Movie Review: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Directed by: Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson

Written by: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and David Callaham

Editor’s note: I did that rambling people do when they post recipes, and I’m sorry. Scroll down to “REVIEW STARTS HERE” to skip all that.

I’m BACK, baby! And in true Dallas fashion, I’m writing about a movie I saw WEEKS ago! Why have I been gone so long? I’m glad you asked! Or more likely, you didn’t. And that’s the thing! That’s the thing, though! I write on here, then think “Does anyone even read these? Does anyone care? What am I doing this for?” Then I stop writing on this blog for like half a year, and finally, I tell myself “It’s not that deep, fam. You just like writing.” Then I dust the blog off, rinse, and repeat. I’ve been doing that for YEARS. But there’s a new(ish) Spider-Verse movie, so what better time to restart the cycle?

Also, I’ve successfully avoided the hot take window. Because despite the internet’s constant use of “hot take” to refer to an opinion that most people might disagree with, the term actually comes from rushing a take out while the topic is “hot”, so it’s more about giving your take immediately and without time to give it much research or thought. So your “hot take” that “the Star Wars prequel trilogy is good, actually” isn’t all that hot, is it? It’s been sittin’ out for a while. But hey, language evolves over time, and I’m not a journalist, so I’m in no position to tell people they’re using terms wrong.

REVIEW STARTS HERE

They did it again! Five years ago, they dropped Into the Spider-Verse on us, and my hot take was that it was the best superhero movie. No qualifiers. Not “the best animated superhero movie”, not “the best comic book superhero movie”, just the best superhero movie. Period. Over the next five years, I watched it 1,000 more times, and I stand by that take. But now there’s another one! And it might be just as good? It’s hard to compare because I’ve seen the first one 2,000 times, and I’ve only seen this one twice (so far).

One of the reasons the first one is so good is that they gave us such an amazing group of characters. And they did it again! My boy Miles has fully grown into a more than competent Spider-Man. He has so much more confidence and I love it. Look at how they progressed my boy! Shameik Moore continues to kill it, with his voice that seems specifically designed to play a teenager. Also, I don’t know that he’s done much (if any) voice acting aside from these movies, and dude is a natural.

We get much more of Gwen Stacy this time around, and I would 100% watch a whole movie of hers. Well, maybe not. She makes some choices in this one that I know you all know about by now, but I write these as non-spoilers, because SOMEONE out there hasn’t seen the movie yet, and maybe they’re reading this. But Gwen’s questionable character aside, I like Hailee Steinfeld more with every line delivery she gives in this movie.

Also, Peter B. Parker swings in for a bit, but it’s a significantly smaller dose than we got last time. Jake Johnson continues to kill it. But before someone thinks I’m letting him off the hook, he’s in the same boat as Gwen when it comes to my disappointment.

Miles’ parents get more to do this time and I love it. No, not just because Rio is so fine. It’s not always about that. Luna Lauren Velez and Brian Tyree Henry both get to shine more as Rio and Jeff’s parental relationships with Miles shift. You remember being 15. Remember how you got on your parents’ nerves? Because teenagers are the worst? Yeah, you remember. But yeah, Rio and Jeff are scene stealers.

But onto the new characters: Miguel is a hater, Jessica Drew is a hater, Pavitr is awesome, Hobie is objectively the best, and…you know what? Let’s talk about Hobie.

Everything about this character is awesome. He’s Daniel Kaluuya, he has the best lines, he’s Miles’ biggest supporter (suck it Gwen and Peter), he’s the anti-capitalist hero we need, he’s BLACK, and his animation is incredible to look at. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make me as happy now that stories are coming out about Sony Animation treating their animators like serfs, but more on that later.

