Spider Man: Into the Spider Verse (2018) * * *

Directed by:  Bob Perischetti, Rodney Rothman, Peter Ramsey

Starring:  (voices of) Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Chris Pine, Hailee Steinfeld, Nicolas Cage, John Mulaney, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry, Liev Schreiber, Zoe Kravitz, Kathryn Hahn, Kimiko Glenn

Spider Man: Into the Spider Verse starts with an intriguing first act, a middle act which needlessly complicates matters, and then finds its heart in the third act.    Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who gave us The Lego Movie and its spin-offs, once again took the approach of overwhelming us with too much story and too many comic book and pop culture references, but Into the Spider Verse recovers once it slows down.    Miles Morales (Moore) is a Brooklyn teen bitten by a radioactive spider and then gains the same powers as Spider-Man, but there is of course already a Spider-Man in the form of Peter Parker, who has now operated under the mask for years.   

Into the Spider Verse isn't retelling the Spider-Man origins story, per se.   It instead introduces the theory of parallel universes in which there are other Spider-Man (and women) and thanks to the crime boss Kingpin (Schreiber), all of the people and things who are Spider-Man in parallel universes all meet up in one universe.    Miles has to get all of the other Spideys back to where they came from, plus learn how to harness his powers just in time to defeat Kingpin.    

I admit all of the parallel universe stuff made me dizzy.   I began to push back because the movie was getting too clever for its own good.    A linear story in which Miles takes the reins from Peter Parker would've been just fine.    Miles has positive role models in his life, in the form of his police officer father Jefferson (Henry), who wants Miles to attend a private school so he could make the most of his potential, and Uncle Aaron (Ali), who is the cool, fun uncle.   You know things will get ominous with Aaron when his voicemail states, "I'm out of town for a few days,"   

Into the Spider Verse has a comic book look and feel alternating with nearly lifelike animation.    The effect is invigorating and alive.   Both Jefferson and Aaron, in their own ways, love Miles and want to help him.   Miles also has a burgeoning relationship with Gwen Stacy (Steinfeld), which might actually come to pass in say, an alternate universe.   Kingpin is a square-shouldered hulk in a black suit with a head that seems to peer out from his chest instead of those massive shoulders.    Even Kingpin's mission has sad, personal, and regretful undertones.    

This version of Spider Man won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and it is an inventive (sometimes too much so) version of a story we have seen many times before.    It isn't just an animated Spider Man cash grab.   And we even see a Stan Lee cameo, which sadly we will never see again.