Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse
***Warning, may contain spoilers***
So, today I saw possibly the only Marvel movie I haven't seen at the cinema in the last 15 years, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. This is a long title so for ease of writing for me, and reading for you, lovely regular readers of my film blog, for the rest of this review I will just refer to the movie as 'Spider Man'.
Regular readers of my blog will know that I love Super Hero movies. You can tell this by just looking at the number of reviews on my blog. So, you may ask, 'Why didn't you go and see this movie at the cinema?'. Well, I'm going to be completely honest with you, regular blog reader. I thought going to see a kids animated movie at the cinema by myself as a 38 year old man would look incredibly weird etc, so I waited for it to come out to rent on Amazon and watched it today as finally, here it is.
You know what? I need not have worried. This movie is definitely not just a movie for kids. It's not The Lego Movie, (which I must admit I saw with my 10 year old nephew at Christmas and it is very funny- a good 4 star movie), which I definitely wouldn't see at the cinema, it is simply another great Marvel movie, with all the normal gags and other movie references etc etc, just in animated form, that's the only difference!
Put it this way, if they do a sequel I will see that at the cinema. The movie also has some great actors doing voice overs such as Hailee Steinfeld, Nicholas Cage and Chris Pine. However, the main character, the Spider Man from the dimension the movie is set in, Shameik Moore, is an unknown, well to me anyway. But you know what? He is a fine addition to the Marvel universe. I'm guessing working with such talent such as Pine and the rest helped, but he more than held his own.
I also must give amazing credit to the animators of this movie. Excluding the hilarious Porky Pig character and the times the comic strip type words appear on the screen, which by the way are brilliant, you can't tell it's animation. 'What do you mean you can't tell it's animation?' I hear you ask. Well, quite simply you can't. I had no idea that animation had progressed to a level where it's virtually indistinguishable from real people, I really didn't. Don't get me wrong, there are brilliant movies such as Avatar where the animation and real life blend into one, but you can always tell the difference, plus those aren't fully animated movies, this is.
I love adult themed animation. By that I don't mean anything rude, lol. I simply mean my two favourite animated series are South Park and Family Guy. They are brilliant and if South Park did another movie, or Family Guy did a movie, I would definitely go and watch it and I'm sure they would get 5 star reviews, probably. But the difference is with those sorts of animation, plus of course, that long running classic, The Simpsons, you can tell they are cartoons, here you simply can't.
You watch this movie and just like me you will be sitting there spellbound thinking how can this be possible? It just looks completely real even though it's not. It does, however bear a frightening thought for the future. If in 2019 animation is this good, in 10 years time will we even need human actors? I don't think we will. The audience won't be able to tell it's animation and the voices can be done by AI/computer. At the very least the actors will only be needed for their voices, which I'm sure will pay a lot less than physical acting.
We have to ask ourselves, is this a road we want to go down? We are heading into an era of self driving cars so that will cost jobs for thousands of taxi drivers, do we want to do the same to movies? I'm not sure this is a future we should have. It's frightening. Will the audience love AI actors and animated actors like they love human actors? I don't know, but to me, it doesn't bear thinking about. I only hope that in 10/20 years time there is still a demand for real actors and not just AI/Animation.
However, that doesn't affect the review of this movie, which is visually spectacular. You will be spellbound by how good it looks. However, there are two final items which decide the rating of any Super Hero movie. Where does it fit in the relevant universe and how good is the actual story?
Well, for where it fits, the answer is it doesn't fit anywhere. That is not a criticism. It is simply Marvel starting a whole new universe, and there is nothing wrong with that. If it works I'm sure there will be a sequel and, maybe even other Marvel characters will become animated. Don't go seeing this movie expecting it to be part of what has gone before, because it won't be. Don't get me wrong, there are some links to the past. Mostly, the comic book past. There is a brilliant scene involving the legend Stan Lee (RIP) and there is a scene after the end credits (so don't turn off early), which links directly to the first ever Spider Man comic. That is great. Plus the actual movie links into lots of different universes, with lots of different Spider people. So far, so good.
However, I am sad to report that this is not a 5 star movie, but instead a 4 star one. Why? The story. I don't know who's fault it is, either the Director or the Writer or both, but there are parts of the movie that are, quite simply, boring. The movie takes ages to get going, ages for the kid to become Spider man, and then even when he does become Spider Man, excluding funny ish scenes at school where he gets stuck to Steinfelds hair, nothing much happens until the other Spider people from different dimensions appear. This isn't good enough for an origin movie. There have been lots of origin movies recently, such as Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman, and they all got going from the start.
However, once the characters appear the movie gathers pace. It is very cool to know that in another universe there is a Spider Woman, and the fight scenes at the end are epic. There is a moral to the story as well, which is we all have it inside us to be Spider Man. You know what, I guess that's true. We all have a bit of super hero inside us, it's wether we are brave enough to take that leap of faith to let it out.
The animation is amazing, the acting is good and the action is awesome. I look forward to the sequel. It's an exciting watchable super hero movie. It's not an incredible super hero movie, it's not epic, it's not The Avengers, but for a first try in a new universe and an origin movie, it's a great first attempt.
