After the smash success of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the character of Miles Morales returns for a second dazzling adventure in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

Now that Miles officially is the Spider-Man of his world, for over a year he has been fighting crime and stopping villains while also managing his life as Miles Morales. But little does he know that his adventures with alternate versions of Spider-Man are far from over. 

Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) a.k.a Spider-Woman, is also navigating her own heroic world. She has been affected by how much she misses Miles and also struggles to maintain her relationship with her father, Police Captain George Stacy (Shea Whigham), who is hunting down Spider-Woman, believing her to be a criminal. She leaves a frustrating family argument to go stop an attack by The Vulture.

As it turns out, while it is indeed The Vulture that’s causing the disturbance, it isn’t The Vulture from her universe. This one came through a portal created by the activation and destruction of the Super Collider used by Kingpin in the previous film. 

She isn’t alone to fight him however, after Spider-Woman (Issa Rae) a.k.a Jessica Drew and Spider-Man 2099 a.k.a Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac) both arrive, telling Gwen that they are hunting down people that have entered the wrong universe. After they stop The Vulture and Gwen has an emotional confrontation with her father, she leaves to join them to help set the Spider-Verse right. 

The movie then shifts to Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) a.k.a Spider-Man, who has been feeling lonely, missing Gwen and other Spider-People. Running late for a meeting with his parents and teacher about early college plans, he he encounters The Spot (Jason Schwartzman), a strange villain with the ability to create holes in space to travel through.

After a brief fight, Miles believes he’s beaten him so he goes to meet up with his parents, Jeff Morales (Brian Tyree Henry) and Rio Morales (Luna Lauren Vélez). Miles’ parents are told that his attendance is slipping, and as they don’t know it’s for a good reason (being Spider-Man) they are upset with him. 

Later Miles is supposed to bring a cake to a party for his dad, but he runs into The Spot again, stirring up another fight and yet again causing him to be late. His parents try in vain to ground him, but when Gwen Stacy shows up through a portal, he chooses to unground himself and swing around with her.

After they bond for a bit, with Gwen giving him vague details about what she does with the other Spider-People now, Miles returns home, where he is torn over whether or not he should tell his parents who he is. But before he can, his mom tells him he can go do what he needs to, even if she doesn’t know what it is. 

Miles locates Gwen to try to join her and the rest of the Spider-People, but he finds her tracking The Spot without his knowledge. He also sees that the people she’s working with aren’t all nice and heroic, leading Miles to follow her to another world as she chases The Spot.

Over the course of his second universe-jumping journey, Spider-Man meets many more Spider-People, including Spider-Punk a.k.a Hobart “Hodie” Brown (Daniel Kaluuya), the Scarlet Spider a.k.a Ben Reilly (Andy Samberg), Spider-Man India a.k.a Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni). and he even reunites with Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) and Mayday, his daughter with Mary Jane Watson. Miles quickly learns that this group isn’t what it seems, and feels conflicted with how Miguel runs his operation. Miles now is out to show everyone, even other Spider-People, that he’s his own Spider-Man. 

Across the Spider-Verse once again comes in swinging with its signature art style, amazing animation and a great soundtrack to bring all the action and the many characters to life. It’s an incredible visual experience with some wonderfully stylized scenes that enhance a film that’s full of fun action along with interesting story and character work.

There are also plenty of small cameos for fans to enjoy from other Spider-Man shows, movies, games and comics. All of this leads into an enticing cliffhanger that anticipates a second part, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, scheduled to open on March 29th 2024.

You can see Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse in theaters now.