Jake Johnson

Review of “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”

Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) is a high school kid starting in a new honors boarding school in his Brooklyn neighborhood. His father is Jefferson Davis (voiced by Brian Tyree Henry), a cop, and his mother is Rio Morales (voiced by Lauren Luna Velez), a nurse. They want the best for their son, but Miles would rather go back to his public high school. His uncle Aaron (voiced by Mahershala Ali) is on the outs with Jefferson, but Miles looks up to him. Aaron supports Miles’ artistic talents and takes him to an abandoned subway tunnel where he can paint a graffiti mural on a blank wall. While down there, a genetically modified spider from a nearby lab bites Miles, beginning his transformation into Spider-Man. Meanwhile, Wilson Fisk (voiced by Liev Schreiber), is in that lab attempting to fire up a particle collider and Spider-Man (voiced by Chris Pine) is trying to stop him. While looking for his Uncle Aaron, Miles stumbles into the fight between Spider-Man, Green Goblin (voiced by Jorma Toccone), Scorpion (voiced by Joaquin Cosio) and other of Fisk’s henchmen. Spider-Man senses Miles has powers as well and saves Miles when he nearly falls to his death. Spider-Man has a flash drive he needs to insert into a panel at the top of the collider to shut it down but never gets the chance before the device is turned on. The collider creates rifts in the fabric of reality, pulling several Spider-people from other realities. The collider explodes, injuring Spider-Man. He gives Miles the flash drive and tells him stopping Fisk from restarting the collider is the only thing that will save all of reality. Miles runs away, and Fisk kills Spider-Man. Miles visits Peter Parker’s grave, wondering what he’s going to do as he doesn’t know how to be Spider-Man. That’s when alternate universe Peter B. Parker (voiced by Jake Johnson) approaches Miles. This Parker is a little chubby and older than the Spider-Man Miles knows. He figures out the only way he can get back to his reality is to take the flash drive and turn the collider back on, but Miles needs to destroy the collider to fulfill his promise to his Spider-Man. Parker is reluctant but sees potential in Miles and agrees to train him. When a raid on Fisk’s laboratory goes wrong, Gwen Stacy, aka Spider-Woman (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld) shows up to help. Then Peter, Miles and Gwen meet Spider-Man from the 1930’s (voiced by Nicolas Cage), Peni Parker (voiced by Kimiko Glenn) from a future Tokyo where she operates a robot powered by a radioactive spider, and Spider-Ham (voiced by John Mulaney), a talking pig named Peter Porker. Together they team up to face off against Fisk and his henchmen. If they don’t get back to their respective realities, they will painfully die.

“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” is probably the ultimate Spider-Man movie. Since it’s animation, anything can happen, and it does in this film. It takes versions of Spider-Man that have only been seen in comics and video games and brings them all together for an adventure that’s as much about growing up and finding your way in the world as it is about learning to use and control your newly acquired powers and stopping the bad guy’s evil plan.

The animation style of the film is a mixture of computer graphics, comic book wording popping up in the frame, color splashes and random geometric shapes, and simpler animation reminiscent of Tom and Jerry and Bugs Bunny cartoons of the 1940’s and 1950’s. All these styles combine to create a unique and visually stunning movie that always has something interesting to look at.

For a moment, I thought I had walked into a 3D showing of the film as characters appeared to have halos around them or they were split. It is the filmmaker’s way of making sure you focus on the right character. The person speaking, or the one we should be paying attention to, is in focus, while any secondary characters are slightly blurry. It doesn’t happen in every scene as there are often multiple characters we should be focused on, but it does happen often enough that I noticed it.

The story of Miles, his interactions with the various Spider-powered people (and pig) that show up, his lack of confidence in himself and his abilities and the stress of being a kid with superpowers is all part of this hero’s journey. It is a well-told origin story that manages to juggle nearly a dozen characters in a way a live-action film couldn’t handle. Perhaps it’s the actor’s voices are what’s on display instead of their faces that makes the difference. Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man 3” was criticized for having too many villains. While “…Spider-Verse” actually has more bad guys taking an active role in the story, most of them are only henchmen we see for a couple of action scenes with the story focusing on three villainous characters. If you tried to have as many bad guys in a live-action film, you’d have egos flaring up over a lack of screen time. Here, some of the villains are only used to physically challenge our heroes and have very few lines. It’s a smart way to provide fan service, showing some of the better-known Spider-Man baddies while being able to focus on three primary villains. The same can be said for the Spider-Heroes as Miles, Peter and Gwen are the leads and Noir, Peni and Ham are used mostly for comic relief or as a diversion. It is a smart division of labor that allows for more characters and more for the fans to see and enjoy.

