In 2018, Into the Spider-Verse came out and impressed the hell out of me. While I’m old-school enough to prefer Peter Parker to Miles Morales, I appreciate Miles, and have enjoyed his various adventures. Into the Spider-Verse was a great story and a fantastic adventure. I was excited when they said there would be another movie, and it was worth the wait. Across the Spider-Verse is finally here, and it definitely doesn’t disappoint.

The movie starts off with a different focus, spending the opening several scenes with a different character, and telling us more about their story. It’s a good opening with a different spin on the familiar story of Spider-Man. It was a good piece of storytelling and gave us more background on a character the first movie didn’t tell us a lot about.

Eventually, of course, we get back to Miles. He’s dealing with a new villain and the complications a secret identity can cause in your life. Personally, that’s one of the reasons I like the concept, and one of my few ongoing issues with the MCU: they seem to be doing everything they can to get rid of this very central piece of superhero mythos.

Gradually, we learn a great deal more about the events that led to Miles’ origin, and how the various worlds of the Spider-Verse work. There are a lot of surprising reveals about Miles, and a few other characters as well. Even the seemingly joke villain turns out to be a bit more important than we are first led to believe.

The movie, like the one before it, manages a great blend of action, character development, and humor. There are some big surprises that I didn’t see coming. We get introduced to a new Spider-Man, and that whole sequence was really done and entertaining. But it wasn’t just a fun side trip; it led to a major reveal. By the end of the movie, who the bad guy or guys are is really open to debate. The movie ends on a cliffhanger, so be warned about that going in.

What I Liked: This take on Miles and Gwen is fantastic. I really appreciate the character development. The secrets that come out manage to be surprising and not at all contradict what we’ve seen so far. Miles is a hero through and through, and it’s great to watch him, and his family. It was great seeing so many different versions of Spider-Man from so many different shows and ideas turn up. I think the only one they left out was the 70’s live action tv show.

What I Didn’t: Miguel O’Hara has been a character I’ve enjoyed since he first showed up in his initial comic run by the amazingly talented Peter David. I didn’t like how he ended up being portrayed here. Also, if I follow the way events are supposed to work for “real” Spider-Men, Miguel shouldn’t be in the position he’s in. Some of the characters I really enjoyed from the first movie don’t come back here, and I wish they had.

Despite my comments above, I really enjoyed this movie a lot. I thought it was fantastic in almost every regard, and I’m really looking forward to the next one. I’m also a bit disappointed to hear the third one is going to be the last. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll rethink that. I’m giving this a 4.5 out of 5.