Since Into the Spider-Verse came out five years ago and became the best superhero ever made, we’ve found ourselves in a world where multiverse stories are hot in the streets. This is the best one. I know y’all like the bagel movie, and I respect that. This is the best one. This movie works perfectly as a grounded coming-of-age story for Miles, and then when it becomes a full-on comic book, filled with sci-fi mumbo jumbo, it works just as well. I can laugh at Spidey versions of a dinosaur, a cat, and everything else, but I’m no less invested in Miles and his well-being. And I even feel for Miguel’s hatin’ ass. His goals conflict with Miles’ in a way that makes me want Miguel to just go away, but I see what he’s gettin’ at.

Now, about the animation. It’s AMAZING. But at what cost? I never know which details to believe when stories come out from an industry I’m obviously on the outside of, but it sounds like however you spin it, animators were overworked to a ridiculous degree. That’s never a surprise, but you always hope it’s not the case. And “welcome to making a movie”? Really, Amy? Big trash. I thought The Spot was the villain, but maybe it’s Amy Pascal? Say it with me in your best Jason Bateman voice, y’all: I don’t know what I expected.

But yes, putting aside corporations and their greedy ways for a moment, the animation is spectacular. Every single person who worked on this should be praised and compensated immensely. They took the mind-blowing and industry-changing animation from Into the Spider-Verse and somehow stepped it up from there. Spectacular.

Also, Daniel Pemberton is back at it again! He scored this movie to perfection. Somehow I’ve only seen it twice at the time of writing this, but the second time I really focused on what he did with the score. He’s so talented at perfectly capturing a character’s impact through sound. Remember Prowler? Well, he does the same thing with Spider-Man 2099 here. And The Spot! There are some later scenes with The Spot that, through animation and score, really made me feel like this guy could be a terrifying villain. That’s right, ol’ Pongo and Perdita face ass could be a terrifying villain. Movie magic. Daniel Pemberton is movie magic.

Oh, and speaking of music, Metro Boomin! This soundtrack is fire! My favorite songs have been shifting around since the soundtrack came out, but I could listen to “Hummingbird” and “Self Love” all day. I’m listening to “Hummingbird” right now, actually. And he got J.I.D. on the soundtrack! That’s a cheat code for me.

I’ve been going on about this movie for too long, and yet somehow not long enough (if you think I haven’t said enough, feel free to listen to the Across the Spider-Verse podcast episode we put out within an actually reasonable response time). It’s time to wrap this up. Or web this up. HA! The movie is perfect. Is the ending unsatisfying? No. Cliffhangers happen. And this is the longest American animated movie ever. Y’all should have realized it was going to end on a cliffhanger when we were two and a half hours in and Miles was (spoiler redacted). And if you didn’t realize how long the movie had been on, that’s because you were engrossed in the story. Because it’s perfect.

Tl;dr: Everything about this movie is perfect except for how the animators were treated while making it.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Creative Differences Episode 216 | Throwback Thursday – ENCHANTED – Movie Reaction – FIRST TIME WATCHING

Watched Enchanted for the first and last time. Check it out.

Creative Differences Episode 215 | Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Atlanta, and Farewells to Superhero Legends

R.I.P. Kevin Conroy!

Movie Review: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Directed by Ryan Coogler.

Written by Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a movie with so much riding on it. It has to handle the passing of the fictional king T’Challa as well as the real-life king Chadwick Boseman, it has the pressure of being the sequel to the best MCU movie (yes it is, shut up), it’s the first MCU movie with significant Latinx cultural influence, the list goes on. I’ve heard Ryan Coogler speak about the pressure he felt with the first Black Panther, so I can only imagine the feelings he was going through this time. But you know what? Ryan Coogler is undefeated! The man just can’t seem to miss.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is the 30th film in the MCU, the sequel to the best film in the MCU, and probably the second MCU film that a whole generation of Black people will see. You know, our parents’ generation. The older Black people who couldn’t name a single Avenger, but saw Black Panther in theaters a few times. And that’s fair. The Black Panther movies are great at being their own self-contained stories. But let’s get into it!

