Knee-jerk review: "Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse"

1. Wow.
2. As you may have heard, the movie's visuals - its entire form and style, in fact - are bombastic and energetic in unexpected ways.  It's truly art.  It takes the look and feel of 2018's Into the Spiderverse and cranks it up to 11.
3. We can't say with authority that it's as groundbreaking as some critics have suggested.  One person even suggested it's reinventing cinematic language.  That's a bold statement.  We suspect there's more anime and gaming (and comic book/graphic novel) influences at work here than our middle-aged brain might comprehend.  That is, maybe it's mostly groundbreaking by introducing a niche, fringe visual style to the mainstream moviegoer masses.
4. We're also on the record saying the pedal-to-the-metal vibe that we loved so much here is surely a close cousin to the narrative style of Everything Everywhere All at Once which we... "hate" is a strong word... let's say that movie was very frustrating for us.  We didn't get it.  
5. Across the Spiderverse is way too long and the plot maybe a little more complicated than it needed to be.  But this is minor quibbling.
6. To us, this sort of razzle-dazzle animation - the clash of colors and styles that all somehow fit, the amazing and emotional "performances" by these cartoon characters - is like magic.  It's alchemy.  How can hundreds of artists collaborate so brilliantly like this?
7. "Canon event."  So clever.
8. The big third act twist surprised us and we're rarely surprised.  We didn't see it coming, but of course looking back it all made perfect sense.  Fantastic.
9. Movie music often blends in the background for us.  Which is usually the point.  Music is there to seamlessly guide the experience and embellish emotion.  But there's no way to miss the score here.  In more than one place, the music is awesome, especially in the climax.  Like, it's "should we should buy the soundtrack?" good.
10. Jake Johnson is the best.
11. As supervillain super powers go, the Spot may be in the top five.  He seems impossible to stop.
12. We will definitely be there for Beyond the Spiderverse in March 2024.

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