The voice performances are all great, but I must confess my favorite was John Mulaney. While Spider-Ham doesn’t get much screen time, Mulaney always delivers a strong line reading and a punchline delivered with the polish one would expect from a popular touring standup comic. I wouldn’t have minded getting more Spider-Ham in the film, but this wasn’t his story; however, spin-off films are being discussed at Sony Animation and my vote is for Peter Porker to get a movie, even direct to Blu-Ray or VOD, about his reality where animals talk and some have superpowers.

“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” is rated PG for frenetic sequences of animated action violence, thematic elements, and mild language. While the death of Peter Parker isn’t shown, it is obvious what happens to him. There are several fight scenes with bizarre villains and the Spider-People. We also see Miles try out his spider powers and fail spectacularly with his falling from a great height. Miles is threatened with death from a bad guy, but the bad guy refuses to kill him and the bad guy is then shot by Wilson Fisk. In all the deaths we don’t see any blood. Foul language is limited to the use of the world “Hell.”

Stan Lee has a cameo in the film as the clerk at a costume shop where Miles buys a Spider-Man costume. His lines speak to loss, making it all the more touching since his death in November. There is also a tribute card in the credits to both Lee and Steve Ditko. Without these two visionaries, both of whom died this year, we wouldn’t have this amazing and thrilling cinematic world filled with flawed heroes given extraordinary gifts and the wonderous deeds they perform. This version of the web head (or heads) is a refreshing take on a character that has had too many reboots over the last several years. Perhaps the best way for Sony to continue to make money with Spider-Man is to keep him in the animated realm. As long as they keep making films as good as this one, I will keep giving them my money.

“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” gets five stars.

For my review of “The Mule” starring Clint Eastwood, click below:

The Mule

It’s a busy week at your local multiplex as the holiday releases are all hoping to capture your pocket jingle. I’ll see and review at least one of the following:

Opening Wednesday:
Mary Poppins Returns—

Opening Friday:
Aquaman—

Bumblebee—

Second Act—

Welcome to Marwen—

Listen to The Fractured Frame for movie, TV and streaming news available wherever you get podcasts. Follow me on Twitter @moviemanstan and send emails to stanthemovieman123@gmail.com.

Review of “The Mummy”

Nick Morton and Chris Vail (Tom Cruise and Jake Johnson) are Army recon soldiers that are supposed to be scouting for insurgents but have decided to go on a search for antiquities they can steal and sell on the black market. While scouting a small town in Iraq they are attacked by insurgents and Chris calls in a drone strike. The missiles drive away the enemy fighters and open a hole in the ground showing a massive chamber with what appear to be Egyptian carvings and artifacts. Archeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) is called in to investigate. Nick, Chris and Jenny all repel into the cavern and find it stuffed with Egyptian statues and hieroglyphics which is unusual since they are 1000 miles away from Egypt. Reading the hieroglyphs and examining the statuary, Jenny realizes this isn’t a tomb but a prison for whoever is buried there. At the bottom of a pool of mercury is the sarcophagus of Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella). Princess Ahmanet was next in line to be ruler of Egypt centuries earlier but her father’s second wife had a male baby making him the next in line for the throne. Making a deal with the god of death Set, Ahmanet killed her father, his wife and their baby and prepared to sacrifice her lover so Set could use him as a receptacle and walk the Earth once again where he and Ahmanet would rule for eternity. Her father’s servants stopped the sacrifice and captured Ahmanet, mummifying her alive and burying her in that pit far from Egypt. The markings on the chain around the pool show anyone that exhumes the princess is cursed. Never one to believe in such things, Nick breaks the chain and the sarcophagus rises from the mercury. While flying the sarcophagus to London a flock of crows crash into the plane and cause it to crash. Nick puts a parachute on Jenny and forces her off the plane. It crashes and kills everyone else on board…except for Nick who wakes up in a body bag in a morgue. Surprised to see him alive, Jenny introduces Nick to her boss Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe) who explains Jenny works for his organization that seeks out and attempts to contain or destroy the monsters that roam the Earth, Princess Ahmanet is one of those monsters and Nick’s actions in the chamber has cursed him to be the new vessel for Set.

I left out a great deal in this plot synopsis such as Vail being bitten by a large insect in the chamber and becoming an undead slave of Ahmanet’s, how Ahmanet actually sucks the life out of victims to rebuild her decayed body and the various artifacts in Dr. Jekyll’s lab that suggest the other monsters coming to Universal’s Dark Universe. There’s a great deal going on in “The Mummy” and much of it is noisy filler to get from one heavily CGI action set piece to another. Is it a good movie? No but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t see it.

“The Mummy” is the modern version of a popcorn movie. The kind of film that doesn’t have much of a reason to exist except to let you forget what’s going on in the outside world and just turn off your brain for a couple of hours. The characters are largely forgettable, the story is frequently incoherent and the resolution is about as surprising as starting your car (although I have owned cars where it frequently surprised me both by starting and not starting).

