"Spider-Man: Across the Universe": Children make choices, Spider-Man wants them all

Wen | Zhiyong

After five years, the "Little Black Spider" version of "Spider-Man" is finally back.

The previous work "Parallel Universe" once relied on the reputation of a dark horse, and it broke out a bloody road at the box office and awards, and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film, which is still a legend. But such a high starting point also made the audience's expectations of the sequel "Across the Universe" soar, which made people sweat for the main creators.

Unexpectedly, the sequel's reputation exploded again, with a freshness of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, the media evaluation of MTC 86 points was the same as the previous work, and the audience score of IMDB 9.1 and Douban 8.8 was even higher than the previous work, which is extremely rare for a sequel movie. The evaluation of "the best Spider-Man movie" and even "the best superhero movie" flooded the Internet, and under the background of a number of Hollywood blockbusters with weak reputation recently, "Across the Universe" undoubtedly surprised the audience.

The surprise not only stems from the collage and integration of multiple painting styles in the film, which makes the concept of the multiverse to the ultimate visual impact, but also stems from the plot level, which delicately presents the common identity dilemma of each Spider-Man hovering between self-realization and family identity. But whether visually or in the plot, the ambitious "Across the Universe" is crammed, just like the "little black spider" in the film trying to "both want and want", and whether it is overdone in the end is probably debatable.

The animation is extremely complex and minimalist

The expansion of the art style of mainstream animated films was the most striking feature of "Parallel Universe" that year. The main world in the film adopts a dynamic comic-style style that restores the split-screen, onomatopoeic font special effects, text boxes and other elements in the American comics, and the black-and-white, daily comic, and cartoon styles brought out by other cosmic Spider-Man are also interspersed, making the film visually creative.

"Across the Universe", which introduces more Spider-Man and more different universes, naturally makes more new tricks in the style of painting. The villain Vulture who runs the wrong universe in the opening battle, with the style of the Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci manuscript, and the contemporary art of the Spider-Man Gwen universe, starting a collision between classical and modern. In the home universe of Spider-Man in India, the film chooses the style of ancient Indian hand-drawn comics, using mandala ornaments and flowing lines to make a local flavor.

The blackened villain "Spot" declares war on Spider-Man in a black-and-white line-style horror comic book style. The punk Spider-Man who descended from the sky was born out of the British punk rock trend. The character modeling of this person's poster paper cutting collage style, and the character tone that can be switched at any time, are extremely rare in mainstream animation, more like the experiment and rebellion that independent animation dares to try, and this is consistent with the punk Spider-Man's backbone personality.

The drawing style of each character is highly compatible with their personal characteristics, which makes the various styles of the film become an intuitive visualization of the content temperament, and the idea of "form is content" is implemented to the extreme, which is the natural advantage of animation over live-action movies.

The mix and match of characters with different styles in the same frame allows the film to directly show the collision between the multiverses as a collage of various animation aesthetics, mixing a dazzling maximalist style. This style is particularly eye-catching in the melee of hundreds of Spider-Men with different styles, materials and shapes at the end of the film, and the various Spider-Men who take turns show the charm brought by the infinite possibilities of the multiverse to the fullest, and this charm comes from the film's development of the infinite possibilities of animation style, which makes "Across the Universe" enough to leave a name in all universes.

In addition to the extremely complex collage, the film does not forget to play the power of minimalism. In addition to a few hilarious action scenes, the most impressive clip of the film is the two scenes in which the female Spider-Man Gwen confronts her father.

In Gwen's watercolor universe, everything external changes according to her mood, and is blurred and wrapped in the corresponding solid color. Gwen's apprehension, loss, and anger when facing her father are revealed in the changing colors of red, yellow, blue and black in the scene. The minimalist large color blocks that cover the screen convey the subtle changes in Gwen's mood like synaesthesia, so that these two uncomplicated literary dramas are amplified into the most moving moments of the whole film's emotions.

The various ideologies of animation in terms of style, material, and color have all reached their peak in the extreme complexity and minimalism of "Universe". "Little Black Spider", which returned after five years, is still the latest cutting-edge vein in mainstream animation, but under the breakthrough of bold and arbitrary form, the emotional core of the film is still delicate and universal.

Spider-Man's identity crisis

"Little Black Spider" Miles, the protagonist of "Parallel Universe" and "Across the Universe", is already the fourth Spider-Man to appear on the screen. In all Spider-Man movies that add up to 10, youth growth is an inevitable crisis for Spider-Man.

Compared with other superheroes in the Marvel Universe who are either noble in blood or special, Spider-Man is just an ordinary student who was accidentally bitten by a mutant spider. This identity makes his dilemma easily resonate with ordinary people: Spider-Man has to live his daily life well, but also take time to maintain justice, both hoping to be cared for by his family and loved ones, and hiding his identity to avoid danger to them.

