SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (PG)

★★★★ ★

DAZZLING computeranimated adventure that introduces a menagerie of gifted spider-folks, who tick myriad racial, socio-economic and anthropomorphic boxes. There is a halfblack, half-Hispanic teenage hero, a sassy Asian female heroine, a grizzled old school crusader torn from the pages of a noir thriller, two markedly different reflections of Peter Parker ... and a talking pig. Laughs come thick and fast courtesy of a self-referential script that gleefully pokes fun at itself. Brooklyn teenager Miles Morales, pictured (voiced by Shameik Moore), enrols in a boarding school at the behest of his parents. He takes a break from studies to spend time with his uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali), who indulges Miles’s passion for street art by venturing into the sewers beneath New York City to paint a mural.

A radioactive spider bites Miles’s hand, imbuing the high school student with incredible powers. Miles discovers he has inherited the same abilities as Spider-Man (Chris Pine), who recently died at the hands of crime lord Wilson Fisk (Liev Schreiber). The kingpin is conducting experiments, which disrupt the space-time continuum. Consequently, a washed-up Peter B Parker ( Jake Johnson), Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), Spider-Ham ( John Mulaney), brooding Spider-Noir (Nicolas Cage) and inventor schoolgirl Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn) materialise in Miles’s bedroom. They join forces with the teen to defeat a rogue’s gallery of villains including Green Goblin ( Jorma Taccone) and Doctor Octopus (Kathryn Hahn).