Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

There are movies that fill the screen with sound and motion, and then there are the quiet ones — the kind that lean in gently, unfold slowly, and ask you to pay attention not to the volume, but to the silence. Past Lives is one of those films.

This analysis of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is through a queer lens that informs this particular reading of the film. I neither claim these are intentional inclusions on part of the creators nor believe that such intentions are necessary for an interpretation to be meaningful. This interpretation has some previous context as the Spider-Man franchise is often read as a story about identity through development. With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s see why the masks Spider-people wear are allegorical to both a safe space and the closet. But in true Spider-verse narrative style, we should recap the events that are going to be referenced later in this essay. Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), the son of Lieutenant Davis (Brian Tyree Henry) and Rio Morales (Lauren Vélez), was bitten by a radioactive spider and has been the Spider-Man of Earth-1610. His Spider-manly activities make his parents suspicious of him. Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) was similarly bitten by a spider and turned into Spider-Woman on Earth-65, where she lives with her father, Captain Stacy (Shea Whigham). Captain Stacy does not approve of Spider-Woman and in fact suspects her for the murder of Gwen’s best friend, Peter Parker.

We have chosen our favorite soundtrack songs from the modern music period (2010+). We hope you enjoy the diverse soundtrack music represented here by artists spanning different genres, countries, and continents.

*Warning, some songs are sexually suggestive, viewer discretion is advised.

The year is 2002. The anticipation is high. All Marvel fans are dying of excitement. Their favourite webslinger is coming to silver screens. He’s been the subject of many animated shows over the years, and now Tobey Maguire is set to don the blue and red costume and swing through New York as he rescues his crush Mary Jane, to be played by Kirsten Dunst. Sam Raimi’s film releases and exceeds all expectations. Fans are already sure this will go down in the hall of fame of comic book films. And what’s more, it becomes a trilogy! By the third one, it’s understandable why there can’t be any more, because it’s run its ground and it’s impossible to return after the Bully Maguire memes made a mockery of the third installment. And a decade after the first Spider-Man, another up-and-coming actor, who’s just starred in Oscar-winning film The Social Network, comes back as the beloved hero. He’s naturally broody, lanky, and has the perfect athleticism for the character, but this time there’s mixed anticipation because some won’t move on from the trilogy, and some feel this could be even better. Unfortunately, there’s a pacing issue and a darkness issue, and Spider-Man's essence is lost in the tragedy, which is, to be honest, the biggest tragedy, because Garfield’s vibe is much closer to Spider-Man, and his Peter is just the right balance between nerd and dork. After two movies, it’s shelved, and fans are starting to give up on the idea of a good closure for Spidey. But then the biggest phenomenon in comic book cinema happens, and in Captain America: Civil War, we meet the latest man to play the character. He fits the bill in every way. He’s just as comic and awkward and funky and nerdy and charming as Peter Parker, and he looks like a sixteen-year-old. And five years after his introduction, near Christmas, comes the most ambitious Spider-Man live-action project, the film that’ll hopefully provide the closure fans needed. But unlike its predecessors, it lacks heart, so forget about closure, you won’t even remember the film beyond the unforgettable fan service that Spiderman: No Way Home does for the fans, as pointed out by Daleyna in her review. It's chock full of dream-come-true moments for Spidey fans, but its lack of substance reeks of a self-indulgence that is rare even in fan fiction.

