Directing: A-
Acting: A-
Writing: B+
Cinematography: A-
Editing: A-
Animation: A+
Special Effects: A-

Some movies take a while to make clear they are great. Some take a few scenes, a few minutes, for it to sink in that you are watching something special. Once every few years, sometimes even a lot longer, a movie comes along that confidently announces it stands apart as of its opening frame.

The fact that Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is one of those movies is just one of many reasons why I love it. A movie this good that’s a sequel skirts the edges of astonishment. Would it be hyperbole to utter this film title in the same breath as The Empire Strikes Back? The Godfather Part II? Maybe. Time will tell. Right now, I am sorely tempted. I mean, I just did it.

I had been deeply impressed with this film’s predecessor, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse when it was released in 2018. It blew me away, and a film so skillfully nuanced, funny, entertaining and beautiful that was both a superhero movie and an animated feature almost defied belief. To say it exceeded expectations would be an understatement. What’s even more amazing is that there’s a strong argument to be made that Across the Spider-Verse is even better.

Its three-person writing team has only one in common with the first film (Phil Lord), and its three-person directing team is entirely new (including Soul co-director Kemp Powers). By definition, they still have to explore the endless possibilities of the wildly overused “multiverse” concept, but these animated films about it not only find almost shockingly clever angles with it, but actually improve with their own iterations. Somehow the convoluted plot mechanics actually make more sense this time around.

And they take their time with it: this movie is 140 minutes long—a record for an animated film—and it doesn’t even finish the story. I’m being careful not to spoil plot details here, but I do think it’s useful to know that the original title for this film was indeed officially Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Part 1. Now they’ve dropped the Part 1 and the next installment will be called Beyond the Spider-Verse. It remains a part 1, though: with tons of story left to go, the film ends with a comic-book style caption: To Be Continued. It was an entertaining experience being in a theater full of people who did not already know to expect this. It was a unique combination of sounds that emitted out of the crowd.

And I cannot stress this enough: those minutes truly fly by. Like its predecessor, the animation is a sight to behold, that being the only consistency across different and distinct animation styles depending on the dimension we’re in. My favorite is the dimension the film opens in—after thrillingly rendered, animated title sequences that flip through dimension styles even through the many production company logos—which is the one home to “Spider-Gwen” (Hailey Steinfeld). The animation itself responds to characters’ emotional states, the colors of their environment flowing in waves away from them like water color paint.

Every style of animation is beautiful, though, an impressive feat given the many different, wildly differing styles, many of them clear visual references to literal comic book drawing and painting styles. This is the kind of literalization in adaptation that movies like this need, giving it a visual depth that augments the incisively written script. The spectacular action sequences are almost incidental, even as they serve the story rather than the other way around, and we become deeply emotionally invested in the relationships—particularly those between the title character, Miles Morales (Shameik Moore, reprising the role even though he’s aged five years whereas teenage Miles is only supposed to be a year older—Moore was in his twenties either way) and his parents (Luna Lauren Vélez and Brian Tyree Henry, both fantastic); also Gwen Stacey and her father (Shea Whigham, voicing a man beautifully drawn). And, of course, Miles and Gwen, whose romantic potential remains a question, whether or not they will be dimension-crossed lovers.

I even liked the villain better this time around, given the knowingly on-the-nose name of “The Spot,” and voiced by Jason Schwartzman. Due to an accident with an Alchemax collider, he’s been rendered a white body with black spots, all of which can be used as portals. The Spider-Verse films are never content with keeping things simple, though, and an alternate dimension Spider-Man from 2099 (Oscar Isaac) seem to exist in a gray area between heroism and villainy.

Across the Spider-Verse reportedly has settings in six different dimensions, but there are channel-surf-like movements through many more, most of which are delightful surprises that I won’t spoil. I simply have to mention my favorite, however, even though few others will care about it as much as I do: “Mumbattan,” which basically splices together Mumnai with Manhattan, and features an Indian Spider-Man named Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni, previously featured in the Deadpool films). Once Miles, Gwen, Spider-Man 2099 and yet another dimensional badass Spider-Woman (Issa Rae) who has her own motorcycle enter the Mumbattan dimension, we are treated to an extended sequence with both fantastic action and a lot of very funny gags that should land well with South Asians. (This is some excellently integrated content for potential international audiences.)

There is an incredible number of characters in this film, apparently some 240 of them, a whole bunch of them in a spectacularly funny and entertaining action sequences featuring seemingly infinite versions of Spider-People (or in multiple cases, Spider-Animals). The humor and gags in this movie come at such an unusually fast and steady clip, I am eager to see it again just to see what I missed the first time around. And this is in the same movie that had me so deeply absorbed in its story and its characters that I actually got misty-eyed. It can be hard to trust any assertion that a movie has everything you could possibly want and more, but in this case, you can take that to the bank. The movie’s producers almost certainly will. This movie is a truly amazing specimen of cinematic craft.

*There is simply nothing not to love about this movie.*

Overall: A-