Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse arrives in Italian cinemas on June 1, 2023, to tell us once again about Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy, Peter B. Parker (and others) grappling with the mysteries of the multiverse.

Can a film disappoint a little while still being fantastic? As the sequel to a celebrated superhero animated gem, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse does exactly what a second chapter should do: longer (2.20 hours), more colorful, more chaotic – that’s not necessarily a bad thing – it multiplies the environments, brings a new patrol of characters alongside the historians, tries to harmonize as best it can (it’s enough) psychological excavation and thematic architecture, more articulated than in the first film. 

It was called, it was 2018, Spider-Man – A new universe, in English Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The sequel of 2023, directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson, screenplay by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, and David Callaham, changes something of the formula.

No longer Into (in, inside) but Across (through) the Spider-Verse. Given the reality of the facts, that is, that each story is only one version among the countless, of a global and interconnected design, it is time to start moving far and wide along the existential highways of the multiverse and answer the question of the questions: how many parts of a beloved and well-known story can be rewritten? What is at stake is the construction of identity. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse arrives in Italian cinemas on June 1, 2023, for Sony Pictures Italia.

Spider-Man – Across the Spider-Verse: many versions of the same hero, but above all Miles and Gwen

Gwen Stacy, alias Spider-Woman, Earth #65 (with progressives we will arrive at figures with many zeros), this time we start with her. Her story is in a sense an anomaly, one of the rare cases in which the basic dynamic is reversed, remaining the same. In this universe here, in fact, Peter Parker is the helpless friend that you can’t help but lose, while she has to wear the costume. 

The big change from the first film is that Gwen now knows she’s not alone. She knows the inherent complexity of the multiverse from having tasted it firsthand. You have cemented a relationship of esteem and affection with many colleagues of the adjacent dimensions, but it seems insufficient. 

She continues to feel alone. She wouldn’t tell her policeman father the truth about him for all the money in the world; reconciling private, public, and secret life is becoming increasingly difficult. An apt metaphor from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse explains Gwen’s situation well (and all the others and all the others): she is the girl who knows she wants to join a band, but she still doesn’t know which one she is.

She believes she has solved the matter by joining a colossal task force of Spider-Man and Spider-Woman dedicated to maintaining peace and stability in the multiverse. There are many of them, highly equipped, and they have also found a way to stabilize the inconveniences of passing from one dimension to another; fans of the first film will surely remember, it was a pretty big deal. 

She pulls the strings of this mysterious community of heroes, basically the Avengers reproducing endless versions of the same character, Mr. Miguel O’Hara. Like Spider, he is muscular and has absolutely no sense of humor. Gwen can’t bond much with him, so she shifts her attention to Jessica Drew, a very tough and very knowledgeable Spider-Woman in the multiverse.

The bizarre, rather, the anomaly, is that in this cauldron of friendly neighborhood spiders, there seems to be room for everyone, except for Miles Morales. Ours, Terra #1610, has perfected his costume, he doesn’t shut up for a moment, he would like to come out to his parents, mom Rio and dad Jefferson (he’s about to become a police captain, congratulations), but he lacks the courage. 

They ignore his double life, so they struggle to justify behavior which, not being able to connect the dots, appears unpredictable and not very serious. The most believable threat, for Miles, is a very strange villain called Blur. In one way or another, it is part of his past, it is also the hook for the hoped-for reunion. Gwen and Miles are reunited because there is a common threat to face, of which the Blur is a large, but not exhaustive part. 

The villain has figured out how to juggle the various dimensional planes to make good and (mainly) bad weather, but there’s more. The problem of Miles, Gwen, Peter B. Parker, and all the rest of the gang of different twins is both material (the multiverse is in grave danger), and philosophical, emotional, and sentimental.

The fate of the hero, already written or still to be written?

Outwardly, it is the standard recipe, for the cinecomic even if it is animated. Dudes in tights with stormy pasts who pull off spectacular stunts for the noblest of reasons, spinning over-the-top action, humor, and romance. The family is at the center of everything, great powers, great responsibilities, and laughter. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, just like its predecessor, complicates the picture beautifully by pretending to do the same things as everyone else, in the same way. 

Exploiting the inter-dimensional leap as an expedient to enhance a thousand angles and the visual power of a superb animation, fluidly dosing the progressive discourse (diversity, acceptance, and inclusive representation) and delicately placing it on the fabric of the story; we don’t notice it, it’s all very natural. There is a legal limit (!) to the things that can be said about the film.

However, it can be said that the theme of the themes is the construction of the identity of the hero, pulled by the costume by two cumbersome extremes, destiny, and free will. The basis of every self-respecting story, from our Greek friends from thousands of years ago to, well, web-shooting masked dudes. 

The problem with Miles and all Spider-Man and Spider-Woman of this world (of all worlds) are that the harmony of the multiverse, this great web that interweaves different planets, different heroes, and different histories, is ensured by repeating a certain type of dynamics, standard situations and common to all universes. They have to do with the idea of separation, of loss, of the extreme limit that even the greatest hero cannot reasonably cross: one cannot save everyone. 

The question, both moral and narrative, that Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse dares to ask itself, is the following: what happens if, suddenly, the hero chooses to get in the way of destiny and tries to become Spider-Man but on his own terms, not giving a damn about the canon? Can the unthinkable be achieved without compromising the overall balance? Miles thinks so.

What happens is that the film supports the aesthetic, narrative, and spiritual ambitions of its lovable, bumbling protagonist (and fellow adventurers), fervently supporting their need for emancipation. However, ending up succumbing a bit, right on the finale. That Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is only the first stage of a longer and more complex journey does not come as a novelty. 

But a certain haste with which the film truncates the exploration of serious and articulated problems, proposing a moral and a narrative dynamic that has already been seen and already heard, seems to give the canon the winning game, to the game without risk. Toning down the originality of an operation that, until then, had hit the mark in both form and substance.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: conclusion and Evaluation

For every empire that strikes back – the well-done sequel that deepens the first film’s discourse by darkening it, but leaving a door open to hope – there is always a return of the Jedi lurking, the partial disappointment that compensates with so many memorable moments the clear bitter sensation in the mouth. 

The fate of this film will be written by the next. Many advantages, a little problem of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a certain imbalance in the conception of the narrative structure: it immerses us in the story with such ease, that the sudden suspension waiting for the third chapter tastes of frustration. The disappointment must be seen from the perspective of a work that is clearly above the standard of the modern cinecomic, animated or otherwise. Imperfect, however very very valid.