Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse goes bigger, bolder, and more ambitious

polygon.com:

At the beginning of the year, when we brainstormed our most anticipated movies of 2023, there was one clear winner: Everyone at Polygon was feverishly awaiting Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Versewas a game-changer for everyone who loves animation or superheroes. It brought a bold new visual style and storytelling method to American animation, and a wild, kinetic new way of looking at your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man to cinema. Naturally, we all wanted to know: Does the Spider-Verse sequel measure up to the original?

But how to limit Across the Spider-Verse to a single reviewer, when it’s a movie about multiplicity? The sequel boasts more alternate universes, more Spider-Mans, more villains, more parallel storylines, more shifts in visual style, more everything. Could our review be just as fractal and shifting? The first movie’s theme is “anyone can wear the mask,” and we decided to embrace that philosophy and say that everyone could review Across the Spider-Verse. So we sent the whole crew to the theater to get everyone’s impressions. Here’s how Across the Spider-Verse stacks up to the first Miles Morales movie.

It’s easy to talk about representation like it’s the end of the story. Like, Look: Spider-Man is Black and Puerto Rican now. (Or a woman, or a little kid, or anyone else.) We did it, everyone! What’s up, danger?

Trouble is, that’s only where the story starts. That’s only where Miles Morales’ story starts. Across the Spider-Verse is about what comes next after you’ve made it, after you’ve proven you belong. And the truth is, what comes next sucks: You have to prove it again.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” bellows Oscar Isaac as Miguel O’Hara, the alt-universe