Wow… Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the most movie I think I’ve ever seen. It’s a wildly over-stimulated, hyperactive, visually stunning, hyper-kinetic, full-tilt boogie, dazzling, chaotic pieces of pop art sensory overload. And it somehow works perfectly. It could have – and probably should have – flown off the rails at any point and yet it maintained focus. It’s amazing… you could even say spectacular.

The flick picks up a couple years after Into the Spider-Verse. Miles has grown up a bit and is doing his best crimefighting for New York. But he’s alone and misses Gwen Stacey. He has to contend with college plans while fighting his “arch nemesis” The Spot… a villain-of-the-week if there ever was one. And then the whole multiverse thing kicks in and Gwen stops by for a visit.

If I said this movie is an explosion of comic book art, impressionism, surrealism, water color, scribbles, and Saturday Morning cartoons, you’d think I was describing the first movie. But you have no idea. Across the Spider-Verse takes everything that worked so well in the first film and amps it up. AMPS IT UP. The whole movie is an exclamation point, a question mark, a goddamn interobang. It works every last synapse in your brain with its wild abandon of art, style, music, and action.

I was a little let down by the final act of the previous film… it’s why I only gave it 4 stars. But this movie somehow manages to maintain a tight grip on its story, pacing, and editing while going for broke harder than anyone’s ever gone broke before. It’s wildly impressive that this film works and works flawlessly. The action set pieces are so much more energetic and alive, so much more ripped from other animated formats, so much cooler… all set to an incredible propulsive soundtrack and fluid animation. Again, you could say that about the previous film… but that movie was just a warm-up.

I loved that it’s as long as it is since it gives us a lot of emotional, personal, human moments in between the cool. Miles’ mom gets a lot more screen-time to bond with her son and when Miles and Gwen going on a swingin’ date (so to speak), it’s cute and charming and cool all at the same time. For as big and rambunctious as this movie is, it keeps things personal and human. And that had to have been a serious tight-rope to walk.

I’m positive I missed so much of the movie for not being a hardcore Webhead. There are so many visual references to comic book Spiderman variations that you know there’s a fanatic readying a two hour YouTube explainer video even as you read this. The film even occasionally throws us a bone with on-screen text explanations of who some of these characters are. And, importantly, I never once felt lost. It didn’t rely on my previous knowledge… I acknowledged the references but they didn’t require me to understand them. I just went with it, trusting the screenwriter knew their business and would keep the story moving.

I absolutely loved the ending cut to credits… though I could imagine some might not. My audience groaned and laughed at the same time before erupting in applause (which, trust me, rarely ever happens at my movie theater). It’s such a propulsive, hype-building cool leadup that you have to admire the chutzpah.

I loved this movie. I’m startled and stunned (and a little dizzy from the repeated knocks to the senses) at how good it is and how much I liked it more than Into the Spider-Verse (which was great). This flick ups the ante with an even bigger pop-explosion while giving us a bigger story that’s just as human, if not more so. It’s a remarkable film on a kinetic, experiential – and tangibly human – level.

Score: 95