It could have been much more interesting. For instance, it won’t surprise anyone that Tom Cruise’s Nick is the hero of the film. While his character is introduced as someone that is morally questionable, once the weirdness starts he takes on the very familiar role as a good guy with a few minor and unconvincing attempts to suggest otherwise. Since “The Mummy” is the first of a series of monster movies, why not make Nick the King of the Monsters. Not Godzilla but the leader of the Universal classic monsters this film is meant to anchor: Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, Bride of Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Gill Man (or Creature from the Black Lagoon if you prefer) and the Invisible Man. Nick, who doesn’t leave the film the same as when it started, could be the leader of the group and try to establish a worldwide syndicate of evil with all these creatures. Instead, Nick is a monster with a heart of gold, keeping Cruise as a lovable hero that sacrifices his humanity for the greater good. It might have worked with a character that was more predictably selfish throughout the movie but Cruise is constantly putting himself in harm’s way to save the girl or stop the monster or whatever. His actions late in the film don’t really come across as a surprise as we already know Nick is deep down a really good person that maybe had to bend and break the rules on occasion to make enough money to take care of his sick mother (we don’t know why Nick is stealing and selling antiquities as that isn’t explained in the film). Complicating Nick more would have gone a long way to making his choices more surprising and making the story more interesting.

The story is merely a scaffold to get us from one action scene to the next. Whether the cast is running from a destructive sandstorm in downtown London or fighting to escape Ahmanet’s skeletal soldiers, the script is light on dialog and heavy on CGI monsters and various crashes. Russell Crowe’s Dr. Jekyll gets the unenviable task of being Mr. Exposition. His character, either in voiceover or on screen, explains pretty much everything going on in the movie. From the life and death of Ahmanet to the existence of his monster squad, Crowe is responsible for filling in the audience. For an actor that has won an Oscar and performed in countless dramatic films, this is really a big step down in quality. You can’t help but feel like Crowe took the part for the paycheck and for the possibility of fairly steady work for the next decade if all these monster movies get made (I wouldn’t bet on that happening). He only gets turned loose when Mr. Hyde comes out to play and that isn’t often enough or long enough.

Despite all the problems, if you can just let the movie wash over you like a warm ocean wave it has a fair amount of entertainment leaking out of it. Even with the abundant CGI, the action scenes are for the most part pretty good. While Tom Cruise running in his movies has become something of a joke (you could probably edit together all his running scenes into a feature length movie), Cruise still looks amazing at 55 and did most of his own stunts on this film as he does on his others. The interaction of the characters also delivers some surprising laughs. Jake Johnson is underutilized but pretty terrific as Chris Vail. The early scene where he and Cruise are running from the insurgents is punctuated with a soundtrack of Johnson’s yelling at Cruise about getting him into this mess. Cruise and Wallis have some nice scenes as Nick and Jenny verbally spar with one another over a night they spent together. There are small moments of humanity and humor that are sprinkled into the film and they occasionally manage to break through and provide some entertaining oases in what is otherwise a desert of burning sand.

“The Mummy” is rated PG-13 for violence, action and scary images, some suggestive content and partial nudity. There are various scenes where characters are shown being shot. Blood is minimal. Various fights break out where characters are thrown around a room. There is a plane crash scene that could prove very intense to someone afraid of flying. Ahmanet is shown sucking the life out of several characters and they fall to the ground as withered husks but come back to life as her zombie slaves on her command. Other dead bodies also come to life at her command, many of these skeletal. A couple is shown looking like they are about to make love. Ahmanet is shown nude but in shadow with very little identifiable except for her butt cleavage. Foul language is minimal.

“The Mummy” is supposed to be the kickoff of a franchise of monster movies; but so was the 2004 film “Van Helsing.” That movie was supposed to anchor a shared universe of films with spinoffs including video games, novels and theme parks. The tepid critical reception and less than impressive box office put a stake in the heart of those plans. Now, Universal Studios is trying again to make its stable of monsters a money machine. Early domestic projections put the opening weekend receipts for “The Mummy” at a disappointing $30-million. While the film has opened big in foreign markets it will have to do really impressive numbers overseas for the Dark Universe to have any life, otherwise it will be as dead as a decapitated vampire. While it may not be the greatest monster movie of all time, “The Mummy” isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Not a ringing endorsement and maybe they will figure out a way to salvage the franchise by the next film. Who knows?

“The Mummy” gets three stars out of five.

This week I’ll be reviewing “Rough Night” for WIMZ.com.

For this webpage I’ll be reviewing one of the following:

47 Meters Down—

All Eyez on Me—

Cars 3—

Follow me on Twitter @moviemanstan and send emails to stanthemovieman@comcast.net.