Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse

Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse

(PG) ★★★★½

Cast: (voices of) Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry, Lily Tomlin, John Mulaney, Nicolas Cage, Liev Schreiber, Kathryn Hahn, Luna Lauren Velez, Kimiko Glenn.

Spider-Man's spider-sense was telling him someone was mocking him.

With great power et cetera et cetera; we all know about the whole power = responsibility thing, but there's also a responsibility for those making Spider-Man movies to make them fun.

The Spidey films that haven't worked - Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - have forgotten that (as well as messing up a few other things) but even when the film-makers have got it right, they've never been this fun. Into The Spider-Verse does lots of things right, but best of all, it's an absolute ball.

With its eye-popping blend of hand-drawn sensibilities and CG wizardry, Sony's latest attempt to cash-in on its webslinging moneyspinner looks and feels ripped straight out of a comic book. It's a ploy that works better than expected and helps make this one of the best superhero flicks of the year.

The story sees five different versions of Spider-Man ripped from various parallel universes and thrust into the world of Miles Morales (Moore) - a 13-year-old kid who was not only recently bitten by a certain radioactive spider, but who also happened to watch his universe's Spider-Man die at the hands of Kingpin (Schreiber).

As Morales tries to come to grips with his new powers, he must also work to send his fellow Spideys home, while stopping Kingpin from performing bizarre experiments that threaten to tear the entire time-space continuum a new one.

Spider-Man is one of the most fun figures in Marveldom, but also one of the most tragic. Across the many iterations of the character (male and female), there is a sadness at the centre of their story, whether it be the deaths of those close to them or the ongoing realisation that their happiness is always just out of reach due to the spider-shaped target drawn on their back.

But what makes Spidey truly special is the never-say-die attitude, and the wise-cracking quip to go with it. And Spider-Verse gets all of that. The story has plenty of heart to go with its humour. It's got the guts to go with its guffaws.

And it's fun (did I mention that it's fun?). Visually, it's an exhilarating mix of Ben-Day dots, onomatopoeia and shade lines ripped right from the pages of a Ditko-Lee collaboration amid a flurry of technicolour, watercolour and neon bursts. It's got a banging soundtrack, brilliant comic timing, and so many great one-liners and in-jokes you'll be coming back for a second look to get the ones you might have missed.

This pop art blitz of visual styles never sacrifices its story, and while it's very comic-booky and silly, it's somewhat aware of this and makes the most of it (the way it introduces its six different origin stories is clever and humourous). As with the MCU's Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Verse gets what it is to be a teenager, and the growing pains associated with that, as symbolised by the gaining of superpowers. "We are all Spider-Man," the film intones, and it's more than just a corny line - it's an understanding of the universality of the character and what has made Peter Parker and his fellow web-slingers so popular for 56 years.

Its hyperactive style and cartoonish plot will put some off, but this utterly enjoyable slice of superhero hyperbole is a sugar rush that's actually good for you. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse gets what makes comic books fun, what makes superhero movies enjoyable, and - best of all - what makes Spider-Man such an awesome and universal character.