So why did I just revisit the journey? Because that’s what Spider-Man: No Way Home wants me to do! It even alludes to the film I left out, the only film based on Marvel Comics to win a Best Picture Academy Award, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, but we’ll come to that one later. The weight of the entire emotional journey of 19 years is unnecessarily taken on its shoulders by the latest MCU film, and as expected, it can’t carry it. Firstly, just to get this out of the way, Uncle Ben from the original trilogy owns that line, and you either quote it, or don’t say it, but making Aunt May say a modified version of the great responsibility line, is extremely tacky, especially once you realize they’re trying to recreate the original scene by making her die right after. Uncle Ben has died in both of the previous movies' series, and in both, an expected response was elicited from the characters, but Tom’s Spider-Man isn’t sure what to feel! Yes, he’s always had issues with articulation as seen in the adorable conversation with Zendaya’s Michelle on the bridge, but he’s at least had a fleshed-out personality. Here, he seems to need to unravel but is somehow not allowed to. You can feel a certain tension in his character development, in the sense that its lack is hampering his accessibility. He’s angry, but absolutely reserved about it, he goes from crying on a rooftop to geeking out with his counterparts from the previous installments as if we can just shelf the tragedy for the moment to give the audience the fun it’s been waiting for, and altogether, his characterization is simply messy. Even the sacrifice at the end seems to come from a need from the storytellers to have him lose everything, to bring him up to speed with the tragic atmosphere from the previous films, and though it does succeed in crushing the soul, it doesn’t offer enough explanation. Whenever Dr. Strange is involved, only unbelievably ruinous consequences are on the table, it seems, that are supposed to be accepted because magic is an unknown realm we shouldn’t try to comprehend beyond the minimum information that’s offered.

The introduction of every Spider-Man villain ever, is an unnecessary move to appease the fans. Of course, we want our buddy cop moment of Garfield and Maguire and Holland all fighting Green Goblin, Doc Oc, Lizard, Electro, and Sandman, but does that really justify doing it? The Spider-Men themselves had messy arcs but that reflects on their essence of being a very common person, representing the regular making-do, despite having superpowers, and yet they did have some conclusion. Letting Andrew's Peter catch Zendaya is an absolute joke, and no one even takes it as a sincere attempt at closure, so it's again a crowd-pleasing tactic, which this movie doesn't seem to lack. The same argument about conclusions goes for the supervillains as well. All of them had properly concluded stories, whether the conclusions felt organic or not. And reviving the old lore, to make Spider-Man into his Mother Theresa version we all knew was lurking under the surface, couldn’t have been done worse. There’s no emotional journey for the characters. And that’s primarily because they aren’t at junctures, they’re literally reappearing after their stories have ended. None of them seem to need to be cured, and even after they are, there’s no honest reconciliation, and it’s just an end to another Avengers: Endgame-scale affair. This is where Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse comes into play. There are 6 versions of Spider-Man in that film, a black kid, a white man, a young woman, a little girl from the future, a black and white Nic Cage voiceover, and a pig. Why does this ragtag team make a more compelling case? Simple. They’re all at transition points or stuck, and their role in the life of Miles Morales actually reflects on themselves and helps them grow. It’s an emotional journey on top of a cosmic scale plot. In fact, despite being decidedly more lighthearted than Sony’s other Spider-Man ventures, the animated feature actually justified making such a big deal about the characters, and that’s the kind of satisfaction you’d hope for, from Spider-Man: No Way Home. Unfortunately, the latter is only a bunch of dream-come-true moments with barely anything real to say about the world or about the characters. It’s just there as 'a love-letter to the fans', to quote Daleyna’s review I cited earlier.

Here's how this works, we will rank all the MCU live-action Spider-Man films (excluding Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018) only because animation is on a whole other playfield) before Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). Each of the films will be ranked based on their most awesome scenes, which means the more not-so-awesome scenes we find in the films, the more likely they will be at the bottom of our list. Let's see if your favorite Spider-Man movie will make it to the top.

7. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

Awesome Scene: Gwen Stacy’s fall was the most climactic and heartbreaking scene in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. This scene was visually stunning and had great VFX that allows viewers to feel suspense as Gwen Stacy is falling to her death. The sequel was not as epic compared to the other Spider-Man films that came before and after. It’s a shame that a scene with tragedy and no dialogue was the most memorable part of this film.

Not-So-Awesome Scene #1: Any scene with Harry Osborn in it, especially his Green Goblin transformation. I get that the character is supposed to resemble a goblin like in the comics, but maybe Sam Raimi was smart to put a Goblin mask on Dafoe instead of an actual makeover. 

