SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE

Name: SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE
Item: SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE
Author: Gaby Gaduh

"Saving a Life Is Always the Right Thing to Do"

Content: -1 Caution advised for older children, including teenagers, and sensitive adults.

Entertainment Quality:

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Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

In SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE, Miles Morales encounters a new supervillain calling himself “The Spot.” The Spot is able to throw a large black spot onto a bank vault and steal money or escape through one of the spots he casts. When The Spot amasses enough power to threaten the multiverse, Miles teams up with a society of Spider-Men or Spider-People to stop The Spot. Eventually, however, Miles faces a moral dilemma that affects the people he loves the most.

SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE is a creative, exciting, funny animated superhero movie. It has several unexpected twists that add to the viewer’s enjoyment. Happily, ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE also has a strong pro-family theme. For example, there are heartfelt scenes of love and reconciliation between Miles and his parents and between a Spider-Woman character and her father. Also, a Spider-Man from another universe and his wife have a new baby. Finally, an early image shows a family holding hands and praying together. That said, SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE has lots of PG action violence and brief foul language. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older children.

Content:

(BBB, C, H, Ho, L, VV, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Very strong moral, pro-family worldview that also stresses do the right thing when the main hero faces a moral dilemma, and where the main plot involves an interesting and provocative subtext about the nature of stories, plus there’s some faith-oriented, redemptive content such as an image of a family holding hands and praying together before a meal, and there’s brief talk about sacrifice, but the movie’s concept of a multiverse originates from humanist, atheist attempts to get around the scientific and theological truth that the universe had a beginning and, therefore, must have been created by an Intelligent God (though even a multiverse still has to account for its origin and its cause), plus there's a quick pro-LGBT image of a poster saying, "Protect Trans Kids," but it's very quick and many viewers may not see it

Foul Language:

Eight obscenities (including two “s” words, three “h” words, one “d” word, and two a** words), and one borderline light profanity where someone says, “Dear God, no”)

Violence:

Some light and strong action violence (more mild than other superhero movies, especially ones rated PG-13), such as chase scenes (such as villain can jump in and out of places through holes in spaces and eventually in and out of different dimensions and universes, some fighting, villain brings down a building, but heroes clear away innocent bystanders, and the main hero saves a man and a child from being crushed, some punching, villain causes destruction in his wake, heroine’s friend dies, and she’s blamed, her father holds a gun on her in another incident, but she reveals her identity under her superhero costume, and he still wants to arrest her, and superhero characters fall and swing through the air, which causes them to sometimes hit other objects, including buildings

Sex:

No sex, but teenagers almost kiss in one scene, and boy starts to touch girl’s hand

Nudity:

No nudity

Alcohol Use:

No alcohol use

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

People keep secrets from the main hero, hero has a "Black Lives Matter" pin on his backpack but this probably just refers to the pro-life sentiment of the words and not to the corrupt communist group BLM, and a teenage boy and older teenage girl keep their superhero identities secret from their parents, which causes some misunderstandings, tension and conflict, but that are resolved later as the story develops, plus one of the many Spider-Man incarnations is also a vampire, but the movie doesn’t give any details on how that works.

More Detail:

In SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE, Miles Morales runs into a society of Spider-Men or Spider-People protecting the multiverse from threats, but when they clash on how to handle a new supervillain, Miles faces a moral dilemma that affects the people he loves the most. SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE is a creative, exciting, funny animated superhero movie with a strong, heartfelt pro-family worldview that also promotes doing the right thing, but the movie has lots of animated action violence and some brief foul language, so caution is advised for older children.

The movie opens with Miles being late for a college counseling meeting at school with his parents and the school counselor. That’s because Miles is chasing a new supervillain calling himself The Spot. The supervillain is wearing a white costume with spots on it, and he’s having difficulty robbing a convenience story ATM. The villain’s superpowers enable him to create a hole into the machine and grab its money. However, he’s having difficulty actually grabbing the money. For example, when he reaches into one hole, his hand goes through the machine and grabs a can of food on the shelf. Also, when Miles, clad in his Super-Man suit, confronts The Spot, slices of bread fall through one of The Spot’s holes in his “costume” around his tummy.

Miles ends up chasing The Spot all over town. Eventually, The Spot disappears, and Miles finally makes it to the counseling session. However, his parents are perturbed that he’s late, and it doesn’t help things when Miles suddenly has to leave when he spies The Spot on the roof of a nearby rooftop through the window.

Meanwhile, in another universe, Gwen Stacy, working as Spider-Woman, suffers heartache when her boyfriend, Peter Parker, dies during a battle with a supervillain. Her father, a police officer, thinks Spider-Woman is to blame for Peter’s death. Then, when he father corners Spider-Woman during another incident, Gwen reveals to him that she is Spider-Woman. Sadly, he still wants to arrest her. So, Gwen decides to leave her universe and join a society of Spider-Men or Spider-People who protect the multiverse from threats facing it.

Gwen decides to see Miles against the wishes of the society. Miles wants to join the other superheroes, but the others in charge don’t want him to do that. However, when The Spot starts manipulating the multiverse to gain more power, Miles ends up visiting the society’s headquarters. Eventually, Miles faces a moral dilemma that affects the people he loves the most.

SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE is a creative, exciting, funny animated superhero movie. The movie has several unexpected twists that add to the viewer’s enjoyment. Also, the movie has an interesting subtext about the nature of storytelling, including the nature of Spider-Man’s story that makes his story unique. This subtext adds a level of depth to the movie that’s fun to ponder. However, the incidental dialogue and story development in ACROSS THE UNIVERSE sometimes goes by rather fast. So, it’s hard to catch everything the first time out. That said, this kind of filmmaking promotes multiple viewings, so people who see this movie and like it probably will want to see it again. The movie also has some inside jokes. Some viewers will get the jokes, but other viewers may not.

SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE has a strong pro-family theme between Miles and his parents, and between Gwen and her father. There are heartfelt scenes between the parents and the children as they try to resolve the conflicts between each other. Also, during the movie, Miles becomes reacquainted with one of the Peter Parker characters he encountered in the first animated Miles Morales SPIDER-MAN movie, subtitled INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE. Peter has gotten over his depression and despair from the first movie and now has a baby with his wife. It becomes clear that the baby has given Peter a new lease on life, and there’s a sweet scene between Peter, his wife and the baby. The Spider-Man incarnations are trying to stop a selfish supervillain who’s out for revenge against Miles and his family and threatens the whole multiverse and everyone in the multiverse (or Spider-Verse as Miles calls it). The movie’s other positive message is do the right thing above all. For example, during the story, Miles is faced with a major moral dilemma. Both sides of the dilemma seem bad. However, Miles resolves to do the right thing and overcome whatever unforeseen bad consequences may result. In effect, Miles decides that saving a life is always the right thing to do.

ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE has lots of action violence, but the movie is rated PG, and the violence is more mild than other superhero movies, the majority of which are rated PG-13. The movie also has eight obscenities, including two “s” words. The one other issue with the movie is that Miles is 15. So, he’s still under the authority of his parents (though, as the Bible teaches, children are always under parental authority, no matter their age). Thus, Miles keeps his Spider-Man persona a secret from them, because he knows his parents wouldn’t want him risking his life as a superhero until he’s an adult. Being a superhero is like being a policeman. If being a policeman is your calling from God, then you should pursue it, but not until you’re 18 or 21.

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