While the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (reboot & sequel) improved on the lamentable SPIDER-MAN 3 (none too tough an assignment), they’ve already vanished from the Pop Zeitgeist; just in time for the next reboot with yet another Spidey. (The new trailer looking more like a warning than a come on.) So, filling the interregnum between Peter Parkers, a fully loaded animated sidebar of ‘alternate’ Spideys hardly sounds promising. Surprise!; it may be the best of the lot. (Admittedly, a low bar.) Our new animated Spidey is African-American, a High School kid stuck in a ‘gifted’ program where he thinks he’ll never fit in. Something his Black Sheep Uncle can relate to even before his nephew gets that inevitable radioactive spider bite. Soon we’re in the midst of too many indecipherable battle scenes, charmingly relieved by the appearance of a motley crew of Spider-Men, Spider-Women . . . even a Spider-Pig out of some glitch in the Time Continuum. (Don’t ask.) Yet it all hangs together, with visual jump cuts in and out of Comic Book stylings as helpful to the narrative as they are spiffy to look at. There’s a self-referencing, joshing tone here, especially once Jake Johnson shows up as Peter B. Parker, a grown up Spider-Man with a dash of Deadpool’s irreverence. And, for once, the villains are something of a bore while our Spidey Variety Pack get the good moves & snarky dialogue. A touch more restraint & readability in the action scenes, and this could have been even more special. Maybe next time.
DOUBLE-BILL: Brad Bird’s two INCREDIBLES (especially the 2004 original) show how animated action can be both OTT and work in a cartoonishly credible cause-and-effect manner.
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