Review #1,456: 'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse' (2018)

When Sony announced a year or so ago that they were planning an animated take on the Spider-Man character, the question was asked by even the most hardcore of fans of whether yet another incarnation of everybody's favourite web-crawler can really be justified. After all, in the last 17 years alone, there's been Sam Raimi's popular trilogy starring Tobey Maguire, Marc Webb's ill-fated reboot in 2012, and most recently Tom Holland has donned the mask for the hero's introduction into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse doesn't only introduce a new Spidey in the form of Miles Morales, but also includes two versions of Peter Parker, as well as four other versions of the world's most popular superhero. The fact that the film isn't a cluster-fuck is a miracle in itself. The fact that this is the best Spider-Man movie ever made is something else entirely.

Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is an average teenager who, like the majority of kids his age, look up to and admire their friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man (Chris Pine). When he isn't in school, Miles divides his time between his over-protective police officer father (Brian Tyree Henry) and his cooler, scrappier Uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali). The latter encourages his nephew's passion for graffiti art, and as Miles works on his new project in an abandoned subway station, he is bitten by a radioactive spider. He starts to stick to his classmates and hear a voice-over in his head (one of the film's many clever ways of bringing the comic-book page to life), but he is faced with his biggest dilemma when he accidentally stumbles upon Spider-Man battling the Kingpin (Liev Schreiber), who is working on a particle accelerator with the ability to access parallel dimensions. The fight ends in disaster, with the machine opening up wormholes long enough to bring a host of parallel Spider-People into their world.

With Kingpin threatening to reactivate the device and destroy the city, Miles carries the fate of his friends and family with him, but he is not alone. Helping the youngster master his new abilities are the overweight Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), Spider-Woman aka Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), the black-and-white Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), wise-cracking cartoon Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), and SP//dr, a spider-controlled robot who shares a telepathic link with a young Japanese girl (Kimiko Glenn). Such a large collection of characters who each share similar yet personal origins could have been an overload, but directors Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman - working from a script by Rothman and Phil Lord - wisely keep the focus on Miles, with the rest serving as the new Spider-Man's mentor in their own unique way. Rather than steal the attention away from Miles, the gang actually get to the root of what makes Spider-Man such a compelling hero. They may all be plagued by tragedy and loss, but they will prevail in their battle against evil with fearless determination and good humour. Spider-Verse understands the character better than Sam Raimi, Marc Webb and Jon Watts ever could, as good as some of the previous films have been.

This new host of Spider-People also provide some of the film's funniest moments, whether it be overly-serious brooding of Cage's Noir or the madcap anime weirdness of SP//dr. It's ever funnier than Homecoming, a film which embraced the comedic side of the hero, and isn't afraid to take hilarious digs at the failures of its predecessors (we all remember the Spider-Man 3 emo-dance and face-jiggle). Most impressive of all is Spider-Verse's groundbreaking animation, which combines various styles and techniques to create a truly stimulating experience that could be paused at any moment and admired as a stunning piece of art. The sight of Spider-Man gliding through the city skyline back in 2002 will forever remain iconic, but Miles' first leap from the edge of a building will inspire a whole new generation of fans with its vertigo-inducing imagery and dazzling neon colours. Of course, this would all be decoration if the characters and story didn't captivate, but Spider-Verse achieves this in abundance. Miles is a great hero to root for: confidant enough to justify his new power set, yet bumbling enough to be relatable to any teenagers watching. Fantastic all-round, and fully deserving of its recent Oscar win for Best Animated Feature.


Directed by: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman
Voices: Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry, Lily Tomlin, John Mulaney
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,446: 'Widows' (2018)

When 12 Years a Slave took home the Best Picture Academy Award back in 2013, many of us expected director Steve McQueen to go even bigger and more ambitious with his next project. After all, his previous films Hunger and Shame were hardly lacking in scope and weight. It's taken five years to finally arrive, but McQueen's new film Widows, adapted from the 1983 ITV drama series of the same name, takes his work into a whole new territory: the genre movie. Yes, Widows seemingly follows the traditions of the great heist movies of old, with Michael Mann's Thief and Heat coming immediately to mind, taking a crack team and handing them a near-impossible task which they must plan with expert precision if they ever hope to pull it off. It would seem that, on paper at least, McQueen has taken it down a notch, but by taking on such a familiar story, the writer/director has given himself an even greater task.

Widows opens with the immediate aftermath of a heist gone awry. We watch from inside a speeding van as the wounded gang make their getaway, with their gun-toting victims and the police giving chase. The twist is that they all perish in a warehouse explosion, with the stolen $2 million going up in flames with them. The gang's widows are the ones left feeling the aftershocks: not only are they left grieving for their husbands, but the guy they stole from - alderman campaigner and community leader Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry) - wants his money back. Veronica (Viola Davis) takes the reigns when she finds her husband's notebook, which contains a detailed plan for a heist worth $5 million. Two of the other widows - Alice (Elizabeth Debicki) and Linda (Michelle Rodrgiguez) - have their own financial problems, so they agree to take on the job when Veronica comes a-knocking. They really have no choice. It's either find the money, or Jamal's psychopathic brother Jatemme (a frightening Daniel Kaluuya) will kill them and take everything they own anyway.

