Nov 28, 2018

"Spider-Man: Spider-Man's Poem" launches 100% fresh with rotten tomatoes

The first batch of reviews are in for Sony Picture Animation's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and they're not just good - they're great!

After 33 reviews, the film boasts a 100% positive rating on the review aggregation platform Rotten Tomatoes, and while the film clearly won't stay at 100% after all its reviews are published, it's a reassuring start for a film that doesn't follow the American feature animation template.

For all its familiar elements - a big-budget animation production and an iconic superhero brand - the film is still something of an anomaly in the marketplace because it aims for a non-standard animation audience – kids will probably enjoy it, but it's not a kids-first movie, instead targeting a more pop culture-savvy and slightly older teen crowd. This shouldn't feel so revolutionary in 2018, but in our creatively underdeveloped animation marketplace, there's literally nothing else that feels (or looks) like this film.

Spider-Verse has proven so confounding to Hollywood that it's box office potential is not being tracked as either a typical big-budget animated film or a live-action superhero film, a fact that we've pointed out a few times on Twitter.

The previous six live-action Spider-Man films launched with opening weekends ranging from $62-151 million, yet until last week, Spider-Verse was being tracked to launch in the low-$20 million range. Those numbers have edged slightly upward over the past week into the upper-twenty to mid-thirty-million range, but Hollywood has as yet been reluctant to acknowledge that this film could appeal to a broad superhero-loving audience.

It's weird to be talking about Spider-Man as an underdog, but until now that's been the status of the film in broader Hollywood. The new batch of reviews, not to mention the growing fan buzz, should give the movie a boost, reaffirming that it's a legitimate film with real potential to connect with audiences. Below are a few highlights from reviewers.

Brian Truitt in USA Today:

David Ehrlich in Indiewire:

Justin Chang in the Los Angeles Times:

Peter Debruge in Variety:

It's not a perfect movie by any means, and reviewers have repeatedly pointed out similar flaws, even if their overall impression of the film was positive. Todd McCarthy in The Hollywood Reporter reflects a typical line of criticism about the film:

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse will be released in the U.S. on December 14, 2018. Bob Persichetti (head of story, The Little Prince, Puss in Boots), Peter Ramsey (director, Rise of the Guardians), and Rodney Rothman (head writer, Late Show with David Letterman) direct the film from a script by Rothman and Phil Lord (The Lego Movie, 21 Jump Street).

Film is produced by Avi Arad, Amy Pascal, Phil Lord, Chris Miller, and Christina Steinberg. Sony Pictures Imageworks is the animation studio.