by Callum McAvoy, reporter

After seven Spider-Man movies in the last 16 years, you’d think that we would have seen everything the Webslinger has to offer. Into the Spider-Verse shows that we have only just scratched the surface.

There is often debate over who is the best movie Spider-Man. For many, it is Tobey Maguire in the beloved Sam Raimi trilogy. Others prefer Andrew Garfield’s incarnation in the (not so) Amazing Spiderman movies. And Tom Holland has delighted audiences ever since he swung into action in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Whilst all are great, all portrayed the Peter Parker version of the hero and have pretty much exhausted the best stories.

Where Into the Spider-Verse differs (and succeeds), is by shifting the narrative onto young Miles Morales. Morales, a teenager living in Brooklyn, is having a hard time. He’s adjusting to a new school he hates, has a strained relationship with his cop father and would much rather live with his estranged Uncle Aaron Davies.

But Morales’ life changed forever, after receiving spiderlike superpowers and meeting a Peter Parker Spider-Man from another dimension. From there it’s a wild adventure as Morales and Parker team up with various other Spider-Men and Women from different worlds in order to stop the Kingpin from enacting his evil plan.

By focusing on Morales and setting up a Karate Kid style, eager student and reluctant mentor relationship between Morales and Parker, the Webslinger’s story get a breath of fresh air, whilst retaining all the core values that we know the superhero represents.

With so many new characters to introduce, the movie risks losing the casual viewer under a heap of exposition, but a mix of quick pacing and snappy introductory scenes, allows everyone to understand and enjoy everything going on, whilst simultaneously making us laugh with every line of dialogue.

There are some cracking quips throughout. One Spider-Man 3 joke within the first 30 seconds had my entire cinema rolling, whilst the post-credits scene is so funny, it alone might just be worth the price of admission.

But for all the comedy, the movie never loses its heart, and emotional moments between Morales and his family as well as the other Spider-People hit hard. The movie’s message that anyone and everyone can be a hero well done and something that the late Stan Lee and Steve Ditko would have been proud of.

Their tributes during the credits, as well as Lee’s cameo, I must admit, bought a tear to the eye.

All characters are expertly portrayed by a stellar voice cast including Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali and Nicolas Cage, who voices the scene-stealing Spider-Noir, a black and white, trench coat wearing wall crawler.

Above all else though the best thing about Into the Spider-Verse is the animation. Every frame of this movie is painstakingly detailed to look and feel like you’re reading a comic book. Thought bubbles pop up when appropriate, action scenes are filled with dramatic words appearing, whilst character movements are almost stop motion like. The mix of hand drawn animation and computer-generated imagery is perfect. It’s unique, immersive and way better than it has any right to be.

The soundtrack and score as well are sublime and truly allow you to escape into Morales’ world.

If I could have one criticism, it would be that the movie could afford to have slowed down during certain moments. Certain character developments and relationships might have benefitted from a bit more conversation instead of jumping quickly into the next action set piece.

That being said, it’s a minor fault and one that does not detract from the overall quality in any way.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is quite simply one of if the not the best superhero movies ever made and is quite possibly one of the best animated movies of all time.

And that’s no exaggeration. It really is that good.