Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023, Joaquim Dos Santos & Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson) (Patreon)

59/100

Much closer to the nonstop stylistic freak-out that I'd wanted from Into, though there's still a lengthy and to me rather tedious stretch set on [dutifully looks it up] Earth-1610, which mostly conforms to standard computer-animated design. As noted five years ago, I've pretty much checked out on that look, hence get perhaps unduly excited about any radical deviation from it (e.g. The Girl Without Hands). This movie deviates often and it deviates hard. Was dazzled by the watercolor smears of Gwen's world, with walls literally dripping color when emotions run high; loved what I can only think to call the Leonardo Vulture (see how that's done, Dan Brown? Da Vinci wasn't his surname); don't honestly understand what Spider-Punk's whole deal is but was always happy to watch his zine-collage form stutter across the screen in what I assume was significantly fewer distinct "drawings" than every other character receives in the same frames. The film's nearly always exciting to look at, if a bit visually overwhelming here and there. (Sometimes wished I were watching at home, so that I could pause and explore especially busy backgrounds. Comic books can get away with overload, 'cause panels don't move.) Alas, its narrative meta-concept appeals to me not even a little bit. Is actively alienating, frankly. What is and isn't and should and shouldn't be canon? Must this particular story always be told in the same fundamental way, respecting and duly incorporating time-honored elements? I'm afraid my answer to these and all similar questions is just DO SOMETHING WHOLLY ORIGINAL YOU LAZY RISK-AVERSE ROBOTS. This is the tenth fucking Spider-Man movie I've seen in the past 21 years, and that's counting only those that actually have the word "Spider-Man" in the title (i.e. not various MCU films in which he also appears). I did not need another, and I especially didn't need another that takes as its very subject the problem of avoiding creative exhaustion/stagnation within a (multi-)universal template. Zero resonance for me there, though I can appreciate that viewers who'd long been unrepresented by our collective cultural mythos would feel very differently. Cliffhanger ending didn't bother me—it's a good if familiar twist—but by that point I'd long since lost interest in everything except which comic-book aesthetic would be "sampled" next; Oscar Isaac's canon-enforcing Spider-Honcho 2099, in particular, bored me almost as much as did his Apocalypse. Can't say I'm stoked for the next installment, especially since it's hard to imagine where it can go visually from here. They've pretty much run the gamut.