Just like the first Black Panther, this movie has an abundance of delightful characters. Angela Bassett brings the most authentic regality possible to Queen Ramonda. Danai Gurira and Lupita N’yongo instill Okoye and Nakia with their own distinct blends of warmth and deadliness. Winston Duke manages to steal the show AGAIN as M’Baku, the world’s largest vegetarian. Martin Freeman still manages to somehow be a likeable agent of a despicable agency.

And that’s just the returning characters! We get introduced to Riri “yesterday’s price is not today’s price” Williams in this movie and she’s everything I wanted her to be. Dominique Thorne fills the role with levity and perfectly portrays the awe that we’d all feel if we encountered anything or anyone from Wakanda. Michaela Coel doesn’t get a huge amount of time as Aneka, but she makes every minute count. I also need to congratulate Tenoch Huerta on playing a version of Namor that I didn’t instantly hate! There’s such a warmth to him in certain scenes, that it almost makes you forget about the cold ruthlessness in the rest of the scenes.

But putting all that aside, I need to talk about the star of the show! Somebody get Letitia Wright vaccinated so she can go to the Oscars and get her Best Actress award! The acting is great across the board in this movie, but Letitia was goin’ OFF! Angela Bassett was the other stand out for me, as much like Shuri, Ramonda got some moments to really let it all out. But the focus here is primarily on Shuri and how she’s dealing with her pain. And woo boy, I was FEELIN’ it! Every bit of anger, sadness, and disillusionment that comes with grief. I’ve felt it, and anyone who has can probably feel it resonate when Letitia gives it on screen.

Grief. It runs all through this movie. On the screen, behind the scenes, in the audience, it’s everywhere. Heartbreak does NOT feel good in a place like this, Nicole! Anyway, one great thing about the way this movie handles grief is the way various characters get to show how they deal with it. Everyone handles it in their own way, and the movie does a wonderful job of reminding us of that. We see Ramonda sticking to her duty and tradition while trying to look after her remaining child, we see Nakia looking back with love and spreading that love to others, we see Okoye holding fast to the title that gives her a sense of meaning. And boy do we see Shuri go through it all. Another great, but more upsetting thing this movie can do is use the real-life pain of the cast to enhance the performances of the pain the characters are feeling. There’s a scene of Shuri lamenting the loss of T’Challa, and if you told me that was just Letitia talking about Chadwick, I would believe it.

You can probably tell from the runtime (TWO HOURS AND FORTY-ONE MINUTES!) that this movie does a lot. It’s not just grief that we’re dealing with here. We also have a story of colonization and the generational traumas that result from it, another Black Panther story about not letting vengeance consume you, the actual comic adaptation part about Wakanda vs. Talokan (Atlantis in the comics. They changed the name, surely in part due to DC beating them to the live-action punch where Atlantis is concerned. Which is ironic considering the fact that Aquaman is a Namor ripoff and this movie is so much better than Aquaman.), and a somewhat superfluous story about how the CIA sucks. I love Martin Freeman, and I love when the CIA gets called out for being evil, but if I would change something about this movie, it would probably be cutting the runtime down a bit by removing the CIA bits. Or at least a few of them. This is my overly verbose way of saying that Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole masterfully crafted a story that feels fleshed out in more than just the grief themes that we all expected. The other elements could have easily been put on the back burner to focus on the loss of Chadwick/T’Challa, but no, everything feels important. Ryan Coogler is undefeated!

Another area in which this movie shines is in the visuals. The Talokan scenes are GORGEOUS, and Wakanda looks as beautiful as ever, as do the people who live there. Man, Black people are beautiful, ain’t we? Angela Bassett was killin’ it in all her Black lady church hats. Just like last time, we get some fantastic action, and just like last time, the best action scenes typically feature Okoye.

And speaking of Okoye (and the Dora Milaje), the score! Ludwig Goransson! Also undefeated! He brought in the music we loved from the first movie and added some new heat to it in a way that only he could. I don’t care much for or about the Oscars (despite bringing them up twice in this review), but he needs an award as well.