McQueen's task here is to deconstruct a slice of popcorn cinema and add the kind of punch and social commentary that made his previous work so great. He does so effortlessly, carefully developing each of the leads and making their story believable, later drafting in a fourth member in the form of Belle (Cynthia Erivo), a single mother working multiple jobs to pay the rent. McQueen and co-writer Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl) keep the action fast-paced and brutal, so the 130-minute running time breezes by. If there's a complaint to be had, it's that the film is too short and often feels crammed with too many characters and side-stories. Thrown into the mix is Jamal's campaign opposition Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell), who has had past dealings with Veronica's husband Harry (Liam Neeson) but has come to the realisation that the political manoeuvring of his elderly father (Robert Duvall) is no longer feasible. Like the series it was based on, Widows may have worked better unravelling over the course of a few episodes. But this may have prevented McQueen from reminding us why he is one of the most important directors working today, as he takes the time to deliver a jaw-dropping shot from the side of a car that shows how quickly a city landscape can shift from dire poverty to luxurious wealth, and a run-in with some trigger-happy police that will remain with you long after the credits have rolled.


Directed by: Steve McQueen
Starring: Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Liam Neeson, Carrie Coon
Country: UK/USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,442: 'White Boy Rick' (2018)

If you've ever read up on Richard Wershe Jr, the drug kingpin whose life became the stuff of legend in the prion system over the years, you'll likely be aware that he was used as an FBI informant at just 14 years of age, while the Bureau funded his empire to keep him slinging on the streets and in the loop with any other criminal activity happening in his city of Detroit. After the FBI higher-ups discovered his age, they ditched him, and the dealer known as 'White Boy Rick' was eventually busted for selling cocaine and sentence to life in prison, a ridiculous sentence handed out via some Draconian law that has since been discarded. It's a fascinating, frustrating story that you wouldn't believe if it wasn't true, but Yann Demange's new film White Boy Rick doesn't quite know how to tell it. With so much to be told, the film seems to cast aside the central plot in favour of a domestic drama which, although terrifically acted by the whole cast, doesn't know where its priorities should lie.

We first meet the young Rick (Richie Merritt) at a gun show with his father Richard Sr. (Matthew McConaughey). Despite his baby face and bum-fluff upper-lip hair, Rick is confident and street-smart, teaming up with Old Man Wershe to hustle a salesman into selling two machine guns for a ridiculously knocked-down price. Rick Sr. deals guns for a living, but the business is far from prosperous, and he dreams of someday owning a video store and living within the law. His daughter Dawn (Bel Powley) has picked up a nasty drug habit, and the family-of-three regularly have shouting matches in the street. Luckily, Grandpa (Bruce Dern) and Grandma (Piper Laurie) are just down the street to lighten the mood. After pulling off a few arms deals with gangster 'Lil Man' Curry (Jonathan Majors), Rick Jr. works his way into the cocaine business under the wing of an African-American gang. It doesn't take him long to get busted, but FBI agents Snyder (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Byrd (Rory Cochrane), along with Detroit PD Detective Jackson (Brian Tyree Henry), are quick to pounce, handing the juvenile a fat pouch of cocaine to keep him in action, promising protection in exchange for information.

It's around this point that the script by Andy Weiss, Logan Miller and Noah Miler starts to lose control, struggling to grasp the message it's trying to convey in a blur of competing plot threads. The family drama at the very centre of Rick's life is given the most attention, and it's engrossing, often devastatingly raw stuff. Powley and McConaughey are standouts, the former wrestling with an addiction spiralling rapidly out of control and the latter blaming himself for the path his son has decided to take. Rick Sr. hates drugs because they devastate lives, yet his guns are used for multiple murders across the city. The domestic scenes are so well done that you almost forget there's another story being told, one that is setting Rick up for a lengthy term in slammer. So when these moments arrive, you never really understand what's going on.

Why exactly would the FBI put so much trust in a 14 year-old relatively new to the drugs scene, and just what does White Boy Rick do on a day-to-day basis? We don't really see him selling drugs, or spending money, or setting up contacts, or building this so-called empire, so Rick's real status and influence remains a mystery. Even his occasional meetings with Snyder and Bird are brief and bereft of information. Demange wants to make the point that Rick was ultimately set up by a government willing to ruthlessly exploit a minor for their own benefit, yet with so little time developing his criminal activities and relationship with the authorities, this aspect almost feels like an afterthought. As a portrait of family dysfunction, White Boy Rick excels, but if you want to really learn about how Richard Wershe Jr went from bread-line gun-runner to FBI informant to a landing a brutally unfair life sentence, I would opt for a Google.


Directed by: Yann Demange
Starring: Richie Merritt, Matthew McConaughey, Bel Powley, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Rory Cochrane, Brian Tyree Henry, Jonathan Majors, Bruce Dern, Piper Laurie
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie