Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

I'm not going to lie, I was not interested in seeing Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse at all after seeing the trailer, it just didn't click with me. Then the movie hit theatres everywhere but my country, people were loving it and I decided I'd give it a chance. Too bad my city had screenings only on Christmas and Boxing Day, I was busy with family and stuff, and I missed it. 

This umpteenth movie about your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man follows Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), a teen from Brooklyn struggling with school and friends. One night he sneaks out of his dorm room to visit his uncle, Aron (Mahershala Ali), who brings him to paint graffiti in an abandoned subway station. Miles is bitten by a radioactive spider and Spider-Man. There's already a Spider-Man (voiced by Chris Pine) but he's killed by Kingpin (voiced by Liev Schreiber). Luckily, Kingpin's dimension-crossing super-collider brings in Spider-Man from other universes, and Miles must team up with them to stop Kingpin. 

After countless Spider-Man origin movies —okay, there's three of them, but I feel like there's two too much— Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse offers a fresh, compelling take on the Spider-Man origin story with a compelling, fun and engaging plot that takes some interesting and unexpected turns and doesn't waste time with useless subplots —i.e. romance.

That said, the best part about the film is the characters and the way they and their diversities are handled. Every version of Spider-Man, whether it's Miles or Spider-Woman or Spider-Man noir, is fun, likeable and interesting as they all have their own personality that makes each one of them stand out. Mixing the character from different universes is handled so well and the interaction between characters are fun and entertaining. The villain, on the other hand, has the typical Marvel issue, he lacks depth and characterization. All we learn about Kingpin is that he is an enormous evil man. We learn something, very little, about his family, and that's it. Kingpin is such a menacing man and deserves better than this.

The voice cast does a really good job the highlights being Shameik Moore who embodies very well the personality of Miles, Hailee Steinfeld who is simply delightful as Gwen/Spider-Woman, and Mahershala Ali who is perfect as Uncle Aron —and damn his voice is sexy.

Sony Pictures Releasing

 As for the animation, it's gorgeous —it feels like watching a comic book come to life, literally, and it's awesome. It's the styling animation every movie based on a comic book should have. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse also has plenty of humour; however, while it works wonderfully in the first part, as the story moves forward and become more serious, the humour doesn't work as well. Also, the emotional scenes didn't really work for me.

Hateship Loveship (2013)

Hateship Loveship is yet another of those movies that has been on my watchlist for such a long time I forgot everything about it, even the reason I was interested in seeing it —it was Guy Pierce, as it turned out.

Based on a short story from Nobel winning author Alice Munro, the film follows Johanna Parry (Kristen Wiig), a middle-aged repressed caregiver after she is hired by an elderly man, Mr. McCauley (Nick Nolte), who needs help in the house and to watch over his teenage granddaughter, Sabitha (Hailee Steinfeld), who lives there since her mother was killed in a car accident blamed on her irresponsible father, Ken (Guy Pearce), who lives in a motel in Chicago. During one of his visits, Ken meets Johanna and leaves her a friendly note. She writes a reply, Sabitha and her best friend Edith (Sami Gayle) pen fake love letter from Ken and Johanna is led to believe Ken has feelings for her.

Hateship Loveship’s is a very simple story about real people whose realism makes it difficult to watch at times. It’s a weird one too as it manages to be compelling and dull at the same time; it unfolds at a dramatically slow pace —which is why it feels dragged at times— and yet there are parts of the story that feel rushed, specifically the romance which I never really bought as it feels more like a wish-fulfilment kind of story rather than an actual love story. As for the subplots, they kind of ends abruptly.

The characters are a bit odd too as they are quite unlikeable and difficult to relate to but eventually, they become interesting enough for you to keep watching. Johanna is an awkward woman with no social skills whatsoever; she is the kind of person who finds happiness in helping others; she understands that she has very limited skills but she tries to be as helpful as she can be with the little she can do. She is a very vulnerable woman and yet she displays so little emotions and has a constant blank expression that make her appear like a robot. On top of that, Wiig’s performance isn’t the most compelling as she doesn’t really capture the nuances of the character but rather plays the character she always plays only with a straight, serious face.

IFC Entertainment

At least the supporting cast gives compelling performances. Guy Pearce gives such a sensible and believable performance as Ken, the struggling recovering addict, and manages to be incredibly charming and off-putting at the same time. Nick Nolte also gives a strong performance as Mr. McCauley, the wounded grandfather, and Hailee Steinfeld does well as the rebellious teenage girl.

Ultimately, I’m not sure how I feel about Hateship Loveship as I didn’t hate it, but didn’t love it either –I guess I’m on the neutralship. I did, however, like Liza Johnson’s approach to the characters’ emotions: teenage angst being the exception, they all are handles with softened, without making a big deal of everything, which is how a normal person would face the same situations in real life.