Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a dazzling sequel that is slightly marred by studios demands.

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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was probably never meant to have a sequel and it's very likely that the only reason this film was made was due to the previous films phenomenal success. Behind the scenes there was also significant changes in the crew such as different directors, perhaps due to the behind the scenes dramas of the first film. Because of these reasons I was somewhat skeptical about the prospect of a sequel.

These concerns though where proved to be unfounded as it very much lives up to its predecessor. It successfully manages to balance between the more intimate emotional beats of the film with the chaotic maelstrom of the action. It is of no surprise that Across the Spider-Verse is from the same writers as the LEGO Movie as it has similar frenetic pace to it.

The film begins by catching up with our protagonists Miles Moralis and Gwen Stacey. Miles is struggling to balance his super-hero life with academic life and with meeting the expectations of his parents. Much of the early part of the film revolves around Miles struggling with this duality with him having to deal with petty thefts and attending a parent-teacher evaluation, and later with catching up with Gwen stacey whilst being grounded.

Gwen is struggling with the repercussions of the death of Peter Parker who was her only friend until meeting Miles. Gwen is also struggling to meet the expectations of her parents and a particular source of drama come from her fathers belief that Spider Woman killed Parker. After a battle with parallel universe version of the vulture, who is beautifully rendered in a DaVinci-esque sketch like way, he discovers Gwens secret. She escapes by receiving membership for the Spider Society, a group of Spider People who's job is to keep order to the multiverse.

Miles joins the society when sneaking through a portal and arrives in Mumbattan in Earth-50101 where he he meets fellow Spider Men Pavitr Prabhakar from the Spider-Man: India comic and Hobie Brown, otherwise known as Spider-Punk (and whom I particularly enjoyed). Whilst I very much enjoyed the scenes in Mumbattan there and its great to see Spider-Man placed in different cultural contexts, it does feel like a calculated decision on the part of the studios given India takes up a large amount of the box office revenue. This is though at no detriment to the story. Its also here where the Spot who is in some sense the conventional bad guy in the film is presented as a credible threat, though is somewhat a red herring.

Miles and the others head back to the headquarters in Earth-928. The scenes here are in my opinion the weakest as they succumb to the studios desire to get the film trending on social media which is best exemplified with scenes acknowledging the marvel cinematic universe and Sony's MCU wanne be series known sometimes as Sony's Spider-Man Universe. I'm no fan of the MCU and I've never really taken an interest in SPUMC so I found this moments unnecessary and took me out of the film. There is also a reference to the Spider-Men pointing meme which at this point has been done to death. The scenes that reference the MCU also sparked concerns that the sequel will include an MCU and or SPUMC crossover in the style of films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Space Jam given the name will be Beyond the Spider-Verse. The Spider-Verse films are a work of pop art cross-overs are justified and there are a lot of cross-overs in the film that I don't have too much issues with such as the 1960s cartoon spider-man but given Disney's monopoly and tedium that is the MCU, a cross over would be misguided.

Later on the main bad guy is proved to be instead the head of the Spider-Society Spider-Man 2099 who comes from a darker timeline. I think the character is interesting when comparing it to the Lego Movie which had an anti-capitalist, dare I say marxist message to it. In this film we see an authoritarian version of spider-man who who tries to maintain an order that screws over normal people for the sake of some kind of illusion of stability. As Hobie would say "it's an allegory for capitalism".

Overall its a great film that will undoubtedly do well in the box offices and the awards season. Its very accessible to vast variety of viewers, though some viewers may get baffled by some of the references to the MCU. With franchise fatigue kicking in for super hero films in general, animation could be a way forward to keep the genre fresh and relevant.