This "both want and want" growth dilemma is like the common dilemma of ordinary people struggling between dreams and reality, between self-realization and family identity, and Spider-Man has become one of the most popular superheroes and easiest to be replaced by the audience. In "Across the Universe", "Little Black Spider" Miles and female Spider-Man Gwen are also facing the typical growth dilemma of this Spider-Man.

But compared with the previous three Spider-Man series, "Across the Universe" cares more about Spider-Man's special identity, the identity crisis brought by Miles and Gwen, and even more Spider-Man in other universes.

Exposing the dangers that Spider-Man's identity may bring to the family is not the point in this film, the two are more worried that after confessing Spider-Man's identity to their families, they will be rejected by their families, especially Gwen's police father is committed to hunting Spider-Man, making her even more unspeakable. In the previous game "Parallel Universe", another Spider-Man Peter was also dragged down by his secret identity and lived his life in a mess.

Each Spider-Man is in a different individual dilemma, trapped in the same identity dilemma: they are each the only one in their own universe, but they are also extremely lonely, eager to be understood by their families, but unable to bear the possible cost of speaking out.

Superimposed on the different genders, races, ages, and various individual experiences of each Spider-Man in the multiverse, Spider-Man's secret identity carries a broader social metaphor in "Parallel Universe" and "Vertical Universe": it is a multicultural that is difficult to recognize, an ideal that does not know whether it can reach the other side, the hesitation of a wanderer before leaving home, and the collapse that adults cannot bear to face.

Spider-Man's identity crisis has been generalized in the "Little Black Spider" series as an intractable crisis between self-worth and group identity that anyone can encounter anywhere. This extremely universal and very specific and perceptible crisis is particularly moving in the delicate drama of several Spider-Men almost coming out to confess their hearts to their families, and the film's outstanding emotional animation synaesthesia.

Unfortunately, as a transitional chapter of a trilogy, "Across the Universe" cannot stop at this intimate experience with a small incision, and the film begins to get a little out of control on the way to a larger story.

Both want and want, too difficult to achieve

As the story develops, Gwen and Miles, who pursue group identity, have successively arrived at the "Spider Alliance" that gathers Spider-Men in various universes. The two who thought that they could find the same kind here and were no longer lonely were eventually kicked out of the group by the alliance boss who believed that "sacrificing important people around him is Spider-Man's destiny". The two Spider-Men who firmly believe that "my life depends on me" begin to challenge their fate, both to save their loved ones and to save the world.

By elevating the story routines that Spider-Man has experienced from the sacrifice of their loved ones to their cruel destiny that is difficult to violate, "Across the Universe" tries to set the real villain of the story as the "story" itself. This meta-narrative unfolding is indeed an interesting reflection and renovation of the genre template.

But summarizing the story of Spider-Man, a civilian hero, into a narrative model similar to contemporary mythology is probably not entirely appropriate. It failed to continue the universal emotional power accumulated before, but pointed the finger at a grander and more typed "fate", which somewhat lost the basis of empathy.

In fact, when the story came to the Spider Alliance, "Across the Universe" almost went to a kind of thematic abruptness, the villain spots in the first two acts lost their scenes, and the identity crisis gave way to a rebellion against fate. This makes the film seem to have both a small cut and a big pattern, but the bridge between the two is obviously not handled smoothly.

This kind of "both want and want" thinking actually runs through the whole film. The essence of the extreme multiplication animation style is a kind of double main plot that both wants and wants, the two protagonists are told alternately, and each major play is done for a long time and full of emotions, which also makes the rhythm of the film not condensed enough to a certain extent. But given the film's innovative visual style and indeed not a small story volume, the pace of the first two acts is still within an acceptable range.

However, since "Across the Universe" and the next "Beyond the Universe" in the series are actually the first and next episodes of the same story, "Across the Universe" is destined to be unable to finish the story of the film, and even lose a sentence "unfinished to be continued" at the end.

This caused two big problems, on the one hand, after entering the Spider Alliance, the film completely exposed the essence of forcibly splitting a three-act drama into two films, resulting in the Spider Alliance part of the world view that had just begun to be arranged as the final chapter of the first half, which made the rhythm of the film difficult to cover. On the other hand, after the Spider Alliance War, the film actually has 20 minutes of drama to pave the way for the next one, and this paragraph can indeed only be described as a "super long trailer", although it returns to small cuts, it still seems protracted in excessive suspense.

Just like the "little black spider" in the film, "Across the Universe" also tries to assume the responsibility of the transitional chapter of the trilogy in "both want and want". But the extreme is only one step away from the overfire, and the suddenly turned plot and the abrupt landing point obviously bring the film closer to the direction of the overfire. The balance between small cuts and large patterns, and the laying out of narrative rhythm, I am afraid that it will become the biggest problem faced by the final chapter of the series "Beyond the Universe", which has only half a story to tell. Fortunately, in any case, this is still the most innovative series in the mainstream animation field at present, and whether it can create another surprise will be known next year.