A NEW SPARKLING UNIVERSE FOR SPIDER-MAN.

This is a new Spider-man instalment that doesn’t get tangled up in the sticky web of its predecessors

Spidey was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatsoever about that. And good riddance. This century alone has seen three Spider-man movies starring Tobey Maguire (with a planned fourth cancelled); two Amazing Spider-man movies with Andrew Garfield (with two more cancelled) and Spider-man: Homecoming featuring Tom Holland, who also pops up in Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. A sequel is in the works, sadly not yet cancelled.

And yet ... this newest Spiderman is such a different beast, it has escaped the web of its wellmeaning predecessors. It has no pre-boarding baggage — you can go in knowing nothing and still have a blast — and neither does it feel like the first leg of a journey that’s going to involve several more potentially cancelled flights. Once this animated plane is in the air, it feels like it’ll never come down.

And how does it do all this with a dead Spider-man? Why, by dipping a tentative toe into the murky waters of that old yet endlessly refreshing spring, the alternate universe. In comic books it gave us Bizarro World, where everything is backwards, and Red Son, in which Superman landed not in Kansas but on a collective farm in Ukraine.

Into the Spider-verse is set in an alternate world where the NYPD is the PDNY, Coca-cola has become Koca-soda, and packages are delivered by Redex and its competitor, USB. (I like to imagine that Canucks in that universe are reading this review in The Canada Post.) Miles Morales, voiced by Shameik Moore, is your average Brooklyn teenager, until he gets bitten by a radioactive spider and develops superpowers, just as the “real” Spider-man (Chris Pine) is breathing his last.

The event that ends Spiderman’s life is an experiment in physics that opens a tear in space-time, letting all kinds of Spider-folk into Miles’ universe. Chief among them is Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), from a realm where Spidey let himself go after he and Mary Jane split up. He’s barely up to posing for pictures in Times Square now, but it’s also clear you can never fully take the “do” out of do-gooder. He’s willing and able to help. Also, Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), a.k.a. Spider-gwen, who hails from a place called Earth-65, which gives you some idea how crowded the multiverse can get.

It’s a pleasing enough premise, but it’s the execution that truly sparkles, courtesy of co-directors/ animators Bob Persichetti, Rodney Rothman and Peter Ramsey, who also shares a writing credit with The Lego Movie’s Phil Lord. The look combines elements of CGI, hand-drawn animation and a heavy dose of pulp comics, with its use of multiple panels on the screen, dialogue and sound effects in boxes, and the four-colour process that gave mid-century comics their iconic “dotty” look.

It’s almost painfully overwhelming in the film’s opening minutes, but once you attune yourself to the techniques it’s downright thrilling. Perhaps it’s a function of the three-person directing team, but there are camera moves in this film I’d never seen before.

Or at least I think so; Spiderverse moves at a dizzying pace, not so fast that its plot doesn’t cohere, but certainly not inviting viewers to sit back and delight in its beauty. That will have to wait for streaming or DVD, and the ability to stop the frame and examine the rich, joke-filled backgrounds. (Example: A Times Square billboard advertising a Simon Pegg movie called From Dusk Till Shaun.)

The movie also makes use of depth-of-field techniques not often seen in the crisp world of computer-generated animation. Backgrounds blur and shift out of focus. And while the state of the art is often used to try to make audiences forget they’re watching a glorified cartoon, Spider-verse actually doubles down on the format, revelling in what it can do.

And yet for all the humour — and there’s plenty — Spider-verse is grounded in some real emotions, not least loss and regret; though in a refreshing reversal, it’s the chief villain (Liev Schreiber) who has the family-tragedy backstory. There’s also a truly kick-ass Aunt May voiced by Lily Tomlin, just when I thought that Marisa Tomei had owned the role for all time. And there’s a nice message that anyone can be a hero — although, let’s be honest, an alliterative name helps.

And finally, here is a universe where Stan Lee hasn’t yet passed away, and yet no one has heard of Comic-con. I might have to move there. ★★★★★

Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse opens across Canada on Dec. 14, with some screenings on the 13th.