pretty high, a pretty high bar for that. But this movie did a great job of not taking too much from any other kingpin that I've seen on tv, which is really just. Honestly, the one from Daredevil. They gave him his own kind of cadence, which I really like. Aaron Davis, Miles Uncle, AKA the Prowler. You know, to me, he functions as Miles Uncle Ben canon event in this movie. It pushes him off the edge of being Miles, and being Miles as Spider man turns him into Spider Man. And that really sets up some future discussions for us here when we do cover across the spider verse. Because this is my question. If canon events are all about transformational tragedy, didn't Miles already experience his. I know this is the next movie, but there's this thing where, you know, somebody has to die in everyone, every Spider Man's life, you know, and that's something that can't change or it'll disrupt the whole multiverse. But Aaron Davis, in this universe, totally did that for him. So I don't know if that's a plot hole or is that something maybe that will be added to the third movie. That actually makes a good point for Miles wanting to save someone in his life that he has to lose just to be a Spider man and save the universe. I don't think he needs to lose anyone else. Technically, he already had that moment. So let's. That brings me into our next area, which is this movie was exploring the multiverse collapse before the MCU even formally introduced Incursions. The Collider that Kingpin and Doc Ock, Also great female take on Dr. Octopus. I thought that was fantastic. They're building this collider and it's risking bringing other universes to this one because of instability in the multiverse. What does that sound like to you? Well, it reminds me of Jim from the Office AKA Reed Richardson, Multiverse of Madness, talking about what incursions are. And that's when two. Two universes collide together, destroying both. And that's what the. The threat of this movie is. An incursion. It's just not named that. And another thing is, in the next movie, they're called canon events, which, if you ever watch Dr. Strange, what if Dr. Strange lost his hands and not his heart? My favorite what if episode from season one of what if you could just go and watch that alone? And it's such a freaking beautiful story. We learn about absolute points in time. There's nothing you can do to change an absolute point in time where the multiverse will freaking rip a hole in you. And that's exactly what canon events are. So these movies do cross ideas just in different names for the mcu. And it's just honestly cool to me to connect these things and to see that incursions were actually a threat. The idea of them they were introduced in this movie, that makes this movie really special. Even though they're not called an incursion directly, it's exactly what an incursion is described as in the mcu. So when the universes are colliding and reality is collapsing inward, this is all driven by grief from Kingpin of losing his family, which is so human. But this kingpin's a little less likable. So I don't really feel bad for him failing in this mission. Like, he almost gets his family back, but you could see his family's terrified of what they see he's doing. So they just want to go back to their reality, which is understandable. Kingpin goes to extremes for love, and that's actually one of the things Acro, maybe across the Kingpin verse that align with all kingpins. So, yeah, Spider Verse. It felt like a multiverse movie before the Multiverse saga officially existed in 2021 with W Division. This movie had either a lot in common with what was going to happen or maybe a little bit of knowledge of where the MCU was going. Seems like this was very intentionally built. And sometimes you could tell when a movie's thrown together and when a movie has love and passion behind it. And the colors of every shot, every. Every single moment of this movie, the comic book panels, the. The way the movie just, like, sells itself visually to you the whole way through. It shows love for the franchise. It shows love for Spider man, and it pays homage to the fans who love Spider Man. And whatever version you're a fan of, you totally get a Little bit of that Spider man noir. So Nicholas said she just steals the scenes as this character. He's not even in it that much. Right. But he's very memorable. The show may actually be drawing from deeper Spider man mythology instead of abandoning it. So got a good feeling about it because there's connections to the Spider verse and there's these possibilities for things like Secret Wars. His introduction was good enough to get him his own show. And Nicholas Cage is a great actor. I think he could bring a lot to any Spider man story, especially in his original one, as this character that he's known for already. And we're eight years later and we're getting it. So back to the spider verse and why this is one of the best Spider man movies ever. This movie succeeds because it understands failure, identity, grief, fear, perseverance and hope. Gave me hope that day. Watching Miles completely take that leap of faith that was told that he got told to by Peter B. Parker. You know, it's good to see him come back at the end. What's Up Danger? That song, you know, I love seeing him free fall through the sky in that iconic shot. Looks like he's falling. They even added those to the Miles Morales Spider man video games. The same type of swinging style that he does in these movies. I love those subtleties. I just think Spider Gwen is such a fun character. We get to explore her more in the next one. She's one of my favorite characters, which goes to show, there's a lot to this movie because we're almost done with this episode. And I could do probably a whole episode on why Spider Gwen rocks. And I think she had. Like I said, she has a much bigger place in across the Spider Verse where she's more of a main character. And we'll talk about her more as we cover that movie. I don't know when we'll do that, but we'll do it sooner than later. So Spider man, in conclusion, isn't just special because he never falls. He's special because he always gets back up. And Peter B. Parker relearning hope mirrors Miles discovering it for the first time. So my theater memory of seeing this movie where I was broke, I was literally searching for coins because I didn't have the tax for the ticket. Uncertain about where life was taking me and sitting in that theater, not knowing this movie would stay with me for years, it changed my day. It made me turn my whole mood around. I'm not going to say the movie changed my life, but it did a lot for me. It gave me a lot to relate to and on a hard day. So I I honestly want never forget this movie for that and the girl who let me in for not having 5 cents to get this ticket letting me watch the movie and that was really special and nice. People are very kind in nature when it comes down to it. In my opinion, the best of humans are the majority good people. I do believe that. And maybe, just maybe, that's why Spider man matters so much to people. Not because he's perfect, but because he keeps trying when life gives him every reason not to. This has been Eric Cicada, aka Mr. Honest. If you'd like to join our discord, it is in the about section of this show. Go join us and talk to us about what you loved about the spider verse. You can also email marvelmaniacpodgmail.com for your takes. I'd love to hear them read them back on the show. Please give the show a review. Five stars. Thumbs up. Whatever you can do. It means the world to me. We want to get the show to more listeners, more people like you. And you being here. It does mean the world to me. So thank you for that. We will be talking soon and until then, Avengers disassemble.