Well worth a watch for super hero fans and people that want to see how far animation has come, which I still can't believe now. Very good movie, 4 stars awarded. :)
*This review is all my own work, please don't reproduce without my permission but please visit my advertisers pages as they help keep the blog going thankyou. :)
So, today I saw possibly the only Marvel movie I haven't seen at the cinema in the last 15 years, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. This is a long title so for ease of writing for me, and reading for you, lovely regular readers of my film blog, for the rest of this review I will just refer to the movie as 'Spider Man'.
Regular readers of my blog will know that I love Super Hero movies. You can tell this by just looking at the number of reviews on my blog. So, you may ask, 'Why didn't you go and see this movie at the cinema?'. Well, I'm going to be completely honest with you, regular blog reader. I thought going to see a kids animated movie at the cinema by myself as a 38 year old man would look incredibly weird etc, so I waited for it to come out to rent on Amazon and watched it today as finally, here it is.
You know what? I need not have worried. This movie is definitely not just a movie for kids. It's not The Lego Movie, (which I must admit I saw with my 10 year old nephew at Christmas and it is very funny- a good 4 star movie), which I definitely wouldn't see at the cinema, it is simply another great Marvel movie, with all the normal gags and other movie references etc etc, just in animated form, that's the only difference!
Put it this way, if they do a sequel I will see that at the cinema. The movie also has some great actors doing voice overs such as Hailee Steinfeld, Nicholas Cage and Chris Pine. However, the main character, the Spider Man from the dimension the movie is set in, Shameik Moore, is an unknown, well to me anyway. But you know what? He is a fine addition to the Marvel universe. I'm guessing working with such talent such as Pine and the rest helped, but he more than held his own.
I also must give amazing credit to the animators of this movie. Excluding the hilarious Porky Pig character and the times the comic strip type words appear on the screen, which by the way are brilliant, you can't tell it's animation. 'What do you mean you can't tell it's animation?' I hear you ask. Well, quite simply you can't. I had no idea that animation had progressed to a level where it's virtually indistinguishable from real people, I really didn't. Don't get me wrong, there are brilliant movies such as Avatar where the animation and real life blend into one, but you can always tell the difference, plus those aren't fully animated movies, this is.
I love adult themed animation. By that I don't mean anything rude, lol. I simply mean my two favourite animated series are South Park and Family Guy. They are brilliant and if South Park did another movie, or Family Guy did a movie, I would definitely go and watch it and I'm sure they would get 5 star reviews, probably. But the difference is with those sorts of animation, plus of course, that long running classic, The Simpsons, you can tell they are cartoons, here you simply can't.
You watch this movie and just like me you will be sitting there spellbound thinking how can this be possible? It just looks completely real even though it's not. It does, however bear a frightening thought for the future. If in 2019 animation is this good, in 10 years time will we even need human actors? I don't think we will. The audience won't be able to tell it's animation and the voices can be done by AI/computer. At the very least the actors will only be needed for their voices, which I'm sure will pay a lot less than physical acting.
We have to ask ourselves, is this a road we want to go down? We are heading into an era of self driving cars so that will cost jobs for thousands of taxi drivers, do we want to do the same to movies? I'm not sure this is a future we should have. It's frightening. Will the audience love AI actors and animated actors like they love human actors? I don't know, but to me, it doesn't bear thinking about. I only hope that in 10/20 years time there is still a demand for real actors and not just AI/Animation.
However, that doesn't affect the review of this movie, which is visually spectacular. You will be spellbound by how good it looks. However, there are two final items which decide the rating of any Super Hero movie. Where does it fit in the relevant universe and how good is the actual story?
Well, for where it fits, the answer is it doesn't fit anywhere. That is not a criticism. It is simply Marvel starting a whole new universe, and there is nothing wrong with that. If it works I'm sure there will be a sequel and, maybe even other Marvel characters will become animated. Don't go seeing this movie expecting it to be part of what has gone before, because it won't be. Don't get me wrong, there are some links to the past. Mostly, the comic book past. There is a brilliant scene involving the legend Stan Lee (RIP) and there is a scene after the end credits (so don't turn off early), which links directly to the first ever Spider Man comic. That is great. Plus the actual movie links into lots of different universes, with lots of different Spider people. So far, so good.
However, I am sad to report that this is not a 5 star movie, but instead a 4 star one. Why? The story. I don't know who's fault it is, either the Director or the Writer or both, but there are parts of the movie that are, quite simply, boring. The movie takes ages to get going, ages for the kid to become Spider man, and then even when he does become Spider Man, excluding funny ish scenes at school where he gets stuck to Steinfelds hair, nothing much happens until the other Spider people from different dimensions appear. This isn't good enough for an origin movie. There have been lots of origin movies recently, such as Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman, and they all got going from the start.
However, once the characters appear the movie gathers pace. It is very cool to know that in another universe there is a Spider Woman, and the fight scenes at the end are epic. There is a moral to the story as well, which is we all have it inside us to be Spider Man. You know what, I guess that's true. We all have a bit of super hero inside us, it's wether we are brave enough to take that leap of faith to let it out.
The animation is amazing, the acting is good and the action is awesome. I look forward to the sequel. It's an exciting watchable super hero movie. It's not an incredible super hero movie, it's not epic, it's not The Avengers, but for a first try in a new universe and an origin movie, it's a great first attempt.
Well worth a watch for super hero fans and people that want to see how far animation has come, which I still can't believe now. Very good movie, 4 stars awarded. :)
*This review is all my own work, please don't reproduce without my permission but please visit my advertisers pages as they help keep the blog going thankyou. :)
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