There’s plenty to be said for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the sequel to the superhero picture that put itself a cut above the great spandex deluge by inventively, faithfully emulating the whiz-bang excitement of reading actual comic books as a kid. Like its 2018 predecessor, the newly released follow-up genuflects to its splashy source medium as it pushes the boundaries of animation, mashing up styles and textures into a free-associative, hyperkinetic torrent of psychedelic lines and color. The everything-at-once maximalist aesthetic befits a premise that explodes the wall between text and metatext with its setting in a multiverse of overlapping narratives, a pileup of Marvel-branded continuities.
And yet for all its cleverness in conception and design, the overall quotient of pound-for-pound entertainment has slipped in a difficult-to-pinpoint way. Where the last installment slingshotted its audience through a taut, rewarding and complete remix of Spidey mythology, this one – which clocks in well past the two-hour mark – lags behind its own allegro rhythm, sluggish as Miles Morales weightlessly web-slings through a bustling Manhattan.