I could go on and on about this movie, but I’m sure by the time I post this, our podcast episode about it will have gone up. And spoiler alert, we went on and on about it there, too. But the takeaway here is that this movie is the best of the year (so far) and Ryan Coogler needs to be honored in some way for his contributions to culture and cinema. If you liked the first Black Panther, definitely go see this one. If you didn’t like the first Black Panther, please explain yourself in the comments below.

Tl;dr: This movie has a lot on its plate, but it’s all handled fantastically. And I’d expect nothing less from everyone involved.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Creative Differences Episode 213 | Enola Holmes 2, Cabinet of Curiosities, and the Origins of Clown Work

Guillermo Del Toro is back at it again with the monster content. And a strange amount of tentacles.

Creative Differences Episode 208 | Amsterdam, Werewolf by Night, and Will Smith’s Oscars Return

The cast for Amsterdam is dope, but the trailer didn’t interest me, so I skipped it. I watched Werewolf by Night, though!

Creative Differences Episode 207 | Blonde, Entergalactic, Hocus Pocus 2, and Reservation Dogs

FOUR reviews in this one. And the best thing we reviewed is Entergalactic. Go watch that.

Movie Review: The Woman King

The Woman King

Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood.

Written by Dana Stevens.

Somewhere in a Marvel Studios board room, Kevin Feige is throwing his hat in anger at the fact that he didn’t pull the trigger on a Dora Milaje movie. Because then he’d have the badass female warrior movie without the #boycott drama. But this ain’t about the dope movie we could have gotten, this is about the dope movie we did get.

The Woman King is the story of the Agojie, the warrior women who fight for King John Boyega and the rest of the Dahomey Kingdom. Their leader is Nanisca, the player-coach of this team that is the powerhouse but also the underdogs. I’ll explain that later. But this isn’t just Nanisca’s story, it’s also Nawi’s. Nawi is the headstrong rookie sensation who clashes with the coach/captain. I WILL EXPLAIN THE SPORTS METAPHORS LATER.

Also, there are fairly justifiable concerns being raised online in regards to the fact that the Dahomey sold other Africans into slavery and that’s how they maintained their wealth. In the movie, they stop this because Nanisca doesn’t like it, and you don’t say no to Viola Davis. In real life, however, they didn’t stop selling slaves until they were forced to. So, that’s not great. The Dahomey were not, in fact, da homies. So naturally, that led to #BoycottTheWomanKing on Twitter because if there’s one thing Twitter’s good for, it’s starting a boycott hashtag.

According to my extensive research (skimming the Wikipedia page for the movie), “Maria Bello conceived the idea for The Woman King in 2015 after visiting Benin, where Dahomey used to be located, and learning the history of the Agojie. Convinced she had found a story worth telling, she recruited Cathy Schulman to develop it into a feature film. They pitched it to several studios, who turned it down due to financial concerns”. No word on whether or not Maria came across the glaring issue of the Dahomey holding onto slavery like Americans hold onto guns. But let me tell ya, Twitter does NOT like the fact that White women conceived this movie’s story. Personally, I think they could have avoided all of this by just NOT using the names Dahomey and Agojie. Make up names, and say it’s based on true events if you want, but now your heroes aren’t a bunch of slavers. Easy peasy.

Now that I’ve addressed the trouble, let’s get back to the movie at hand. This cast is so fire. All these women (and John Boyega) are phenomenal. Viola Davis continues to show off why she’s one of the most respected actresses in the game, and she’s shredded like a julienne salad. Sheila Atim’s Amenza and Lashana Lynch’s Izogie play two different sides of the mentor coin. Amenza is Nanisca’s right hand, and Sheila Atim brings the perfect amount of warmth and caring to that role, while also being believable as someone who can and will rip a man’s head clean off. Izogie is the cooler older sister type of character that it’s impossible not to fall in love with, due in large part to Lashana’s charm. You can’t have a big sister type without a little sister, and that’s where Nawi comes in. Nawi is the main character that we follow as a young recruit, and Thuso Mbedu plays the hell out of this role. Nawi is confident, hardheaded, and easy to root for, and this is a star-making performance for Thuso.

