The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Film reviews:
Spider Man
The costumed alter ego of orphan Peter Parker has been spinning a web of intrigue across popular culture since 1962 in comic books, TV series, newspaper strips, films and a Broadway musical.
A live-action incarnation of SpiderMan portrayed by London-born actor Tom Holland is currently waging war against supervillain Thanos in the Avengers films.
One web-slinging saviour is evidently insufficient because the dazzling computer-animated adventure SpiderMan: Into The Spider-Verse introduces a menagerie of gifted spider-folks, who tick myriad racial, socio-economic and anthropomorphic boxes.
There is a half-black, half-Hispanic teenage hero, a sassy Asian female heroine, an old school crusader, 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.
Peter Ramsey, Bob Persichetti and Rodney Rothman’s film employs a striking visual palette, which honours the comic books (the central character’s internal monologue manifests as boxed captions) as it confidently lives up to its billing as “a pretty hardcore origin story”.
Brooklyn teen Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) enrols in a boarding school at the behest of his parents (Brian Tyree Henry and Luna Velez).
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 spray paint a mural.
A radioactive spider descends from the dark and 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 menacing crime lord Wilson Fisk (Liev Schreiber).
The kingpin is conducting experiments, which disrupt the spacetime 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 teenager to defeat a rogue’s gallery of villains including Green Goblin (Jorma Taccone) and Doctor Octopus (Kathryn Hahn).
This is an imaginative and frequently exhilarating expansion of familiar mythology with limitless possibilities for future spin-offs.