SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE

This one earns its four stars. The writing is clever and funny, the story's energy never sags, and the animation and voice work are genuinely excellent — a few blurry, frenetic moments pass quickly and don't dent the overall craft. It's the rare superhero movie that's also a family movie: clean, relatable teenage problems, a father and mother who play strong, heartwarming roles, and humor without the usual crude edge.

It's also, unexpectedly, a movie of faith. The dialogue keeps returning to the idea of a "leap of faith" — not a blind one, but a faith grounded in knowledge. Sacrifice, forgiveness, second chances, and family love drive the plot to its end.

The one real caution: the action gets intense, especially in the climactic fight, and some major characters die on screen. Younger children may need you nearby. Everyone else should go.

Miles Morales just wants his old school and his old life back — instead he gets bitten by a radioactive spider and wakes up with powers he can't control. When he stumbles onto Peter Parker fighting the crime boss Kingpin over a machine that could tear reality apart, Peter hands him a key and a promise to keep — then Miles is on his own, hunted by Kingpin's men, and about to meet more than one version of Spider-Man he never expected.

Four stars means this is exceptional, and the source material backs it up. The writing is sharp and self-aware, playing with the goofiness of comic-book origin stories while never losing its own forward momentum. The film finds real wit in the "multiverse" premise without leaning on the more dubious philosophy behind that idea. Animation and voice performances are high-caliber throughout, and while a handful of fast, blurry sequences flicker by, the overall craftsmanship — camerawork included — is genuinely impressive. This is confident, inventive filmmaking that earns its acclaim.

This is a Christian, morally uplifting film wearing spandex. Faith here isn't blind — it's a leap taken with knowledge and open eyes, and the movie says so more than once. Forgiveness, sacrifice, doing the right thing, and getting a second chance to redeem yourself all drive the plot, and family — a father and son who don't always see eye to eye but whose love holds — sits at the emotional center. A pivotal sequence unfolds near a real church and its cemetery, and the camera lingers, without embarrassment, on the steeple and the crosses. In a genre that often scrubs faith from its landscapes, that choice stands out.

The film does gesture at the "multiverse," a humanist and scientifically unproven idea, but it doesn't lean on that concept in any contentious way — it's mostly used as a springboard for character and comedy, not philosophy.

Underneath the web-slinging is an old, true longing: to be forgiven for failing someone, and given another chance to be who you were meant to be. Scripture answers that longing better than any machine ever could — "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).

This is a movie you can hand to your family with real confidence — funny, beautifully made, and unafraid of faith, sacrifice, and love as its true subjects. Just know the climactic fight is intense, so keep the youngest ones close. Our verdict stands: worth the trip — older children and up.