There’s also John Boyega as King Ghezo. This isn’t really his story, but John Boyega ain’t bout to come on screen and not show out. He makes every scene count and commands the respect that a king should. According to his interview with The Breakfast Club, this was his favorite role, and I see why.

An interesting thing about this movie is that it checks boxes for a few different genres. First of all, it’s a war movie, right? It’s got action-packed battle scenes, somber moments dealing with loss, a whole lot of emotional development to make us care for the character(s) that we’ll have to watch die later, all that. It’s more like a War for the Planet of the Apes type of war movie though. I expected to just watch Viola catch bodies for two hours, but there isn’t as much fighting as I expected. The other scenes worked very well though, so I can’t say I’m disappointed.

Next up, it’s kind of a slavery movie for a bit. I know, I know. I don’t like that either. I generally don’t watch slavery movies, because why would I do that to myself? Given all the backstory and controversy I mentioned earlier, I guess it’s not surprising that this movie showed people on the auction block, but guess who didn’t know about ANY of that going in? So yeah, I didn’t expect the lady who made Love & Basketball to make me watch slave auctions.

Remember when I said I’d explain the sports metaphors earlier? This is kind of a sports movie! Only in formula though. Nawi is a part of the new group of recruits, and they fill the role of the rag-tag team that has to be brought together and taught discipline (the Remember the Titans kids before racism is fixed, the hoodrat kids from Gridiron Gang, the not yet Mighty Ducks from The Mighty Ducks, etc.). Nanisca is the hardened coach who has molded many champions in her time and has no patience for nonsense (Coach Boone, Coach Carter, whatever The Rock’s name is in Gridiron Gang (I wanna say Sean Porter), etc.). The interesting thing is that the Agojie are already revered and legendary when the movie starts, but they have a larger enemy so they play both the powerhouse and underdog roles, as I said earlier. Also, this next one is not a sports movie but the dynamic between Nanisca and Nawi has some STRONG parallels to Nick Cannon and what’s his name from Drumline. You know what’s his name. The dude who was hatin’ on Nick Cannon the whole time, but then stopped.

I say all this to say the movie is good at every kind of movie it is, and I love sports movies, so I really enjoyed all the sports movie tropes (lots of practices, bonding moments between teammates, jogging in a straight line, etc.).

I think this movie review has gotten away from me a bit. I try to keep these from being too long, since people don’t even read reviews anymore to my knowledge. Maybe I got too into the Twitter controversy and sports movie parallels. Oh well, I can cut it here. Oh, wait! One more thing! The visuals!

This movie looks great. The fight choreography is on point, the beautiful Black skin of everyone is shinin’ and glistenin’ in a lovely way, and Jayme Lawson was strikingly stunning every time she came on screen.

So that’s The Woman King. It’s as good as the critics’ reviews are saying, and it’s a great way to see some Black people being excellent. We love to see it. I recommend it if you like war movies, sports movies, and/or strong Black women.

Tl;dr: Pretty much everything is on point, depending on how much extratextual context affects your opinion of movies.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

P.S.:

The MPA rating system is so many types of stupid. Someone kicks over a bucket of severed heads in this movie, but it’s PG-13 because there are no titties and not too much blood.

I just had to say that here before I left.

Creative Differences Episode 204 | The Woman King, Do Revenge, Harley Quinn, and Unhinged Women

This episode is brought to you by Girl Power!

Creative Differences Episode 201 | Throwback Thursday – Pinocchio – Movie ReactionCreative Differences

We’re back with another movie reaction! This time we took it all the way back to 1940, for a movie that probably shoulda stayed there.