Not-So-Awesome Scene #2: Any scene with Electro (I’m narrowing it down because this film has major flaws). Electro’s disappointment has more to do with how he was written and his facial CG than Foxx’s acting. Electro would have been an amazing villain for the film, since he is one of the most notorious villains Spider-Man faced in the comics. Both Green Goblin and Electro would have been worthy opponents for our superheroes, but their story arcs were a letdown and I can’t help but feel they were trying to pull off a trio battle like in Spider-Man 3.

There is no such thing as watching too many movies. I know that since my family and I have enacted social distancing, the amount of movies we’ve watched has skyrocketed. And if there can be a silver lining in the messiness and ugliness of the situation we’re all in right now, it’s that we have an opportunity to watch a lot of the movies that we’ve been meaning to watch and re-watch a lot of the movies that we’ve been meaning to re-watch. I know the other day I was looking through my Blu-ray collection and picked out the 1933 King Kong, a movie I’ve owned for about a year but never watched. It’s one of those movies I always said to myself, “Not now, I’ll watch it another time.” But because we’re stuck indoors with nothing to do, I finally said, “Screw it, it’s time to watch King Kong!” And I loved it!

With the popularity of my previous list (you can check it out here), I wanted to recommend another 19 movies for people to check out across Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, and Hulu. So here you are; go watch some movies! You can’t really go wrong with any of them.

1 | Apocalypse Now (1979) | Amazon Prime

Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola

Netflix’s recent hit The Mitchells vs. The Machines tells the story of Katie and her slightly dysfunctional family on a farewell road trip as she leaves for college. There’s some family drama going on between Katie and her dad, but nothing that can’t be solved with the help of a machine apocalypse. 

Katie is a classic Gen-Z kid: she’s attached to her phone all the time, even telling her dad at one point that seeing the world through a screen is “how I experience things.” She watches videos that look similar to TikToks and expresses her creativity through videos uploaded to her channel on YouTube. She wants to pursue film as a career, a goal that’s affirmed once she’s accepted into the college of her dreams. She’s excited to get away from home where she has no friends because of her quirky personality and because her peers simply don’t understand her interests (or her sexuality, as it’s implied.) In contrast, the people she’s met from college online already love her for who she is and share her interests. 

Meanwhile, Rick is like a lot of real life dads: he likes to fix things, he likes nature, he’s practical about everything in life and thinks his kids should be, too. The problem with that thinking is most kids are not carbon copies of their parents. They’re going to be different, which Rick has trouble understanding. So, we reach the main conflict of this movie (beyond the robot apocalypse): the universal struggle between the older, practical generation and the younger, creative generation. And seemingly worsening that divide is modern-day technology, the Internet, and social media.

Katie, like so many people who have dreams of going into the arts, has a parent who doesn’t believe she will succeed. Rick tells her, “Do you really think you can make a living with this stuff?” and later, “Failure hurts, kid. I want you to have a backup plan.” Of course, this is the eternal anxiety that plagues any person pursuing creative endeavors as a career. But Katie never gives into fear. Katie is unapologetically confident in herself and her dreams for her future. It’s refreshing to see a character like Katie never doubt herself. I was worried the premise of this film might center on Katie debating her goal to pursue film, but the real conflict follows Katie and her dad reconciling their differences. 

The main thing that stands between them is technology. Katie can’t part with it but that’s all her dad wants her to do. Screens constantly separate them. When Katie shows her family a video she made the night before leaving for college, all her father can see is a barrier. He doesn’t comprehend that this is how Katie is expressing her love for her family. He doesn’t see the effort she put into it. And Katie doesn’t understand her father’s dislike of technology and art or his love of nature. The two are polar opposites, but as the movie goes on, Katie’s mom points out that the two are very alike. They’re both stubborn, quirky but self-confident, and Rick even loved a form of art once too: he built a cabin for himself to live in, but the rest of his dream didn’t work out. Katie’s mom says he was probably afraid the same thing would happen to Katie.