One thing I loved more than anything else was the continuous use of comic book-y effects, such as a slight pencil marking coming out of a tap on a wall, the changing background as an item is being thrown, white outlines around gwen in her flashback, just small touches of visual flare everywhere that really show you the fingerprints of each animator and where their minds were. It shows itself in a variety of ways throughout and the ideas were all put together so nicely it's hard to pick out a single moment that didn't fit with something else, such as the really out-there and zany way of dealing with the "discovering spiderman powers" type of scene, the most cartoonishly as it's ever been done, really contrasting well with gwen's personality and the relationship she shares with miles.
The film's use of color gives me heart palpitations. It's gorgeous and so unique and creative, almost every shot makes me happy. Some of them just make me straight up giddy, i love the neon color distortion outlines.
I also gotta give this movie insane props for making miles morales an actually really interesting, likable character throughout the film. I'll never see him in the same way after this, this has spoiled me. He's great in this. Peter Parker as a sort of jaded dude is hilarious to be honest. Noir Spiderman and Weeb Spidergirl are funny, but peter porker... why was he there? It was fun to see the 2-D animations put to use there tho
The one other complaint I'd give the movie is its western animated cheese which no western animated movie really seems to be able to shake off. Stuff like repeating lines that were said before in the show to now without any real meaning behind them always feel awkward and it's no exception here, but I'm not going to be too hard on it for that just because how damn good some of the writing is. It's straightforward but it's really genuine at times, it was hard despite the movie's sony-ness for the passion the creators obviously felt in creating it, to not come across in the writing just through the expression of the visuals alone at times. The entire scene where miles's dad was talking to him through the door made my heart hurt. I loved it. So it cancels out most of the awkwardness the movie has, especially between gwen and miles. it's a bit generic between them besides for visually, and their relationship brings nothing new to the table.
Kingpin is lovely. His design makes me laugh every fuckin time I see it. The rest of the villains were alright, doc ock most notably was good. Aunt may's portrayal is also lovely, i adore her. She's hilarious, and probably has some of the best lines. "Oh, it's liv."
Just amazing. The scene where they're all in her house fighting is probably my favorite action scene in the movie because of how seamlessly it blends action and comedy into a single sequence. The directing for that part may have been the best in the whole movie.
But that's not to downplay the final act. Usually superhero movies and animated action movies have a shared problem: the final act being weak. This one did NOT share that problem to the same degree at all. It used everything it had been building the whole time to give us what we would have wanted, a visual LSD trip of pure creativity driven by dimensional shifts (SO much fun to animate, i'd imagine) some great fight choreography, pacing, and an actual sad moment for fisk that actually kind of haunted me, his glitched family appearing on the train. Even though it did have to end with another rehashed one-liner, this finale didn't disappoint me overall like say, Big Hero 6's did.
Can we also talk about how fucking hilarious this film is visually? Because it made me laugh a lot. Out loud. The writing could make me cringe a few times, sure, but it's like a totally different writer came in to do some of those jokes, their delivery is perfect and it's just... mm, YES. Erases all the cringe.
I think everyone's really overlooked something major about the film though, and that's our favorite uncle character, who was revealed to be the prowler and then promptly killed. This to me was very unexpected, but at the same time when it was all over, it felt a bit cheap and convenient compared to other moments of character deaths. Like, we never got his motivations or anything, just a reason to give miles grief when he died. I'm not taking points off for this though since it genuinely made me sad anyways and there may be some kind of plot point i was missing here. It needed to be said.
